IVLE is big in the local blogosphere today for the wrong reasons. Apparently, Anderson Junior College declared two days of e-learning from home to simulate an emergency situation. IVLE was to be the conduit through which lessons are conducted. However, things did not go according to plan. Carl Lim comments:

If this is to prepare us for times of emergency, IVLE has apparently displayed how ineffective and slow it can get. And now the website loads slower than a dial-up because the whole network is so clogged up. And seriously, the e-learning is entirely not interactive because the lessons are just plain stale and they spoil our eyesight because we have to stare right into the computer for hours.

Realistically, in an emergency such as pandemic flu in Singapore, the local Internet will be clogged as people attempt to work or study from home. (Whether we should even be trying to continue life as normal in a quarantine situation is another story altogether.) Carl's lamentations bring two issues to light.

The first is the vulnerability of relying on a single system for delivery of content. Learning Management Systems (LMS) are quite pervasive in Singapore schools. There are advantages of having a central place for all learning material. Still, that can be a problem when everyone is trying to access it at the same time. No doubt this overload could affect any centralised system, not just IVLE.

In any case, the servers hosting the LMS and the network supporting it both have to be robust and high-capacity. While our University's IVLE is on an enterprise platform complete with disaster recovery, it may still fail. Should we be teaching the University community how to use generic tools, particularly the interactive Web 2.0 ones, so that there is some form of redundancy?

The second (and more important issue) is: what exactly do we consider e-learning? Is it merely content delivery? Is it just PowerPoint slides uploaded somewhere? Or a webcast with PowerPoint slides? E-learning from home, as Carl points out, has to be highly engaging. This requires forward planning and thinking about pedagogy. Are our teachers at all levels ready for this? Even if the hardware holds up, what are students getting out of online learning?

I don't have the answers. Do chime in with your thoughts on this.

P.S. Students, like life, will find a way. An innovative student councillor uploaded some of the e-learning material she managed to get her hands on at her googlepages site.

P.P.S. The person who left an explanation on AJC's IVLE homepage needs to take English lessons and go on a customer service course. He or she was not apologetic, defensive and condescending. Students did not take to the message too kindly.

Dear JC 2 Students,

On the 9 April 2007, The network traffic volume is extremely high from morning until the evening.

This causes the downloading of the materials to be slow, as many students are access the portal. Checked the servers. The servers are able to handle the loads.

The network is like a 3-lanes road...at off-peak hours with little volume of cars travelling on it, you get to your destination fast. At peak-hours with high volume of cars travel on it. what you do get?

Solv':

Try access the portal at other hours. Thank you for your co-operations.

Perhaps some crisis management is in order?

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