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Early next year we will publish a full report on the inputs and outcomes of the EUN Round Table: 'Imagining the Future of Schooling'. We have already drafted a preliminary report which you can read below. I you wish some amendments to be made to this report, do not hesitate to contact Paul.Gerhard@eun.org.
Download the preliminary report
In this interview, Merab Labadze from the Deer Leap Foundation (Georgia) talks about the challenges currently facing Georgia and what has achieved until now in rolling out ICT in education. Click play on the player below to listen. This entry will also be added to the Round Table podcast channel.
The following six documents are the preliminary outcomes of work on the Future of Education carried out in European Schoolnet's Policy and Innovation Committee on the basis of 58 contributions about the future of education received from 22 countries.
Three approaches to the Future of Education
A possibly way of understanding how we look at the future on the basis of the contributions received.
Alan McCluskey
Quotes from visions of the future
.. from all the visions about the future of education
Bert Jaap van Oel
Changing Society and Culture
A structured summary of the main themes from the visions in the 58 contributions about the future of education.
Bert Jaap van Oel
A cloud of visions
A cloud representation of the main themes in the visions of the future of education
Bert Jaap van Oel
A catalogue of projects for the future of education
Outlines of projects drawn from the 58 contributions received in response to European Schoolnet's Policy and Innovation Committee (PIC) call for visions of the future of education.
Alan McCluskey
In search of lost values
... about the place and role of values, beliefs and theories in the visions of the future of education and the related projects
Alan McCluskey
Here is the transcript of what was said on the Round Table chat (http://roundtable.eun.org/chat/):
Download file
It is unedited and should be viewed as an experiment in mixing face to face and online interactions.
In this interview, Doug Brown from the UK's Department for Education and Skills (DfES) mentions the challenges ahead in the UK as the country has given a significant boost for the development of educational ICT in the past 10 years. Doug also gives an insight into how important European collaboration in schooling is; the interview concludes on what Doug will bring back home after an inspiring conference which raised a 'number of challenges'. Click play on the player below to listen. This entry will also be added to the Round Table podcast channel.
Round Table Chairs:
Conor Galvin - Policy
Download file
Ferry de Rijcke - Content and school development
Jim Ayre - Digital Learning Resources
Download file
Erik Duval - Technology enablers
Reflections and responses:
Kevin Johnson (Cisco))
Download file
Doug Brown (DfES, UK)
Daniel Weiler (MoE LU)
Download file
Richard Galvin (European School)
Video (streaming video, follow the links video ... pupil/parent/e-learning) made by the students in the school's digital video class, as shown at the Round Table. Direct link to the video 'theatre' and the E-learning@ESMOL video.
Closing remarks:
Marc Durando
Download file
Odile de Chalendar
Download file - some stunning photos too!
For an extended descriptions of keypoints given by speakers at the concluding session, read the 'extended entry' below
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In this interview, just before Jongwon Seo had to return to Korea, he tells us a little bit more about interesting experiences that happened in South Korea and how the two day meeting has been inspiring to him . Click play on the player below to listen. This entry will also be added to the Round Table podcast channel.
The Round Tables have now taken place and we here in the audience are listening to the comments and notes that the Chairs took out from the sessions and from notes that people in the audience participating in round tables gave. Those will be posted here shortly.
But, more interesting for all of us would be to get your comments on the round table panelists and the discussions that you have had at the round tables, during brakes, at the dinner, etc.
Don't hesitate to post your ideas here on the comment sections below each blog postings. Moreover, if you are blogging on your own blog, use the tracback-function and also tag it as "eunroundtable2006" (see below how it's done), or make that one of the categories of your blog, so that it is automatically done. This little tag does wonders, which you can see by visiting http://www.technorati.com/tag/eunroundtable2006
.
Take time to read the posts, reflect upon them and come back to post your comments, ideas and feedback on them.
Also, if you have pictures from the event and you have a Flickr account, use the same tag and we'll be able to get all the pictures up at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/eunroundtable2006/
Here is the piece of code to put the tag in your posting, just paste the html into your posting.
< a href="http://technorati.com/tag/eunroundtable2006" rel="tag">eunroundtable2006. NOTE: Add here the closing tag for "/a", it does not display well).
In this interview, Todd Korth from SUN Microsystems talk about the work done in the past ten years at SUN and how industry has a role to play to shape the future. Click play on the player below to listen. This entry will also be added to the Round Table podcast channel.
