Future directions

The first EDEN (European Distance and E-learning Network) Fellows day was a thought provoking and absorbing event. Held as a part of the celebration of EDEN's 20th anniversary, 24 Fellows, as well as members of the EDEN Executive Committee and invited guests met to discuss the future direction of technology enhanced learning in Europe and beyond in the grand surrounds of Christchurch Cathedral, Dublin. (Pictured - Fellows discussing a proposal for a position paper). EDEN Fellows are awarded the honour as "an expression of acknowledgement of professional merit by the Association, for NAP (Network of Academics and Professionals) members, who have demonstrated excellence in professional practice in the field of flexible and distance learning and provided valued support to the evolution and progress of EDEN."

Each Fellow was invited to give a 5 minute flash presentation addressing the question: 'What do you consider to be the most surprising development in e-learning over the last 5 years?' as well as what might be the direction of the organisation's future research efforts. Many of those who presented identified similar themes, including the exponential rise and popularity of social media (blogs, wikis, podcasts, social network tools), open educational resources and mobile learning. Some talked about their surprise that many institutions had failed to capitalise on these trends, and in some cases had virtually ignored their potential. Some, including me, called for the learner voice to be incorporated more into EDEN's activities, whilst others argued that we should go beyond the analysis of cognitive gain, and begin to more deeply examine 'softer issues' such as student attitudes, motivations, emotions and values. There was also a call to now put aside once and for all the inconclusive and possibly misdirected research attempting to find 'significant differences' between traditional and distance forms of learning.

Sir John Daniel (Commonwealth of Learning) provided an excellent opening keynote to those gathered on the theme of 'Open Schooling - the next frontier for distance education.' He presented a number of statistics which showed a gradually and welcome decline in the number of children aged 6-11 worldwide who are outside of school, but warned that the number may yet rise again to around 72 million by 2015. In secondary education he told us, the number is even higher, because it is at least twice as expensive to deliver as primary education. He cited Keith Lewin who is of the opinion that the cost of secondary education militates against many developing nations ever being able to implement it. The alternative, said Sir John, was to implement a worldwide policy where distance and open learning can be delivered to the unschooled. Citing his new book, Mega-Schools, Technology and Teachers, he suggested that structured teaching and high quality learning materials, delivered via distance learning methods would reach many children who are currently outside education. He warned though, that implementing any form of technology without first putting into place the 'building blocks' (teacher preparation and infrastructure to support learning) would end in disaster.

The EDEN Fellows day was merely a warm-up for the main event which begins on Monday, on the campus of the University College Dublin. You can follow the live stream from the Conference, including the keynote speeches here at this link and via the #edendublin Twitter hashtag. Keynote speakers include Sir John Daniel, Graham Attwell and Clare Dillon (Head of Microsoft Research).

Future directions by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.