Parte III - Proyecto Europeo Learnovation

Introduction: Creativity and Innovation in learning through ICT

Lieve Van den Brande

Senior Policy Officer
European Commission, DG Education and Culture, Unit A1

Over the past decade, ICT have enabled changes in the way people live, work, interact and acquire knowledge. Successful education and training in our knowledge society depend increasingly on the confident, competent and innovative use of ICT.

Progress in the use of ICT for education and training across Europe has been substantial over the past few years. ICT have been taken up largely in educational institutions. There is broad agreement that ICT are helping learning in schools, and that e-mature schools produce better results. Higher education is also reaping major benefits from ICT and steadily coming to grips with their potential for distance  learning,  virtual  mobility  and  ongoing  professional  development.  Large  companies  and public administrations report good results from e-learning in the workplace.

Despite this growing take-up, studies show that ICT have not yet had a transformative impact on teaching and learning in education and training institutions¹. While many educational institutions all over Europe are currently experimenting with diverse digital tools, the approaches developed are not always creative or innovative. This is important, as the impact of ICT use on students is highly dependent on teaching approaches, and better skills result from the use of student-centred guidance, group work and inquiry-based projects.

The effective integration of ICT in education and training must go beyond simply replacing, streamlining or accelerating current practices. It is also necessary to find new and more effective ways of operating, supporting pedagogical and organisational innovation. It is important to envision what learning in the knowledge-based society in Europe in 2020 will be like and what kinds of skills and competences need to be learned for the new jobs of the future.

Since the Lisbon Council in 2000 identified ICT as a core component of the knowledge society and a necessary instrument for adapting education and training systems to it, Europe has gained extensive experience in ICT for learning. The eLearning Initiative and Programme of the European Commission were adopted, with specific funding and the strong support of stakeholders. This led to extensive networking activities through Europe-wide projects; e-learning was put on the education agenda and an increasingly professional community has developed.  Since 2007, ICT for learning have become one of the four cross-cutting lines of the Lifelong Learning Programme and a general priority in the four vertical programmes (Erasmus, Comenius, Leonardo da Vinci and Grundtvig). In this way, ICT use in education and training has been mainstreamed, representing an important step towards the integration of ICT in lifelong learning policies. The projects illustrate how the European Commission promotes ICT for learning, supports the steady progress in the use of ICT for education and training across Europe, and the role ICT play in enhancing creativity and innovation in learning.

The role of ICT in learning and teaching, in particular to enhance creativity and innovation among people and organisations, has also been highlighted in recent communications of the European Commission² such as An updated strategic framework for European cooperation in education and training, and New Skills for New Jobs. The 2009 European Year of Creativity and Innovation³  focuses on the role of ICT in enhancing cross-cutting skills such as creativity and entrepreneurship, and pushes forward innovation in education and training. The ICT cluster⁴, representing various Member States under the Education and Training 2010 programme, provides an open forum for debate and peer  learning.  The  common  conclusion  is  that  ICT  need  to  be  seen  as  a  key  tool  for  the modernisation and improvement of all aspects of education and training. Planning for the introduction of ICT is not enough; what is needed is transformation.

This special issue of the eLearning papers describes the main outcomes of the Learnovation project. Each paper will highlight one of the ICT, lifelong learning and innovation reports, analysing innovation paradigms within different formal and informal learning contexts. The main stakeholders have been closely involved in the ongoing research and policy work of the project through the Learnovation Roundtable.   As such, the project has contributed to a better understanding of how to realise the potential of ICT applications to make learning more efficient, equitable and innovative and to identify critical issues for the next stage of using ICT in education and training and the associated need for accompanying pedagogical, organisational and technological innovation.

Over-expectation or under-exploitation?

Claudio Dondi

President of Scienter, Learnovation Project Coordinator

For about ten years, eLearning has been a key part of the innovations characterising education and training systems throughout the world. After a phase of excessive enthusiasm and spectacularly excessive resistance, more reasonable expectations and attitudes have emerged, more attention is being paid to the issue of quality of the learning experience, and dissemination of e-learning best practices within educational systems is taking place, although not as quickly as originally expected.

Expectations are important in our lives, in the economic cycle and, of course, in the world of learning: the original expectations in relation to e-learning (of those who supported and promoted it) were that it would increase the efficiency of teaching practices in institutional education and the corporate training sector. This did partially happen, but not to the extent and in the way expected. Many policymakers, teachers and learners questioned the quality of the e-learning experience achieved through first generation e-learning, attention was paid to the contextual and social dimensions of the learning process and, at the same time, social computing emerged as an interesting development for learning processes, especially those taking place on a more informal level.

The dream of lifelong learning is becoming more realistic as the majority of the population becomes familiar with the concepts of searching for information, establishing peer groups and learning about what they are interested in online.

What does all this have to do with the original expectations of e-learning? It is both less than expected in the traditionally structured way of teaching and more than expected in the area of informal learning. So, one could say that, yes, people expected too much, but essentially there was an erroneous expectation that ICT for learning would have the greatest effect within the formal learning/teaching environments. When the radio was invented, one of the main expectations was that it would bring opera to the masses; it probably did, but radio applications in the field of information were far more important.

Similarly, by studying in detail what happens in the different territories of e-learning, one gets the impression that the full potential of ICT for learning embedded in change has yet to be exploited.

ICT for learning must rid itself of a low profile image due to immature experiences at the start of this decade. A new and more mature expectation of e-learning is emerging, linked to the implementation of the lifelong learning concept. It is particularly important to reflect on how learning together online in organisations, professional communities and educational institutions is a necessary strategy to accompany and sustain the processes of transformation and innovation, enabling the circulation of a huge amount of tacit knowledge that can be shared only within a trust-based and knowledge-sharing relationship, to a significant extent out of the formal praxis (educational as well as organisational).

This figure, which represents the key message of Learnovation, shows how most of the policies, initiatives and e-learning practices have applied ICT to the teaching world of formal education and are progressively achieving innovative results. However, the real underexploited potential of e-learning lies in its close association with all of the major innovation/transformation projects that governments, enterprises,  public  authorities,  education  and  training  institutions  and,  of  course,  individuals undertake. It is difficult to imagine that these innovation/transformation projects can succeed as a result of a commitment to learn and achieve change, and it is difficult to imagine learning among individuals, groups and organisations taking place in 2010 and beyond without the use of the technology, educational resources and social networks used by people in their everyday lives.