In this interview, Lilla Voss from the Ministry of Education in Denmark talks about what has been achieved in ICT in education and what is the road ahead with a Danish perspective. Click play on the player below to listen. This entry will also be added to the Round Table podcast channel.
Frans Van Assche:
Download file
Martina Roth:
Download file
Jan de Craemer:
Download file
Keimpe de Heer:
Download file
The second morning started with the Round Table 3: Technology enablers, which was chaired by Prof. Erik Duval from KUL.
An introduction was given by Frans van Assche, Senior manager for interoperability in EUN. He asked us the question whether learning anytime, anywhere will take place now or in ten years? Then he looked at different kinds of interactions that take place between teacher, learning resource and co-learners in the virtual world. The tools and infrastructure will evolve into a variety of different devices and conduits, such as having one-on-one devices and wireless access, which will enable direct video-conferencing. There will be other tools that will comprise a Personal Learning Environment, too. He predicts that the slow evolvement of virtual worlds, web-experiments and e-teacher will continue into 2016, however, more vibrant evolution of interactions with co-learners and new learning material (e.g. games) and of a higher quality. He foresees that the old and new will co-exist in the upcoming ten years, however, questions how evaluation will happen.
The first panelist was Martina Roth from Intel EMEA Education, who talked about technological trends and consequences for education with the title "The World Ahead...starts here". Intel sees the Public Private Partnerships as a model for success in the future, too, to help teachers in what they are doing best, thus their core contribution in education.
She was followed by Annie Mullins from Vodafone Global Product and Content Services, who talked about the use of mobiles in supporting education. She asked what does the access to the Internet and other networks mean for children? From adults' perspective it usually represents some fear factors regarding the safety, as phones are not primarily designed for children and young children. Adults feel rather unsure about the introduction of social networking tools. However, interesting things are coming out such as the use of podcasting, for example. Ms Mullins also talked about the policy gap regarding the new mobile devices, that policies were in many cases designed by adults, who are not that familiar with those technologies.
The two educational ministries were represented by Belgium Flemish Community and the Kennisnet from the Netherlands. Jan de Craemer, from Ministry of Education from Belgium Flemish Community, talked about the visions on technology, how there are two main groups: the technological determinism and social constructivists. He sees the middle way between the two as important for education. He sees the future as open (like open content, technology, etc..), where an important value are the forces and communities behind "open artefacts" that produce them. He also talked about safety, how new dangers will emerge, such as cyberbullying.
Keimpe de Heer from Kennisnet Ict op School Foundation, the Netherlands, talked about how education should adapt with technological changes and the new world that the learners are living in. Technologies disable boundaries between learning and school, formal and informal learning, etc. To conclude, Mr. de Heer showed a little animation about how "Web 2.0" could be used to support learning. (The animation is available at the end of his presentation slides).
Here are the presentations for Round Table 2
Carlos Oliveira
Download file
João Correia de Freitas
Download file
Jim Ayre
Download file
Mikko Laine
Download file
Vanessa Pittard
Download file
The 2nd Round Table on Digital learning resources, which is chaired by Ferry de Rijcke from the Dutch Inspectorate of Education, started off with Jim Ayre, from Multimedia Ventures Europe, who talked about learning from the past, and how the ideas of read/write web were already talked about years ago. Yet, the visions do take new shapes, such as provided by the social networking tools that have lately invaded the Web. We hear more and more about social tagging, social search, social networking, user generated content and its sharing. What sort of "personalised" learning /content do we want in schools, and is this the right vision for schools? In that directions, to find answers to these questions and to ask many more, EUN will be testing these ideas a newly launched project called MELT.
First panelist was João Correia de Freitas from Ministry of Education, Portugal. He leaped 10 years back to talk about the Portuguese approach and talked about today's challenges. Promotion of educational digital content creation by school, as well as wide collaboration with open sources softwares and content, such as Xplora for science education. Also, to facilitate the use of digital learning material within a learning environment, there is a plan of a plug-in for Moodle to allow access resources from ELR.
Following was Vanessa Pittard, Director of Evidence and Evaluation in Becta, UK, who is now turning into thinking more about a content strategy development as an overall vision. She presented a Education Reform Model (by DfES) to see the whole picture before drafting a strategy. Things like motivations and capacities need to be understood to translate them into a strategy that leads to a fulfillment of a vision. Flexible curriculum design, for example, is one of the important issues among others such as technological content standards.
