Stephen Downes

A rosy look at e-learning in Canada focusing on two firms specializing in corporate e-learning environments, Ottawa-based Global Knowledge Canada (actually a dividion of a larger U.S. company, but ten Gobe and Mail doesn't mention that) and Kelowna, B.C.-based WebTrain. The aftermath of September 11 and the downturn in the economy are credited with having a positive impact on the industry. It sounds really good, but I'm not sure that it's the long term image people in the e-learning industry want to be associated with (so stop pushing the downturn-disaster message). (As an aside, this article is essentially an update from a November, 2002 press release issued by Global Knowledge, and was probably stimulated by the two press releases issued by Global Knowledge in the last couple of days - newspaper writers should really do a Google search before authoring these items (or they should at least assume their readers will)).