This issue by the Learnovation project is about expectations of e-learning (in the past and in the present) and exploitation of the e-learning potential (particularly in the future). It is proposed as a basis for broad stakeholder consultation on the future impact of e-learning on lifelong learning and innovation. We are very grateful to the European Commission and the EACEA for their support of the implementation of this project within the Lifelong Learning Programme, and to all the experts and practitioners who have helped the project team achieve its results to date.

Learning in the life of digital natives

Walter Kugemann

ILI-FIM & MENON

Contributors: Nikitas Kastis (Lambrakis Foundation), Claudio Delrio (Scienter), Fabio Nascimbeni (MENON), Roberto Carneiro and Josè Lagarto (Universidade Catolica Portuguesa)

1   Introduction: educating and training digital natives

This article provides a cross-thematic analysis of the relationship  between ICT, lifelong learning and innovation in the worlds  of school  education,  vocational  training  and teacher  training.  These  territories  are analysed  by looking  from different  perspectives  at the dynamics of coexistence  in these fields of so-called  “digital natives” and  “digital  immigrants,”  pointing  out  the  relevant  findings  of the work  carried out  by Learnovation  in these fields, as far as these quite different processes of “technology  socialisation”  are concerned.

The starting point is that, when it comes to learning, the level of digital nativeness  is key. An individual  gaining first  learning  experiences  in a digital  environment  develops  learning  habits  (including  all decisions  taken  on learning)  that are quite different  from those of individuals familiar to learning  in “analogue”  environments.  This dichotomy   seems   to  have   substantial   value   when   analysing   changes/innovative processes   in  learning, particularly   in  territories   that   are   characterised   by  long   and   intensive   periods   of  life,   where   learning (predominantly formal learning) plays a central or the central role in life.

The rapid and accelerating digital changes of the past few decades have led to changing first learning experiences, which have a significant impact on the school-age and young-adult cohorts of today and tomorrow. These learners characterise  the learning territories constituting  this cluster.

Based on this definition,  different “tribes” of digital nativeness  should be noted. We therefore  propose an initial typology draft:

“Mother  tongue”  digital  natives.  These  are characterised  by the description,  i.e. individuals  who have gained basic experience in learning and learning tools/media  in a “digital only” environment.

“Early educated”  digital natives. This group has gained non-digital early experience in a rather informal setting. Subsequently, initial targeted learning  experiences, triggered  from  the  outside  in  an  organised  way, were gained in a digital environment.  This might be the case, for example, when computers or computer games were used in pre-school  environments,  or when reporting to other children at nursery school took place with the help of a digital camera or a microphone,  etc.

“School age” digital immigrants, “Secondary school” digital immigrants. This group was confronted with digital means in a later school process,  which  means  that  respective   tools  and  basic  skills  had  already  been developed  before in a non-digital  environment.  This late familiarisation with digital solutions  requires  a change in behaviour, as other pre-digital solutions remain analogue metaphors structuring digital behaviour.

“Adult” digital immigrants. This group is characterised by a change (complete or partial) from pre-digital to digital skills and media at an age where all relevant skills in learning are fully developed  and automated in a non-digital  form. Adult car drivers switching  to a navigation system, for example, usually have experience with non-interactive printed maps only.

2   Features of the cluster

A number  of key features  seem  important  for this cluster,  which  may  help  to understand  the commonalities among school education, VET and teacher training.

Measurable  economic/GNP share

The territories constituting  this cluster are those that are most transparent  and statistically  measured in terms of overall expenses, normally by a percentage  of the GNP. We can easily benchmark  different societies in relation to the share of GNP that they allocate to schools, vocational  education  and training and the underlying  training of teachers and trainers.

Global (but young) benchmark tradition

Starting  with the school  sector,  and closely  linked  to the training  of teachers  and trainers,  this cluster  has a common (but young) tradition of international  benchmarks.  Over  the past  decade,  this has been  carried  out most visibly by the OECD, its most popular activity being the PISA benchmarking  system. In this cluster, we can demonstrate  the role benchmarking  can play in the innovation  process  in learning. This can serve as a model for further development  in this cluster as well as recommendations for the sustainable  analysis of other clusters.

National/regional responsibility  in the core of national/regional identities

Policies  on  the  three  territories  making  up  this  cluster  normally  play  an  important national or regional role because, over the past decade,  education  has  become  one  of  the  core  policy  areas  in  most  countries. In general, one can observe a certain highlighting  of this policy area compared  to the previous period, at least on the  level  of policy  rhetoric. However,  it is clear  that  this  national  or,  in the  case of many bigger  European nations, regional responsibility  (as is the case in Germany), as well as the educational  policies and underlying values shape and contribute to national (or regional) identity to a certain extent.

3 State of the art – and the way leading to it

What was expected?

If we look at the transversal  impact  of ICT in terms of innovation  and creativity  in school education,  VET and teacher  training  systems  in Europe,  expectations  and hopes  during  the past decade  seem to have taken two core directions:

Cheaper learning results and/or broadening access to learning in general

Based on an “industrial”  logic, this concept assumed that economy  of scale could be introduced  into traditional learning  institutions  by technologies. This  approach  would  make  it possible  to achieve  the same  goals  with constant  quality  and  substantially  lower  resources and  reduced  costs. The  concept could  be used  either  to reduce public spending or (and this method is predominant)  to increase participation  in learning, e.g. increasing the  percentage   of students  completing  post-secondary school  education,  increasing  the number of young people successfully qualifying in VET, or increasing the percentage of people in a cohort with a higher education degree, among others.

Structural changes, more learner-centred/more constructivist  learning

Structural  improvement  beliefs focused mainly on the idea of speeding up and mainstreaming the process of a switch from teaching/teacher-orientation towards learning/learner-orientation on a coherent basis by increasing the level of individualisation. It was assumed  that this would be achieved  by granting  the learner more control over   aspects of the learning framework (place, pace, motivation, approaches, content priorities, etc.). Sometimes both hopes were been incorporated into a single policy agenda, resulting in terms such as “better/longer  learning for everybody.”  Learning innovation was often seen as a way out of the trap of increasing learning needs and restricted budgets. By creating a fashionable  novelty, the aim was that technology would be used as a lever to push forward structural innovation  in educational  systems  or subsystems  such as teacher and trainer instruction in a bottom-up  way, i.e. driven  by a general  fascination with technology among young learners.

What happened?

