Online learning fails when we use new technology to do old things – page turning, for example, works wonderfully in books, miserably online. In a similar manner, we will find that e-government fails when we use new technology to do old things – online voting and online town halls, for example, are good ideas that may turn out very badly. The key to success in both e-learning and e-government hinges on the idea of participation. This involves changing learners from passive consumers of learning to active producers of learning. And in e-government, this involves changing citizens from passive consumers of governance to active producers of governance.
Lecture, Oct 28, 2002.