An industry representative, Mikko Laine from a Finnish publisher Sanoma WSOY, gave his perspective, which relies heavily on local support and management that has to be there for schools. The advantage of good quality content can only be harnessed if ICT is embedded into everyday use of teachers and pupils. However, school organisationl issues many times remain a challenge, that could hinder schools from following on what many pupils already could do with new technologies.
Carlos Oliviera represented the European Commission DG Information Society. He emphasised that learning resources are not all that there is to achieve more effective learning, but more focus should be put on processes that could be enabled by the use of ICT. Thus, although a lot of emphasis is put on content creation and use, better understanding of learner, learning context and social processes are still lacking. Thus, cross-disciplinary should be further developed between pedagogical, cognitive, psychological, organisational and technological aspects.
Here are the presentations that were already given at the conference.
Jan Figel'
Download file
(videos is small sound is good)
Download transcript of the address
Marc Durando welcome address:
Download file
Roger Blamire:
Download file
Enel Mägi:
Download file
Nancy L. Knowlton
Download file
Lilla Voss:
Download file
Roger Blamire: Round Table School Survey initial results:
Download file
Maruja Gutierrez-Diaz:
Download file
Todd Korth:
Download file
The first round table deals with the education policy trends and challenges. The panel is composed of five participants and the chair, Conor Galvin, Policy Researcher, University College Dublin. They each have 10 minutes to make their point, after which participants, in groups of 7 to 9 around a round table, will be able to discuss on interventions and ask their own questions to the panel.
First intervention is from Denmark, Lilla Voss, Chief Adviser in Danish Ministry of Education Denmark, from a country where all schools are connected to the Internet. In Denmark, the ICTs are an important tool, not a goal itself. Thus, they are known for initiatives such like ICT Pedagogical Driving license, a successful model that has been transfered to many other countries.
In 2016, Denmark's take is that ICT is embedded everywhere. Schools, however, still remain a key element in the society, sort of a focus on formal and informal activities. Majority of lessons will be one teachers/ one class/ one subject, but combined with group based /cross-curricular/ project oriented work and a group of teachers in collaboration. Also, special needs education will be dramatically changed.
The Estonian representative Enel Mägi, Chief Executive from Tiger Leap Foundation, underlined the issue of integrating the ongoing research into the policy-agenda emphasising the on-going in-service training of teachers and school heads.
The suppliers' side was represented by Nancy L. Knowlton from Smart Technologies Inc., Canada and Todd Korth from Sun Microsystems Inc. Ms. Knowlton urged direct conversations between the two, urging schools to tell their problems to industry so that they could better understand their processes and help them within. Mr. Korth talked about the road towards the digital schools with 24/7 reliable availability of applications and services for schools, students and parents alike. The involvement of all stakeholders from the beginning on is a critical success factor to achieve that, and to identify clear goals and objectives.
Lastly, Maruja Gutierrez-Diaz, Head of Unit A4, "Innovation and transversal policies" from the European Commission gave the Commission vision on ICT in European schools. She hailed high the number of interesting and innovative European projects within the school sector, however, the lack of innovative digital contents and services, that are not widely available as they need to be and the potential of ICT for transformation and change in education, are yet to be proven. She sees the coming period as a time for systematic actions and leadership focusing on a few strategic areas, such as where we know that ICT clearly adds value, where ICT is clearly needed and where ICT has a clear European asset.
We will now start the discussions in groups and will hope to be able to report some interesting interactions leading to future visions back to our online audience shortly.
After a windy and stormy night, the sky above Bruges breaks up to a beautiful day around the same time as about 120 participants from 30 countries are sitting down to start a day and half long event to relflect on the future of schooling in Europe.
The aim is, through collective discussion in small round tables, to gather participants views regarding the innovation in teaching and learning. Discussion will be around the following points:
1) From the past, what have you learnt...about education policy?; about ICT in schools?
2) For the future, how do you see schooling in 2016? Best case scenario?; worst case scenario
3) What shold stakeholders do to make the future happen how can the private sector help?
4) What targets shold we set?
5) Whaat should European Schoolnet do?
"One of the main components of many visions of the future of education involves wide-scale access to suitable content. A number of challenges face those who wish to provide such access. These include the cost of production and the immaturity of the market, problems with digital rights and the fragmented nature of the European market, as well of the lack of innovation and use in schools."