When   confronted   with   reality,   some   beliefs,   which   guided   the   expectations   presented   above,   looked overambitious   or  too naive,  as  a  result  of  simplified  assumptions   on  context  development,   processes  and mechanisms  in societal change. A short explanation follows:

Beliefs in a shortcut from consensus to success

At the beginning  of the e-learning  action  plan,  there  was an implicit  strong  belief  that consensus  processes (when carefully carried out, including all actors on an European level and led by the power of synchronisation of these actors´ aims and goals) would automatically  lead to respective actions, suitable for achieving these goals. This assumption  failed, however, as it underestimated the policy rhetoric share within these processes,  as well as  its  potential  to  activate  all  types  of  resistance  and  counter-directed interests.  Mostly  driven  by  hidden emotions and preoccupations, these interests alert and synchronise  conservative  forces that grow out of a fear of losing influence within substantial change processes.

Beliefs in indicator-led  consensus and policy definition

This belief is linked to the way in which the Lisbon goals were originally defined with a rather simplistic model of interdependencies. This was based  on  the assumption  that,  if  all  citizens  learn  throughout  their  lives,  the European Union will become (almost automatically)  the most competitive  and most inclusive society worldwide. These approaches,  based on a certain historical amount of shared enthusiasm,  turned out to be too simplistic to work, particularly  because  they confused  possible  mainstream  solutions  with procedures  that had proven their functioning on a pilot level only and under certain, not mainstream, context conditions.

Beliefs in global benchmarks

The period was characterised  by serious approaches  to introduce  benchmarking  instruments,  which obviously work well in the global economic field (in the short term, as well as in the long term), into the field of educational institutions. It was  no  coincidence that  the OECD, with  its  experience   in  the  benchmarking   of  economic indicators,  was the first institution  transferring  those models into the education sphere through its benchmarks (e.g.  for  teacher  indicators  and  teacher  and  trainer  training)  and  the  PISA  studies  for  key competences achieved  at secondary  school. Obviously,  those comparative  global benchmarks  developed  a high potential  to alert the public and thus triggered  intensive  societal discussions  on education  and its role in society, including the national position in the international  context.

Nevertheless,  to a certain extent they failed to prepare decisions  in a systematic  and comparative  manner and to  use  effective  processes   to  base  innovation   in  education  on  the  proper,  professional   analytical  use  of benchmarking  results. One of the many reasons for this was the lack of awareness  about the need to move in a methodologically ordered and organised way from the benchmarking  phase to a subsequent  phase of collective bench-learning, i.e. a procedure  on how to derive  context-adequate tailored  strategies  for improvement  from benchmarking  positioning in a stakeholder  consensus process.

Beliefs in “buyable” policy aims and policy success

Over the past decade, some strategies  from the economic  sector were directly transferred  into the educational field, including  the assumption that money and allocation  of funds are the most successful  and suitable  policy tools to achieve goals. Unfortunately,  there is evidence of a negative correlation for such assumption,  specifying that, when an announced  budget increase  for education  does not take place, it is very likely that an agenda of substantial  educational change will not succeed. This observation  somewhat  illogically converted  into the belief that innovation  in  the  desired  direction  would  happen  almost automatically   on  the  condition  that  sufficient budgets  were  allocated  and spent  properly  to  achieve  it. This assumption has limited success because, consequently, all non-monetary policy measures necessary or  suitable for successful innovation would no longer be needed for proper educational policies. These include  awareness-raising, changes  in  attitude in society, different levels and considerations in relation to life priorities, etc.

Complete   underestimation  of  institutional   and  structural   inertia  and  its  self-organisation  and  stabilisation potential

Based  on the dominating  beliefs  in consensus  building,  the contrasting  processes of institutional inertia were completely underestimated in terms of their impact, as the forces and mechanisms  to keep this inertia high (to avoid a weakening  of the respective  institutional “establishment” and instead  reinforce  the inertia “wall”) were not fully understood. Initial approaches to address these dynamics of inertia in a methodologically consistent way and to manage  its change in parallel with the support of innovation began only some years ago in the educational  field and are still not widely accepted as a necessary  support strand of policies on educational  and learning innovation.

Short-term success expectations

The perspective for successful  changes in educational  policy was being linked to the periodicity  of election-led policy-makers  on a regional, national  and European  level. This led to short-term  success  expectations  of, say three, four and five years to achieve substantial changes in educational  institutions. The perspective  completely underestimated the  strong  interdependencies with  other  subsystems  of  society,  in which  a  certain  rigidity necessarily  has the function of stabilising  the processes  of societal change. Using the metaphor of a semisolid fluid, trying to increase the speed to pass through over proportionally increases viscosity, resistance  and, thus, the energy needed to pass through.

Underestimation of resources necessary for sustainable  system change in educational  institutions

Almost all non-financial resources to effect sustainable changes were underestimated in terms of amount. In addition to money, time, pre-requisites for changing other elements or functional processes in education, patience with the slow societal processes of attitude adjustment, etc. are necessary.

Future needs

Based on the considerations and analytical approaches  in relation to what happened  in the past, assessing the meaning of these findings for future needs is quite easy and straightforward. Several categories can be described as follows:

More complex metaphors and process models

As a result of the experiences of the past decade, we see a clear need for dialogue amongst professionals on appropriate, hence more complex, metaphors and  process  models, which include the societal, economic, cultural and historic elements of the context and processes in education.

More patience

One of the messages  seems to be that the election period cycles of policy goals guide us to excessively  shortterm perspectives  that are insufficient  for sustainable  measures  and therefore  sustainable  changes in the field of education.  This  demands  more  patience  through mechanisms  that  allow  more coherence  in educational policy and serious changes  in policies  following  elections.  How this can be achieved can be seen partially  in areas  such  as infrastructure  policies or long-term areas  of economic  policies. These  mechanisms  evidently overcome the segmentation  into election  periods and may also be used in educational policies. To a certain extent, mid-term  overall  policy goal-setting,  such as the  Lisbon  and  Copenhagen processes, needs to be translate more coherently into national and regional educational policies respectively, including   clear consensual  policy targets derived from them. How and to what extent they will be achieved must be measurable against socially relevant indicators defined from the outset.

Respecting the deep societal and societal value consensus embedding of education

As  pointed  out  earlier,  education  is  deeply  embedded  in  societal  values.  Each  innovation  therefore  has  to respect  the  existing  values and  beliefs  on education   as  a  constituent   element  of  national,  regional  and sometimes  even local identity. Respecting  the context for educational  innovation,  national and regional society stakeholders  need to be more included  in a broad  and prospective  open dialogue,  i.e. a dialogue  that takes place earlier, is broader and addresses public awareness through the media sufficiently in advance.

