E-learning is the future and will be gigantic, IMO. We are just barely seeing the potential.

The business model is everything. How to develop a reputation as authoritative and to monetize the content. You can't afford to give too much away, but you have to establish a reputation that has people nearly sold before they even click to your site.

It's already here, in today's crude form. The technology exists that I don't need to leave the house to learn anything; except for experiential field-trips, which are essential because one must avoid living in a bubble and get into the real world.

Do students 'need' to go to an actual school? Mostly, no. That is now a political issue, a question of societal mores.

The key to your question is where the profit will come from. People still want a free ride - and as developers, we often do way too much to give them exactly that, and it is bad business.

ask lynda or her "colleagues" if the e-learning market is worthwhile..

maybe you missed this ? [webmasterworld.com]

I think e-learning is already big. I've been working in an e-learning/distance learning environment for years, and it has come a long way.

When you look at structured e-learning (i.e. distance learning through colleges and universities, real-time conferences, etc.) I think the concept will continue to grow as technology continues to prosper.

Self-paced learning and self-sustained training have always been beneficial. Some people fail miserably when attempting to teach themselves something, but others excel at it.

It used to be called "Distance Learning" and it has been big for many decades.

I think I'm right in saying that Charles Atlas began what was essentially a distance learning course in body building about 80 years ago. I doubt he was the first.

In the UK, the Open University has been running since the 1960s - that's serious distance learning.

Clearly, e-learning (who chose that awful name) has the potential to be successful but there will be many failures too.

Kaled.

As said, it already is. How many of you have learned at least some of "what you know" via free or fee online services? <raises hand>

My first e-learning experience was beta testing for an online technology "school" in programming, html, css, and other areas (now sold or defunct, or consumed by a Bigger Fish.) It was my first wake up call to the power of the Internet (beyond chats and other garbage . . . )

That was 1995.

I think the real puzzle is going to lie in validating credentials of the service, part of which should be methods of preventing users from just Googling up answers in quizzes and tests. I've taken a few "online tests" and a lot of them seem to be a "trivia chase" in the topics, that is, the test content is obscure and has no real bearing on your working skills in the topic.

I've considered a few online courses just to keep my skills up but I shy away from the join button on the above points. If I take an online course, I would like some valid certification that it's worth my hard earned greenbacks.

You might check out what's called Instructional Design. It's web-based training, and can mean making the online courses for colleges, or the computer-based training used by companies and the government. It's a huge field and growing like mad - companies require tons of it for their employees to learn anything from how to install air conditioning to sensitivity training. The government uses it to teach pothole repair and explain how to fill out forms. Colleges are getting into the act big time.

To become an instructional designer, I believe you need a college degree followed by a 2-year course. A lot of people do this work from home. Right now, it's a female-dominated profession.

I've been working in elearning for about a decade. It WAS big thing, with the peak of hype around 2003.
Its development is surprisingly similar to SEO in terms of timing, people entering and discovering the market, and the big players.
Most instructional design has evolved a lot since, now mostly focused on blended learning which includes virtual classrooms, chat, wikis and other web 2.0 tools, as well as f2f and paper.
If you're serious about getting involved I'd recommend reading up at the Internettime group and the Masie Center, which are industry thought leaders, and a browse through the ASTD and CIPD websites.
Warning - you soon get hooked on learning

In our business (computer training) we have seen a lot of e-learning companies come and go. Most students don't have the self discipline or the necessary learning styles to benefit from e-learning.

What we are seeing explode is remote-learning - where the student can attend remotely an instructor-led class, participating in the discussions and performing the labs.

I reckon learning over the internet can be useful, but it's no alternative to getting out and meeting people.

But as a quick 'look up how to do something' it's brilliant.

For something more substantial, especially something that requires learning of skills, things work much better with one to one training.

A community (a forum maybe) can go some way towards answering questions. But that can make it a slow and frustrating way to learn.

Also sites like the one Legohost mentioned can rewrite the content you have struggled to get right over several days in a matter of minutes. And they'll beat you to the top. So it's no search engine strategy.

Despite that I still try to describe how to do things on the internet. I'm a month in to a new project just now, and I have no doubt that it won't repay my time. But money isn't the reason I'm doing it. Links would be handy, but it's a very obscure topic so those are unlikely.

As a strategy for earning money my approach would suck. But that doesn't mean it's not worthwhile.