European Schoolnet, a European network of school educational authorities, celebrates its 10th anniversary at the end of this year. As part of the exercise to reflect on its mission for the future of education, the Policy Innovation Committee (PIC) collected more than 50 visions "for the future of education" from its networks, i.e. Ministries of Education, National Educational Authorities and National School Portals. These visions will be discussed at the Round Table, Schooling for the Future event in Bruges in Dec 7 and 8.
In the same event, the Roadmap for eLearning Interoperability-report will be launched. The report touches upon issues such as interoperability of digital learning resources, learning information, accessibility, etc. Interoperability is one of the key aspects to creating the conditions for equal access to digital content.
LIFE, the Learning Interoperability Framework for Europe, discusses the issues of adoption of learning technologies and the arising issues that touch upon the underlaying interoperability issues, both the technological and semantic ones, as well as the political will to tackle them. Along the same lines, the visions gathered from the EUN networks underlines the emerging need to address the issues on the global level, both technically and politically. There is a need for
".. a platform that enables highly distributed trading of content and licences. The belief is that, thanks to such phenomena as the long-tail effect, a substantial volume of extremely varied content can thus be traded at low costs. Social “tagging” mechanisms could be used to ensure quality and help users find what they are looking for."
In this interview, just before participants meet in Bruges for the EUN Round Table 'Imagining the future of schooling', EUN Director Mark Durando talks about the reasons why the Round Table is an important event for EUN and how it will shape European Schoolnet's future and directions. Also in this episode is an update about the developments we implemented in the blog and the launch of a key feature of the event: the Round Table chatroom which will allow participants to express themselves 'live' during the event. Click play on the player below to listen. This entry will also be added to the Round Table podcast channel.
To date we have received 56 contributions to our questions about the future of education. These come from 22 countries as well as the European Commission and reflect a wide range of perspectives from policy-makers to academics and including school heads, teachers and writers.
To see the full list of contributors, click below.
List of contributors
Austria
- Mag. Dr. Maria Wiesinger, Direktorin, Verein Tourismusschulen Salzburg, Austria
Belgium
- Baudouin Branders, Chargé de mission au Service cyberécole, Ministère de la Communauté française, Belgique
- Maarten Cannaerts
- Françoise Chatelain, Ministère de la Communauté française, Belgique
- Jean Delire, Créateur du service cyberécole et le site enseignement.be
- Alain Desmaret, Directeur de l'école primaire de Lauzelle à Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgique.
- Richard Galvin, Director, European School Mol, Belgium.
Catalonia
- Orland Cardona, Cap de Projectes TIC per a l'Educació, Departament d'Educació i Universitats, Generalitat de Catalunya
Denmark
- Steen Lassen, Ministry of Education in Denmark
Estonia
- Aimur Liiva, Project manager, Tiger Leap Foundation, Estonia
European Commission
- José Pessanha, European Commission, DG Education and Culture, Unit A4
Finland
- Sari Auramo, Teacher of 10-year old children in small school in Mäntsälä
France
- Stefan Mueller-Morungen, Apple Computer Europe
- Serge Ravet, CEO of EIfEL, VP of EFQUEL
-Benoît Sillard, Délégué aux usages de l'internet, Ministère de l'Education nationale, de l'enseignement supérieur et de la Recherche
Georgia
- Merab Labadze, Program Manager, Deer Leap Foundation, Georgian Schools Computerizaton Programme, Ministry of Education and Science of Georgia
Germany
- Uwe Hass, FWU Institut für Film und Bild in Wissenschaft und Unterricht gemeinnützige GmbH
- Markus Gasser, CEO, IT Consult AG
- Ministry of Education, Wiesbaden (Hessen)
- Dr. Martina Roth, Education Director EMEA, Intel GmbH
- Prof. Udo-Michael Schampel, Landesinstitut für Schulentwicklung, Baden-Wuerttemberg, Germany
Hungary
- Adam Horvath, Ministry of Education and Culture, IT advisor; National Development Agency, coordinator for informatics and information systems with horizontal affect
Italy
- Dott. Giovanni Biondi, Director, I.N.D.I.R.E.
