Grand residence

The annual conference of the European Foundation for Quality in e-Learning did not disappoint. From the grand location of the conference at the Marquês de Pombal Palace, to the eclectic and fast moving conference papers, workshops and demonstrations, there was plenty to see and do during the two day Efquel Innovation Forum. A palace is defined as a 'grand residence', and this week the grand men and women of e-learning from all over Europe and farther afield took residence here to discuss, explore, expound and celebrate. The beautiful town of Oieras is a wonderful location for any event, and if you like good weather, sumptuous green surroundings and good food (seefood is the speciality) then I am sure you would agree. It is no wonder then that the Efquel crew return again and again to hold their conference in this picturesque Lisbon suburb. Morning keynotes from Wayne Mackintosh (see Wayne's World) and Asha Kanwar (Commonwealth of Learning) set the scene, leaving delegates with visions of free worldwide access to learning, thoughts of openness and inspiration from accounts of education initiatives in developing countries.

A welter of discussions, workshops and presentations followed, focusing on the accreditation, certification and internationalisation of learning followed, with subjects including open models, self evaluation, quality aspects for virtual schools, all before lunchtime. After lunch, it was business as usual with more sessions on topics such as how to integrate informal and open learning into higher education, the use of quality labels for e-learning and the benefits and limitations of academic gaming. The evening was closed off by a thought provoking keynote by Yves Punie, who address the challenges and opportunities for certification and assessment in future learning scenarios. Day one ended with a great al fresco evening in the grounds of the Palais, with live music and a short award ceremony.

My own keynote on digital learning futures started off day 2 of the forum, where I addressed some of the possible scenarios we see emerging in education, including open education practices, mobile learning, personalised learning, social media networking contexts and the use of augmented and mixed reality. As with all the sessions, there was a lively discussion, and this continued after the coffee break in other parallel sessions. I recall one brief discussion where one of the delegates, a journalist and self confessed e-learning non-expert, made the error of saying within my earshot that academic blogs were a poor substitute for peer reviewed traditional publishing. Talk about red rags and bulls. There was no blood on the carpet, but there could well have been. To say this view is misinformed would be an understatement. There are many blogs I would read in place of closed journal content. Blogging is more immediate (some traditional journals take many months to publish papers, which by then are well out of date) which also means it is timely and up to date. Blogging also enables immediate dialogue which means that readers can join in and discuss directly with the author. Blogging is also peer reviewed, but by multiple reviewers, not just two. Open and public forms of discourse need to be encouraged, not disparaged by ill-informed assumptions. This kind of debate that is the essence of what Efquel stands for, and I am grateful to have been invited to participate in this years event. My thanks go to the Efquel crew, and not least to Ulf-Daniel Ehlers, the conference chair, for allowing me to join in with a very memorable and inspirational event.


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