In what ways has approaches to learning to use technology changed in the past 5 years? What are the ways it remains the same?In what ways has approaches to learning to use technology changed in the past 5 years? What are the ways it remains the same?

In what ways has approaches to learning to use technology changed in the past 5 years?  What are the ways it remains the same?

Approaches to learning in general has changed drastically in the last five years.  Wide acceptance of the internet and digital books has changed the landscape of education.  Computers are now more mobile than ever with laptops, tablets, e-readers, and cell phones.   It used to be that if you wanted to learn how to do something you needed to go to Borders and find the book that told you all about it.  Recently Borders has filed bankruptcy and has gone out of business.  They failed to adapt to the change in how people take in information.  

Physical book sales are down and e-book sales are up.  Book sales overall are down though.  This tells me that people are increasingly using blogs, web pages, videos and other community-driven medias for learning  rather than purchasing a book.  The speed in which technology changes is too fast for current publishing techniques.  Once a piece of technology is created or significantly someone decides that people would buy a book on that topic.  The book then needs to be written, reviewed, published... etc.  By the time this whole process is complete there are already hundreds of posts on the internet addressing the same topic.  The information in the book is dated and will not be updated again until the technology has changed enough to support a new revision of the book.   The idea of books just doesn't work well for technologies that change daily.  


Sites like youtube.com have become a gold mine of information for technology professionals looking for cutting edge information and I think this trend will only increase.  We will see more sites like like this as businesses figure out how to make money by offering free or low cost articles and videos as opposed to whole books.