Lithuania
- Asta Buineviciute, Head of Training Department, Centre of Information Technologies of Education (Ministry of Education and Science)
- Eugenijus Kurilovas, Chief, International Training Division, Centre for IT in Education, Ministry of Education, Lithuania
Norway
- Oystein Johannessen, Deputy Director General, Head of ICT Team, Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research
- Morten Søby, Network Leader, National Network for IT-Research and Competence in Education, University of Oslo (ITU)
- Anne-Lena Straumdal, Senior Adviser, The Directorate for Primary and Secondary Education
Poland
- Jerzy Dalek, ICT consultant, OSI Computrain, Warsaw, Poland
Romania
- Dana Luminita Croitoru, School Manager, School no.146"I.G.DUCA", Bucharest
Slovak Republic
- Dr. Viera Blahová, Ministerstvo skolstva SR, Bratislava
Slovenia
- Borut Campelj, Ministry of Education and Sport, Republic of Slovenia
- Marjan Kozjek, Headmaster of secondary school in Trbovlje
Sweden
- Sven Borg & Peter Ekborg
- Peter Karlberg, Expert, Swedish National Agency for School Improvement
- Hans-Inge Persson, Director General for the Swedish Agency for Flexible Learning (CFL)
Switzerland
- Jean-Luc Barras, Project Manager "School on the Net", CTIE, Switzerland
- Dr. Thomas Baumann Head of eLearning, Pädagogische Hochschule Zürich (PHZH)
- Bruno Giussani Author, Journalist, Co-Founder, Tinext SA, Switzerland
- Huguette McCluskey, PISA National Project Manager for Switzerland, OFS, Neuchâtel
- Francis Moret, Director, CTIE, Berne, Switzerland
- Michele Notari, Lecturer, University of Applied Sciences, Pädagogische Hochschule Bern (in discussion with Beat Doebeli and Martin Hoffmann)
- Prof. Maia Wentland, HEC-ISI, University of Lausanne
The Netherlands
- Keimpe de Here, Manager International Affairs, Kennisnet Ict op School, TheNetherlands
- Sjaak Janssen, teacher Culture and Arts, KSE secondary school, Etten-Leur, NL
- Jef Moonen & Prof. Dr. Betty Collis, Moonen & Collis Learning Technology Consultants
- Dr. Guus Wijngaards, Professor on eLearning, INHOLLAND, The Netherlands
United Kingdom
- John Anderson, Department of Education, Northern Ireland
- BECTA
- Alan Bennett, Manager, EMEA Education Markets , Apple Europe Ltd
- Doug Brown, DfES
- John Davies, Learning Manager for Dudley Grid for Learning
- Charles Duncan, CEO, Intrallect
- Gavin Dykes, DfES, London
- Professor Patrick Purcell, Senior Research Fellow, Dept. Elec. Engineering, Imperial College of Science & Technology, London
- Laurie O'Donnell, Director of Learning and Technology, Learning and Teaching Scotland, Glasgow
Our call for visions of the future of education specifically spoke of sharing a personal vision of education. A number of participants replied that it was difficult, if not impossible, for them to provide a personal position because their institution wouldn't allow them to express such an opinion about the subject or that their opinions were at odds with those of their institution. Others took the precaution of explicitly stating that what they wrote was a personal opinion and in no way reflected the vision or opinions of their institution. We have made all contributions available on the EUN Community Space to all those who provided a contribution but have removed the names and institutions of the authors. For the same reason, here, in the Round Table Blog, we are quoting from those contributions - so that you can react to them - without mentioning who wrote the contribution. If, by any chance, we have quoted from your contribution and you do not wish us to do so, please let us know immediately.
According to one contribution, we should be looking at extension if we want t create a stimulating learning environment:
"Un maître-mot de ces centres d’études : extension.
a) Extension de la notion d’étude
Les processus intellectuels ne se limitent pas à un type d’activité, soit l’étude active dans une classe. L’acquisition des connaissances et leur intégration se jouent dans la complexité et l’interaction entre activité/passivité, mouvement/sédentarité, apprentissage en gourpe/individuel, écoute/action. (cf développement des idées du Prof. Albert Jaccard, généticien).