More professional  processes to generate sustainable  and favourable conditions for change

The  awareness  of a need  for  professional  processes  and  professional  management  of these  processes  in large-scale  societal  change  is just emerging, having  been  initiated  on the level of the European  Union  as a result   of  critical   discussion   on  the  insufficient  intermediate   results   of  the  Lisbon process   and  several underestimated processes  within the extension  of the community.  The present situation  therefore  seems to be promising  in terms  of  demanding   a  higher  level  of  professional   management   of  favourable  conditions in educational  innovation for the next decade.

A better toolbox for innovation management  and systemic support for societal learning processes

To achieve that big step forward towards more professional  management  it is necessary  to install and develop an adequate toolbox. Many of these tools already exist, but are on too small a scale, too restricted to particular subfields in the educational  sphere, or successful in other areas but their transferability  to the educational  world has not yet been tested. A cooperative,  broad process to gradually increase and assess these tools is therefore an urgent need, in order to build up and enrich such a toolbox.

Present challenges

Through  the  commonalities  among  the  territories,  the  core  challenges   become  visible  as  a  result  of  the analytical  comparison. For  an initial  round  of discussion,   the  following  are  given  without  comprehensive explanations  as bullet points:

• Broadening  participation  in learning in a socially inclusive way (“nobody left behind”)
• Regaining  life relevance  for educational  institutions  in schooling  and VET, including  more life-relevant competencies  for teachers  and trainers, particularly  in the educational  field beyond domain knowledge (relevant   key  qualifications),  strengthening  permanent innovation and competence orientation in teacher and trainer lifelong learning.
• Better   synchronising non-formal and informal learning with formal learning led by educational institutions.
• Supporting early education using the powerful e-motivation  of “advanced digital natives”.
• Bringing schools and VET from a selection logic to an empowerment  and capacity-building logic for all.
• Helping true learner orientation (beyond mere rhetoric) to become mainstream  reality.
• Marrying innovation in learning with intensified value education.

4   Conclusions and recommendations

Following  a detailed  situation  analysis,  we now try to use the model of different  “digital natives tribes” and the dynamics  of the development of “digital nativeness”  to gain a more systematic  view of one of the core dynamic factors for institutional  educational  processes in schools, VET, and (depending  on this) the territory of training of teachers and trainers.

From  selective  top-down  (as  a  long-standing   educational   institution/policy  tradition)  to  general  bottom-up learner-driven  initiatives

Policies  and  the  development  of our  educational  institutions  are  traditionally  based  on  the  assumption  that society  at  large  and  its representatives are better  prepared  than  their  clients,  i.e.  learners,  to  design  and implement  educational  institutions  and to change these institutions  to maximise  benefits for the individuals  as well as for society in general. Such a model of a competence-hierarchies-governed democracy  is contrasted  by the increasing potential of individual decisions and bottom-up consensus and/or co-acting processes open to all citizens.  Those  processes  are  obviously  facilitated  and  speeded  up  (among  other  factors)  by  technological innovation.

The   evidence   of  user-oriented   social   software,   used   within   the  frame   we  call  “Web   2.0”,   particularly demonstrates  the dynamic unleashed  by these processes.  If we compare  statistical  data on indicators  for the take-off  of technology-triggered innovation  in schools, VET, and teacher  training  over the past 10 or 20 years (with its rather slow progress  diffusion  speed of typical Web 2.0 applications  such as Amazon,  eBay, Google, Wikipedia,  Facebook,  YouTube  and  many  others),  we  gain  an  impression   of  the  quite  different  range  of dynamics.  Therefore,  that shift from top-down triggered innovation  to bottom-up  supported/demanded/prepared innovation seems to be one of the key elements of the transition from the past decade to the coming one.

General joy-led digital behaviour “swapping” over to educational  institutions

If the assumption  above were to be proven, it would be useful to develop a hypothesis  on how the “digital native tribes” will demand innovation in educational  institutions in a particular way. What we can state in general is that joy-led  behaviour,  which  is  based  on individual decisions  among  other  alternatives, is more  attractive  by definition for the target groups of educational  institutions  than prescribed, homogeneous  activities.  If we look at the high dynamics  of Web 2.0 applications,  for example,  and the similarly  high dynamics  of complex  mobile phones, developing  quickly into multifunctional smart phones with ambient potential (like the quick replacement of traditional geographic thinking  and use of maps and signs by location  services-based navigation), we can estimate the power of these “swapping” processes.

How to identify and predict the “digital native potential” for educational  innovation

In order to identify  and predict developments, we would need to know more about the digital life history of an individual  learner,  as  well  as of  groups  of learners  or  cohorts.  At  this  moment,  we  can  only  make  raw assumptions  based  on actual  behaviour.  However,  we normally  cannot  distinguish  whether this behaviour  is based  on a familiarity  from the beginning  or on a change  process  of the original habits  of use. Therefore,  a more narrative, life-history approach in identifying the individual experiences  and tool use of our learners seems to be a core prerequisite.  Based on this and a verified typology  of different digital native tribes, we are able to predict the future composition  of aims, preferences  and competences  earlier and with more precision.

How to use the “digital  native  potentials” to drive educational innovation including structural, institutional innovation and the “learning culture”

The  easiest  way  to use  the  motivational  and  competence  potential  of learners  is to allow  the  individual  to choose from among different alternatives  of behaviour, not only identifying personal preferences  but also testing those preferences  against  their use in reality. Comparing different  options  in a sound self-awareness process and diagnosing  personal  competences  and wishes,  learners  in an interactive  process come up with preferred behaviours.  These “rich choice situations” and the provision of reliable, valid feedback provide the best basis for fostering educational  innovation  through bottom-up  processes  from single learners. It is, of course, not trivial to introduce, create  and cultivate  a climate  and culture  of learner  choices  in institutional  environments, in which prescription  of  behaviour  has  such  a long  and strong  tradition. Nevertheless, the  priority of approaches  to change these traditions and habits seems to be to facilitate innovation.

How to use productively  asynchronous  “digital native potentials” and learner heterogeneities at large

First,  it is necessary  to identify,  understand  and assess  the level  and nature  of heterogeneities to be found among  individual  learners, groups  of  learners  or  populations   of  learners.  It  is  necessary  to  detect  which elements  of this heterogeneity  under which conditions can lead to a fruitful exchange  of knowledge,  attitudes and  values  among  peers,  in  order  to  broaden  the  perspective   and  therefore   the  opportunities   for  each individual.  Secondly  it  is  necessary  to  ask  to  what  extent  such  heterogeneity   is  complicating,   avoiding  or blocking the necessary flow of communication and exchange of experiences  and opinions. Again, this balance/optimisation  is   not   a  trivial  process.   Identifying   and   reacting   appropriately   to   the   amount   of heterogeneity  in groups of learners, focusing on the individual differences  rather than on the homogeneities, is an important element of systemic innovation in these three territories.

