The state of the nations: current and future developments in technology-enhanced-learning
Conference Paper
Overview
Research
Additional Document Info
View All
Overview
abstract
Right across Europe technology is playing a vital part in enhancing learning for an increasingly
diverse population of learners. Learning is increasingly flexible, social and mobile and supported by
high quality multi-media resources. Institutional VLEs are seeing a shift towards open source
products and these core systems are supplemented by a range of social and collaborative learning
tools based on web 2.0 technologies. Learners undertaking field studies and those in the workplace
are coming to expect that these off-campus experiences will also be technology-rich whether
supported by institutional or user-owned devices. As well as keeping European businesses
competitive, learning is seen as a means of increasing social mobility and supporting an agenda of
social justice. For a number of years the EUNIS e-Learning Task Force (ELTF) has conducted
snapshot surveys of e-Learning across member institutions, collected case studies of good practice in
e-learning (see Hayes et al 2009 in references), supported a group looking at the future of e-
Learning and showcased the best of innovation in its e-Learning Award. Now for the first time the
ELTF membership has come together to undertake an analysis of developments in the member states
and to assess what this might mean for the future. The group applied the techniques of World Café
conversation and Scenario Thinking to develop its thoughts. The analysis is unashamedly qualitative
and draws on expertise from leading universities across eight of the EUNIS member states. What
emerges is interesting in terms of the common trends in developments in all of the nations and
similarities in hopes and concerns about the future development of learning.