Il faut donc une infrastructure (bâtiments et aménagements) qui permette d’ouvrir l’étude à ces différents besoins. Il faut également une structure organisationnelle (enseignants-élèves) et un système de communication et d’interactions (enseignement-apprentissage) qui aient la même philosophie.
b) Extension de la population « élèves »
Dans un enseignement traditionnel, il est probablement plus facile d’enseigner à des groupes d’âges homogènes plutôt qu’à des groupes très hétérogènes. Dans ma vision d’un centre d’étude destiné aux habitants d’un endroit géographique, je pense qu’il serait pourtant profitable pour tous que les groupes soient ouverts et que des apprenants plus âgés puissent avancer avec les plus jeunes. Si l’enseignement est assez individualisé, on constatera alors certainement que la vitesse d’avancement n’est pas dépendante de l’âge.
Si l’hétérogénéité des âges devient un problème, on pourra regrouper différemment les élèves, tout en gardant une certaine ouverture.
c) Extension des horaires
Un centre de formation serait ouvert toute la journée (en priorité pour les enfants et les adultes suivant les mêmes enseignements), le soir et les samedis (pour les adultes ou pour des cours particuliers) et pendant les vacances (pour les formations continues des adultes qui travaillent). Un centre d’étude est un espace occupé pratiquement en permanence et canalisant tous les besoins de formation. L’infrastructure y est optimale et fournit les meilleurs outils. Économiquement, c’est une véritablement aberration de fermer les écoles pendant les vacances scolaires. De plus, le fait que les parents apprennent dans le même lieu que les enfants les font se rejoindre. Les cours de jour pour les parents immigrés en sont un bon exemple..
d) Extension des lieux d’apprentissage
Les élèves sont libres de leurs mouvements, dans un cadre donné. D’un côté les enseignants fixent en début de semaine les heures auxquelles ils veulent donner un cours sur une matière particulière. Le reste du temps fixé par le cadre de leurs heures de travail, les enseignants sont à disposition, comme personnes-ressource. Chaque enseignant serait aussi responsable d’un petit groupe d’élèves, qu’il devrait coacher, soutenir, motiver. D’un autre côté les élèves fixent en début de semaine les objectifs qu’ils se fixent pour la semaine. Un suivi est assuré par les enseignants-responsables qui les supervisent. Chaque élève a un certain nombre d’heures d’étude active par jour. Il peut les organiser comme il l’entend. (j’ai vu un modèle très semblable en Suède qui marchait très bien).
N’aura-t-on pas créé ainsi une école où il fait bon vivre, où l’on a envie d’aller pour apprendre et dont on ressort enrichi et heureux, une école ouverte à tous et à toutes les chemins et qui nous amènent à avoir une meilleure intelligence ?"
In response to the three questions, one professor wrote:
" - Some virtual institutions (University of Athabasca, University of Phoenix) will grow very fast taking the lead in pushing ICT. Their aggressive marketing and relatively low expenses (minimal infrastructure, few faculty members, etc.) will oblige traditional institutions to modify their approach
- Big corporations will enter the juicy market of continuous education threatening academia"
One contributor pointed to a notion described by Adam Greenfield:
"Unlimited access to learning demands unlimited possibilities of technology. Adam Greenfield expressed the notion of ‘EveryWARE’. 'Ever more pervasive, ever harder tot perceive, computing has leapt of the desktop and insinuated itself into everyday. Such ubiquitous information technology- 'everyware'- will appear in many different contexts and take a wide variety of forms, but it will affect almost everyone of us, whether, we're aware of it or not.' - Adam Greenfield."
this contribution emphasised that boundaries will disappear:
"- Boundaries between formal and informal learning fade away
- Boundaries between the school and it’s surrounding are becoming less strict
- Geographical boundaries disappear
- Boundaries are becoming less relevant because of the possibilities technology offer"
One of the contributions we recieved, containde the following vision on education:
"Increasing complexity in today´s world means a different core skill set is required to develop resilient and capable students of the future. Students in 21st century learn in parallel spaces including their networked worlds and a formal learning environment. Rethinking traditional structures for learning is essential. New practice in education must be supported by strong, creative, well-informed and insightful leadership. Leaders are required to lead by example. The evolution of spaces for learning is multidimensional. It encompasses physical (classrooms, libraries, home) to non-physical spaces (blogs, wikis, and on-line group games) to individual and group learning. Spaces must be open and the access to learning flexible and mirror the individual’s social environment both from home and school. Learning from a networked world means greater connectedness between society, learners and educators at local, national and global level of infrastructure to allow any learner to connect to any source of learning material, community or communication by any technical method that produces the best outcome for them. Teachers have never been more essential than in the current age. However, the focus needs to shift dramatically from imparting content knowledge to empowering students with fundamental key processes to enable them to conduct their own learning."