How to take advantage of the “digital native potential” for application to policy top-down decision processes

Usually, decision-makers and learners in school, VET and teacher training have quite a different “digital native status”  compared  to educational beneficiaries. Taking  as an example  decision-makers in the three territories over  the past  decade,  we can see  from  the outset  a dominance of policy-makers  who  had been “analogue natives.” This  experience   of  partially  immigrating   into  the  digital  universe  only  in  later  life characterised decisions,  whereby  digital  means were mostly  seen as a more effective,  cheaper  or more flexible  means  for realising traditional  metaphors  (such as virtual classrooms,  online  courses, web tutorials,  etc.). This gap was bridged partly by those “analogue natives” who had the opportunity  to gain access through family relations (in a process  of “backwards-heritage”) from  their  daughters,  sons or  nephews  respectively,   in  order  to  become “semi-digital  natives.”  Our current  situation is characterised  by a generation  change  of policy-makers, where more and more decision-makers  are  joining the game, and  they  might  be  classified   in our scheme  as “mainframe natives” or even “Amiga/Pacman-semi-natives.” They have more genuine  digital experiences  or at least part of those genuine  experiences. Therefore,  the gap between  them and current ten- to fifteen-year-old natives is decreasing.

These considerations have two consequences: firstly, policy-makers  should be encouraged  to be more attentive to the younger generations (particularly  in relation to the media culture), observing them, asking them questions and learning about their perspective  on digital potentials. Secondly,  an attempt should be made to attract more young policy-makers  to the field of education  policy in order to gain their viewpoint,  at least partially, using the potential of “digital nativeness heterogeneity” as an analogy in the process of educational policy-making.

e-Learning, Lifelong Learning and Innovation in the working world

Stefania Aceto and Claudio Dondi

Scienter

Contributors: Roberto Carneiro (Universidade Católica Portuguesa) and Claudio Delrio (Scienter)

1   Introduction

While  in  the  year  2000  e-learning  was  perceived  as  a  single  mega-trend  for  education  systems  and  the corporate  world,  experience has  shown  that the  purpose,  pedagogical  models  (or rather  learning  heritage), organisation  and economic assumption  of e-learning were extremely diverse, not only according to the learning sub-system   (school,   higher  education,   vocational   training,   corporate   professional  development   and  adult learning),  but also  according  to the visions  of the world  that those  in charge  of promoting  and designing  e-learning systems had in mind.

Such diversity  in what HELIOS  calls “e-learning  territories”  (HELIOS  2006) has resulted  in a perceived  loss of meaning  of  the  term,  too broad  to  represent realities  that  have  very  little  in  common,  except  the  use  of technology.

This article provides an in-depth analysis of the relationship  between e-learning, lifelong learning and innovation in the working world, as a result of the comparative  analysis of three e-learning territories, which are developing within and around  the world of work and combining features  of formal,  non-formal and informal  learning,  i.e.: inter-organisational  learning,   e-learning   in   the   workplace   and   professional  learning   networks.   A  short description of these territories is provided below:

1. e-learning  in  the  workplace:  use  of  ICT  for  learning  in  the  corporate  sector  and  public administration/agencies. Differences  in the scope and delivery  schemes  of e-learning  between  the public and corporate sector prevail mainly due to the organisation structures  and practices and the related human resource policies. In general, e-learning may take the form of structured training programmes  fully online or blended    schemes    (complemented  with   seminar/classroom-based   training),    e-learning    chunks    on demand/on  the  job.  The  driving  concerns  related  to  most  of  these  e-learning offers  are  the  return  on investment  (emerging also in the public sector), the increased access and flexibility in training delivery, and the  contribution  of e-learning  to achieving organisational  change  and  fostering  knowledge  management practices. In this territory, the slow emergence  of communities of practice approaches  can also be observed in the most sophisticated  organisations.
2. Inter-organisational development  through e-learning:  inter-organisational development  can be described as a  cooperative  relationship   between  organisations   that  does  not  rely  on  the  market   or  hierarchical mechanism   of  control,  but  is  instead negotiated   in  an  ongoing  communicative process.   Cooperation between  organisations  has come  into focus  in recent  years  with the recognition  that success  in a global economy comes from innovation  and sharing ideas. The more change there is in its environment,  the more connections  an organisation  needs with the outside world. e-learning, given the networking possibilities  that it enables, is increasingly  used for the purpose of inter-organisational development.
3. Professional  learning networks: a professionally  oriented virtual community  is geared towards professionals and/or facilitates dialogue  on professional issues. Professionals  participate  in these types of community  in order to network  with peers and exchange/share/build information  and knowledge.  In these communities, learning is intentionally enhanced in order to achieve professional development goals (although non-professionally  related learning may be a side effect).

2   Changing relationships between working and learning

• The innovation required for the successful introduction  of e-learning;
• The innovation that e-learning helps to develop in working processes.

In relation to the first point, several authors underline the fact that, whatever the e-learning territory, the more the introduction of e-learning is accompanied by an e-learning strategy supported by the management and the entire organisation/network, the more beneficial and relevant it can be to organisational needs. In this respect, a widely accepted change management model is that known as ADKAR (Laura Overton 2004). This is based on a five-stage process: awareness, desire, knowledge, ability and reinforcement. The figure below illustrates how this model works.

Figure 1: The Adkar Model

The awareness stage determines the need for change and the desire stage focuses on generating a desire to participate and support the change. Knowledge is concerned with determining how to change, which results in the ability to implement the requirements of such change, be these new skills and behaviours or procedures and processes. The reinforcement phase is critical to sustaining the change post-implementation and, in e-learning terms, would relate to the provision of support and personal satisfaction, for instance.

In a perpetual state of transformation, the enterprise is constantly reviewing and analysing its business needs to ensure that it is always aware of any need for change. The assumption  of this model is that a change management strategy (involving e-learning or not) can be more effective if all of these steps are followed.

Other authors have devoted more attention to the specific issue of introducing e-learning into organisations and fostering networks or inter-organisational relations.

According  to the guide entitled  “Leadership  and management  of e-learning  projects”,  developed  in the framework of the eTTnet project, “By far the biggest requirement is ongoing support from management.” (eTTnet 2003) Other authors suggest that (although crucial) this is only the first step.

