Take an active role!

Tapio Koskinen from Helsinki University of Technology encourage people to think about the future together and then work for that future. It´s important that we take an active role and not just follow what is happening in technology.

 

The future of digital learning?

We asked Helena Bijnens, Eurupace what the future of digital learning looks like.

She says that the future of digital learning is facing some challenges. One of those challenges is copyright and legislation in different countries …

 

What does the future of digital learning look like?

A challenge for the future will be to have a closer link between learning and change or improvement of the individual, but also to find the original relationship between learning and innovation, says Claudio Dondi, European Foundation for Quality in eLearning, Brussels

Do you agree with him?

 

What pedagogical challenges are we about to face?

Henrik Hansson, Stockholm University, Sweden and Peter Mozelius, Department of Computer and Systems Sciences in Sweden talks about the pedagogical challenges. They think a global problem is how to educate large groups of students with quality when your just one theacher. How do you provide support for an individual student when you have thousands of students?

 

Open source and collaboration equals better VLEs

One thing that could be done to a much greater extent is collaboration on Open Source solutions for Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs). I know that this is done already, especially at university level, but there are still a lot of money wasted in investments in expensive proprietary solutions that can not be modified without expensive consultants, as well as there is a lot of money wasted on “in house” development and adaptations that are not shared with others. This is especially offensive when tax money is wasted - which is often the case.

Open Source collaboration could be much more organized and better financed at the national level. Stronger incentives need to be created for collaborating in this way, which would for certain benefit the progress in general.

So far, the main part of all innovations within software for Technology Enhanced Learning have originated from Open Source projects!

 

The media Zoo

In this film Twofour Communications and The Beyond Distance Research Alliance based at The University of Leicester presents The media Zoo - an immersive teaching and research environment in Second Life. Gilly Salmon, Professor of E-learning & E-learning Technologies at Leicester gave us this film at the conference Online Educa in Berlin, november 2007.

Do you have any experiences of learning in Second Life? Can you tell us about it?

 

Learning in a 3D environment and the future

Education in Second Life is in many ways a mirror of the real world with classrooms et cetera. But says, Olle Wästberg, General Director of the Swedish Institute, education in Second Life has spotlight possibilities for education on the web and in social medias. And it´s a way to gather people from different parts of a country.

How do you think learning in 3D environmnets will look like in the future?

 

Homework help on the net

Meet Göran Isberg, Director of School Administration in the City of Stockholm, Sweden. In this film he talks about the plans for a swedish version of homework help on the net. It´s called URsmart and the aim is primarely to provide students with support and resources for homework tasks but also for classroom use and for use either by students on their own or with parental or teacher support.

Can students play a part in developing homework help on the net? How do we insure quality?

 

Quality assurance

We must not forgot the quality issues and think about how to evaluate the quality in online education. Does anyone have any good ideas how to do this?

 

The future og digital learning

Hans-Inge Persson, Director of the Swedish agency for flexible learning talks about the importance of encouraging Swedish authorities to make decisions in the wanted direction.