A policy maker wrote:
"The greatest challenges for policy makers will be to maintain confidence of citizens while transforming the systems and qualifications, and in winning hearts and minds in a new world of qualifications where enterprise, innovation and creativity become the most important personal qualities"
One Arts teacher writes in his vision of the future (which has already begun in his eyes):
According to recent studies ,more than one-half of all teens have created media content, and roughly one third of teens who use the Internet have shared content they produced.
In many cases, these teens are actively involved in what we are calling participatory cultures.
A participatory culture is a culture with relatively low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement, strong support for creating and sharing one’s creations, and some type of informal mentorship whereby what is known by the most experienced is passed along to novices.
A participatory culture is also one in which members believe their contributions matter, and feel some degree of social connection with one another (at the least they care what other people think about what they have created). Forms of participatory culture may include:
Affiliations — memberships, formal and informal, in online communities centered around various forms of media, such as Friendster, Facebook, message boards, metagaming, game clans, or MySpace.
Expressions — producing new creative forms, such as digital sampling, skinning and modding, fan videomaking, fan fiction writing, zines, mash-ups).
Collaborative Problem-solving — working together in teams, formal and informal, to complete tasks and develop new knowledge (such as through Wikipedia, alternative reality gaming).
Circulations — Shaping the flow of media (such as podcasting, blogging).
A growing body of scholarship suggests potential benefits of these forms of participatory culture, including opportunities for peer-to-peer learning, a changed attitude toward intellectual property, the diversification of cultural expression, the development of skills valued in the modern workplace, and a more empowered conception of citizenship. Access to this participatory culture functions as a new form of the hidden curriculum, shaping which youth will succeed and which will be left behind as they enter school and the workplace.
One of the contributors wrote:
….Learning will follow the Web 2.0 paradigm: instead of being mostly read-only environments, learning will evolve to a more natural participatory process, where the boundaries between content creators and consumers disappear…. It is obvious that in 10 years, we will not speak of 'e-learning' but of 'learning' - ICT's will become ubiquitous and often invisible to end-users. It is remarkable how horrible our current technologies work."
also he included an interesting quote:
"One of my favorite quotes is from an author (W. Haddad, in the book 'technologies for education'): 'If we are going in the wrong direction, technology will get us there faster'."
Given radical changes envisaged by some to education, in particular with respect to new forms of learning, collaborative working, the curriculum and the skill set required, the need for appropiate forms of assessment is underlined. Here is one challenge mentioned abour assessment. "Developing qualifications which can capture the skills we want to assess and ensuring that these qualifications are widely accepted by the universities, employers and the press is both a practical and political issue. The practicality lies in trying to continuing to ensure effective delivery, and equivalence of qualifications. Part of the political issue lies in whether new assessment approaches are accepted by stakeholders."
In a personal view on the future of education and possible research avenues, one contributor wrote: "I'd like someone to take a look at 'push' content delivery. At the moment there is an assumption that eLearning / Internet based learning, is focussed on browser use, and people having to look, log in, search etc. 'Pushing' content out there I'd argue is more appropriate for the classroom situation, and could give teachers a framework in which they can start to integrate ICT into their teaching. Also I think the notion of teachers as content producers needs to be explored more. The view of the large content suppliers tends to be prevalent - ie teachers should focus less on content authoring, leave it up to professionals and concentrate on the classroom, whereas I feel that such a personal involvement on the part of a teacher, combined with straightforward 'push' delivery models could be what finally get ICT being more widely adopted."
We here in EUN are busy making the blog ready for the event. Apart from just reading the postings, we are adding some neat external features likepictures from Flickr, both taken by the EUN team and you (just use the tag "eunroundtable2006" when uploading your own pictures to Flickr).
We will also be creating interviews throughout the event with interesting people, so even if you can not make it there, you will be able to listen what some of the speakers and participants have to say. Additionally, we collect interesting links and post them to del.ici.ous using a tag "eunroundtable2006", so that they can be easily viewed by all of you later, but also so that we can share them with one another.
If you are just starting to get interested in all these social networking software that allows you to share your thoughts, images and bookmarks with others, don't hesitate to get in touch with Paul G. or Riina V. from the Insight team.
Have fun!