For instance, Pam Pervenanze (2008) illustrates an approach for the successful incorporation of e-learning into the organisational/inter-organisational strategy, based on the following steps:

• “Link e-learning goals with business goals;
• Ensure support from top management;
• Work with your IT Department to develop an understanding of your baseline technologies;
• Work with your IT Department to establish standards for working together;
• Create a plan to help your training department handle the change;
• Determine e-learning specifications;
• Determine how you will measure the results;
• Prepare a rollout plan”.

• “Marketing: A major part of the implementation plan should accommodate a detailed marketing strategy. This strategy should not differ from the overall company culture and business marketing initiatives.Employees should “feel” the effort made by management to embrace them as valuable contributors to the bottom line.
• Training: Teaching new skills is critical to keeping employees motivated and productive and, ideally, companies must be introduced to a learning mechanism that allows learners to study in a way best suited to their needs, whether that is facilitated by a mentor or self-paced.
• Return on investment: This is just one very important component to consider when determining the success of a learning programme.
• Culture of the organisation: For e-learning to have a chance for long-term success, companies need to look at their employees’ current learning culture. In other words, can learners pace themselves or do they need tutors? They also need to look at how training was done in the past - was it instructor-led or self-paced training? Based on this, companies can address the process of how, in a new learning environment, workers and customers will learn, and must define how the organisation will invite, instruct, assess, stimulate, certify and enhance the performance of workers through this new learning process.”

When it comes to the issue of the innovation that e-learning helps to achieve, there is not quite as much literature available. This is explained by Leslie Mackenzie-Robb, who argues that, “In reality, e-learning projects seek and get no more than a top level sanction (mainly because of the budgets involved), and are not seen by senior management as tools for enterprise change. They are seen as tools for enterprise cost-cutting and pragmatism.” (Mackenzie Robb 2004)

This is due to the fact that companies associate innovation with products, services and processes, but not often with learning. Rather than being used to shape innovation, e-learning is used to accompany  and, more frequently, follow it.

However, the participants in the Helios survey (2006) on e-learning and organisational change seemed to be much more open about the innovation that e-learning can foster or contribute to fostering.

Over 80% of the respondents taking part in the survey agreed that e-learning changes the way training and learning is organised. Around 60% of the respondents agreed that the introduction of e-learning also has an impact on changing the vision or strategy of organisations, the organisational culture, the way in which the organisation operates and social relations within the organisation. On the other hand, only around one-third of respondents agreed that e-learning could actually affect the way in which the organisation is structured.

Public policies as well as public and private initiatives and pilot initiatives supporting innovation in this field have to tackle three kinds of frustration in relation to unrealistic/naïve expectations:

The frustration of large companies: convergence between e-learning and knowledge management did not take place: e-learning has become common practice in large organisations, but has not matched the knowledge management challenge. It has not gone into the area of tacit knowledge, but has simply been associated with explicit and “packaged” knowledge. e-learning is used to do what was done in the classroom for less money, but it is not used for innovation or change management. The connection between learning and innovation is missing.

The frustration of SMEs: e-learning was regarded, especially in the early days, as the solution to all SME training problems. The building up of social capital among SMEs and their service providers is a challenge that was frequently lost in past years. Increased competition, often reduced public funding, over-managed and under-led public initiatives: all these factors partially explain some of the failures, but the basic cultural problem that was not properly addressed when formulating the expectations was the lack of collaborative attitudes within SMEs when an immaterial and badly managed phenomenon such as learning is concerned. It is likely that there was no sense of urgency to learn together and/or there was not sufficient stimulation on the part of most of the initiatives. The proposed e-learning supply may have offered cost-effective solutions to ordinary problems but often did not match the emotional side of the motivation to invest in learning. It was probably not sufficiently associated to what SME leaders considered really valuable for their development or critical to their survival. This area of e-learning has not been studied in depth, so it is difficult to determine whether awareness of the problems is widespread and whether other diagnostic approaches and conclusions are available.

The frustration of professional  networks: individuals  do not always learn and share their experiences  in innovative ways through e-learning. Moreover, collaborative learning is not growing as quickly as expected. Some experiences  exist but are reserved for high-profile professionals, whereas relatively flat e-learning models are predominant, distributing the knowledge of more experienced and research-oriented professionals to other members of the professional community.

Other issues to be taken into consideration and dealt with are:

• Institutional hierarchies matter greatly in the diffusion and introduction of innovation in companies.
• Age and gender are also very important. A diversity management issue is also emerging. Recognising the value of difference must be seen as a way of fostering innovation and HRD.
• The role of trainers and learning facilitators must be considered: in this cluster, trainers have evolved faster than in formal education, from a role of transmission to a supporting role. It is more natural for them to adapt to change, since they are often employees of the company, borrowed for use as trainers.
• “Camouflage innovation”: a lot depends on how innovation is labelled. There are several “hidden innovation rivers”, not led by the organisation hierarchy, that produce conditions for future change and already practice innovative  working and learning processes.  One example is the increasing  use of social networking platforms by employees during working hours: is this a real danger for the productivity of the workforce or could it be used as a learning resource with the adoption of new and innovative organisational and learning strategies?

3  Recommendations

• Convey the message that participating in e-learning can provide leverage for organisational change and innovation in companies, since companies associate innovation with products, services and processes, but not often with learning or e-learning.
• Consider the specificities of public administrations (PAs). The lazy adoption of e-learning in PAs (more often than not introduced with a top-down approach and resulting mainly in IT or procedure-related courses) is an issue, as well as the very low motivation on the part of the learners and poor investment choices on the part of the PAs. The introduction of e-learning in the public sector should be associated with a reward system for improved performance.
• Recognising the value of prior learning in companies is fundamental and should be further promoted with a European dimension.
• The ageing society is an important factor to be considered when estimating the extent to which ICT can support learning and innovation within and among organisations.
• Training of trainers and learning facilitators should also be promoted in relation to their activity as peer mentors  in professional networks,  or as catalysts of inter-organisational relations,  and their training experiences should be valued.
• Bottom-up innovation should be closely monitored to enhance its positive impact and the challenges that it implies should be anticipated/faced. For instance, the issue of how and to what extent social networking can be exploited for learning purposes within the working context should be investigated to transform a potential organisational danger (in terms of productivity) into a key learning asset.
  
