Some Historical Thoughts on the ee-Learning Renaissance

The core concept of ee-learning is that the real world becomes the learning environment; in this environment, the purpose of the instructor is to help the distant and/or time-shifted student assimilate and evaluate his or her real world experiences, share them with others, and relate them to the disciplines of the academy. ee-Learning is similar to e-learning in that they both involve technological substitutes for collocation of student and instructor. They differ in focus: e-learning substitutes for the traditional, campus-oriented learning process; the focus of ee-learning is the student's non-campus environment. One of the dilemmas in structuring e-learning or ee-learning environments lies in deciding how closely they should resemble the traditional undergraduate on-campus experience. This predicament is particularly relevant when the learners are not traditional undergraduate students, as is likely to be the case in the future. In order to provide some perspective on the transition issues, I would like to review some relatively ancient history and relate it to criteria for successful ee-learning today. What lessons from the past can help shape the future?