  

  References eTTnet consortium (2003). Leadership and management of e-learning projects. http://ettnet.trainingvillage.gr/default.asp?section=33 Headlines PR (2003). Corporates must embrace change management when embarking on e-learning strategy. http://www.itweb.co.za/office/masterskill/0303100808.htm HELIOS Consortium (2006). Is e-learning contributing to organisational change? 5th Helios thematic report http://www.education-observatories.net/helios/reports/HELIOSthematicreport.doc Learnovation Consortium (2008). Cluster 2 report. http://www.elearningeuropa.info/files/lo/LO-Cluster2.pdf Laura Overton Associates (2004). Linking Learning to Business, Bizmedia, UK Mackenzie-Robb, L. (2004). E-Learning and Change Management – The Challenge. http://www.vantaggio-learn.com/Vantaggio_CM.htm Pervenanze P. (2008). Creating your e-learning strategy. http://www.e-learningguru.com/wpapers/create_strategy.pdf

  
  
  

New Horizons for Higher Education through e-learning

Andras Szucs

EDEN

Contributors: Claudio Dondi and Claudio Delrio (Scienter)

1 Introduction

The past decade in the field of higher education has been marked by initiatives of historical significance. These strategic endeavours were the Bologna process on higher education, the Lisbon strategy of the European Union and the related eEurope, e-learning and lifelong learning initiatives and programmes.

Over the past few years, the world of higher education has been the subject of intensive challenges. In an accelerated,  globalised environment, the pressure to perform  placed  on institutions  and graduates  by employers and the corporate sector has increased. This pressure has resulted in an increase in efficiency, restructuring and innovation, but it has also contributed to strengthening flexibility.

There is increasingly intensive competition in the professional and social space, which is now occupied by higher education, both from the corporate education and training side and from the side of other educational sectors. The internationalisation element has also strengthened and reinforced global competition among universities.

According to Curran, e-learning strategies adopted by universities have been approaching the core issue from the perspective of three common objectives:

• Widening access to educational opportunity;
• Enhancing the quality of learning;
• Reducing the cost of higher education.

Evolved distance education is an increasingly common term used in the sense of traditional, professional, well-established distance education settings, such as open universities, which have been evolving continuously by integrating new approaches supported by ICTs. Whilst open and distance universities put the main emphasis on the learning organisation and instructional design approach, with the increasing performance, availability and affordability of ICT-based tools, the way in which they function has been changing considerably through the integration of e-learning elements.

As far as the innovation aspect is concerned, distance learning has always been characterised by creativity on the part of the educators and administrators who provide distance study programmes, characterised by access, choice and flexibility options for students.

2  State of the art – and the way leading to It

What was expected?

Since the mid-nineties, there has been a sort of ongoing enthusiasm concerning the potential and impact of ICTs in learning. The arguments were related to efficiency, cost-effectiveness and access issues with the traditional ICT-supported training approach. Later on, the model of learning in networked systems became a cutting edge concept.

It is worth recalling the approach of the EU Minerva programme in the late nineties, which recommended the “critical and responsible use of technologies” regarding the use of new ICT tools in distance learning.

ICTs have formed part of the expectations regarding the large-scale transformation of higher education, which was expected to become more inclusive, international and flexible. Less emphasis was put on innovation; however, the change in learning systems was part of the accompanying conceptual and strategic expectations.

Techno-positivism has also been present in the field of evolved distance learning, but has been counterbalanced by solid methodology  and pedagogical traditions: instructional design, distance and open learning solutions have been proving their relevance in a well-established institutional and organisational environment. The access issue was a strong argument, along with expectation regarding the impact of information technologies.

The progressive vision of “mega-universities” (John Daniel) has formed part of leading concepts in the field, shifting the focus of interest to the extension of the distance learning and institutional e-learning system, as well as to the new approach to the more efficient use of methods and toolkits.

Highlighting lessons learned in the context of large-scale programmes  in institutions, progress in terms of establishing a public reputation and academic credibility in distance education has been an important element. The concept was also intended to communicate the fact that such large-scale international institutions could help to recognise that distance education was widely acknowledged and accepted as an effective delivery tool in most countries.

In attempting to create a cost-effective means of delivering knowledge in line with the mega-university concept, economies  of scale and other industrial models for producing  education  have been applied, whilst also acknowledging the fact that lifelong learners require specific instruction that meets their needs. The principles of product leadership, customer intimacy and operational excellence,  as well as learner support, have been important in the development of new distance education endeavours.

Particularly  in the e-hype period, there were significant expectations  about e-learning and its potential to support virtual mobility, with the hope that it would form part of the greater transformation of higher education, becoming more inclusive, more international and more flexible.

The following innovation paradigms in virtual mobility can be identified:

• Mobility of identities in a new space called virtual space or cyberspace
• The process of virtual cooperation of learning providers
• The mobility of learners or learning facilitators
• The mobility of learning devices such as “learning that follows you” or mobile learning (which is not, however, associated with virtual mobility in mainstream research)

The EU e-learning programme helped to structure and conceptualise the broad spectrum of different efforts and schemes. The lifelong learning strategy and programme confirmed the approach of support for open and flexible  learning  solutions,  including  technology-supported learning.  The  overarching  Lisbon strategy supplemented this by creating and maintaining an atmosphere of progress and modernisation.

Improving  and implementing  pedagogical  approaches  that support self-organised  learning and utilise the potential provided by information and communication technologies and e-learning in lifelong learning are seen as concrete means of contributing to the Lisbon strategy.

ICT-supported learning was welcomed by higher education institutions as a strong modernisation message. Education  policy-makers  liked it because  of the progressive  perspectives  and assumed  transformation potential. In the public sphere, huge investment programmes were needed and implemented for equipment and networking infrastructure developments.

With access and quality as keywords relating to the international urgency for serious “university renewal” in the context of booming cross-border education expectations,  new willingness among education providers was required to redefine models for delivering knowledge. Political attitudes towards higher education have put pressure on government and regulatory groups to promote policies for lifelong learning while cutting costs and increasing availability.

In the hierarchical, somewhat conservative, elitist atmosphere of universities, the increasingly better positioning of lifelong learning and technology-supported (mostly atypical) teaching solutions, along with the gradual acknowledgement of distance education, has brought open learning, distance learning and e-learning out of the ghetto. The incorporation of e-learning concepts into institutional strategies and increasingly national policies has also confirmed the move into the mainstream.

In support of the modernisation  of education, large-scale  public investments  in computer technology  and networking infrastructure were made at practically all of the institutional levels, but probably most intensively in higher education. In the meantime, the development of pedagogy and methodology and course development issues lagged behind considerably.

The emergence of lifelong learning has ensured a natural supportive environment  for the field of evolved distance learning.  The massive public investments  in IT equipment  and networking  infrastructure  in the education  and  training  sector  have  supported  the  establishment  of  a technology  background.  Partly spontaneous, partly organised, the supported development of digital literacy and skills (among potential users and teachers) contributed to the dissemination and expansion of sophisticated solutions.

What happened?

With easier and cheaper access to higher performance ICT tools and networks, we can observe a proliferation of creative (initially experimental or pilot, but later integrated) ICT solutions. The high performance solutions on the market became more and more affordable, the technical performance of tools dramatically improved and the spectrum  of solutions  widened.  There has been a relatively  slow but huge penetration  of different technology tools and solutions in learning and teaching practice. As a rule, this has come from the students, the users, and has been initiated to a lesser extent by the teachers or the institutions.

The ever stronger diffusion of increasingly sophisticated ICT solutions is changing the governing praxis and, slowly, the institutional structures. A sort of spontaneous penetration of ICTs in the learning domain has been accelerating  beyond expectations.  The non-institutional progression and adaptation pathways,  as well as individual and informal actions, have played an important role.

One decade ago, it was stated that it would be more accurate to regard the growth of e-learning as a process of evolution rather than as a revolution. Nowadays, it seems that expectations about the revolution were somewhat  exaggerated, linked to ambitious  early e-learning visions. It was also expected that, with the development of e-learning, most higher education institutions would develop and implement a strategy for its use. This expectation probably still sounds too ambitious.

Nevertheless, recent analyses and system critics acknowledge that, at undergraduate level, ICT-supported solutions are largely supplementary to classroom teaching. ICT is primarily used to support existing teaching structures and traditional ways of tuition.

The roll out process may currently be observed: moving on from small-scale use by early adopters, more universities implement projects that roll out e-learning across the entire university population and courses.

The incorporation of the e-learning 2.0 approach into mainstream education did not progress as intensively as initially expected. Meanwhile, in the informal learning field, the collaborative behaviour of learners and the related tools developed. Positive progress was observed in the quality and accreditation of e-learning in higher education.

With the IT transformation-driven change  of the traditional  research  structures,  new collaboration  and networking concepts and approaches emerged. New technology and methodology paradigms have transformed the scenario of learning solutions (social web, exploratory learning), accompanied  by learning games and infotainment.

While many universities see lifelong learning as an emerging priority, there is little evidence that strategic actions have been taken to consider their missions or to anticipate the challenges ahead. Questions arise regarding the recognition of prior learning, which needs to be addressed. The implementation of Bologna reforms seems to have taken priority over developing lifelong learning strategies.

In relation to access, while almost all institutions  consider increasing  participation  to be important,  their expectations in terms of being able to contribute to this development are rather low. This demonstrates the importance of government policy in this area and the need for incentives, all the more so given the obligation felt by many institutions to improve competitiveness by attracting the best students; they sometimes falsely believe that this precludes improving the diversity of the student base.

Evolved distance learning, particularly from the perspective of open and distance universities, has maintained its position and most of its prestige. The response to the modernisation demand and digital challenge differed depending on the country. In the meantime, one can recognise the emergence of the generation of ICT-based development programmes in all institutions, which have a clear impact on the organisational and institutional strategies.

It is acknowledged that user habits and distance learner profiles are changing  significantly, with high expectations for engagement. Many of the e-learning 2.0 trends are closely related to the change in user habits in ICT. The Internet as the platform, or the multi-device oriented system, changes the concept of studying in any place and at any time. However, these tools in many cases are only used as repositories of educational examples, resources, videos, links, or files.

Whilst  the increasing  dominance  of e-learning  in distance  education  (DE)  and a certain  convergence phenomenon can be observed, the use of ICTs as a learning resource and communication tool has not quite been distinguished from e-learning. Meanwhile, the traditional paper-based DE has almost disappeared, and mainly electronic (evolved) DE can be observed.

This has occurred in two ways:

1. Digital delivery of “printed” material
2. Re-engineering of the former curricula and material to offer online interactive resources with a variety of support, communication and face-to-face opportunities.

In higher education, institutional structures still tend not to allow managers and university directors to invest serious money and human resources in developments  needed to achieve interactive self-paced material. Therefore, e-learning is often built into the tuition process, according to academic traditions. In the meantime, knowledge centre networking has been weaker than expected, and the expected virtualisation of universities did not really develop either.

Regarding virtual mobility, there is no real elaborated policy in this domain – the only exceptions are the achievements of some EU projects. The aim of equality in terms of access to international higher education has practically been forgotten. Only a few universities are really committed to virtual mobility in a longer-term perspective. Student associations are not opposed to the idea, but are not particularly supportive of it either.

Problematic parts and weak points in related policies and innovative practices include the fact that there has indeed been no real policy and financial support, and it is still difficult to make universities from different countries agree on content and methods. The lack of integration in the Bologna process agenda is also a problem.

3  What is the new interpretation on the role of ICTs in innovation?

While distance-learning and distributed learning continue to expand, e-learning encompasses far more. Not only does it involve methods for mass or long-distance dissemination of courses or materials to students, but it also places an emphasis  on enhancing  active learning, research-led learning and teaching, small-group teaching, and collaborative work. The focus is on fostering student independence, self-reliance, self-motivation, critical abilities, creativity and other characteristics.

The application of new technologies to the existing academic activities is becoming a standard element of institutional practice. Students naturally expect the availability and seamless functioning of such tools and services. The efficient central provision of facilities and support is a precondition for the successful adoption, integration, and development of e-learning practices, whilst the departments continue to work at their own developments and the institutional policy must accommodate those needs as well. Recognising and evaluating the benefits and costs of e-learning is an essential step and forms an integral part of institutional practice.

The recent term rhizomatic learning refers to the collective intelligence and rich user experiences that affect the concept of authority in educational systems. Dave Cormier (Rhizomatic Education: Community as Curriculum) refers to a “rhizomatic-knowledge creation process” that is overtaking traditional models. (A rhizomatic plant has no centre and no defined boundary; rather, it is made up of a number of semi-independent nodes, each of which is capable of growing and spreading on its own.) The term encapsulates a sort of fluid, transitory concept; the dense, multi-dimensional development and integration of several different sets of tools and approaches, appearing in diverse forms under separate settings, using all the multidimensional networking information technology tools, the social web, etc.

We should notice that the strength and the weakness of this approach is at the same time, that the content and the competence are legitimated by the collaboration in the networked system.

4  Recommendations

• Education systems are presently determined in the context of globalisation: systems are judged against the performances of education systems elsewhere, thus constant discussion with others and benchmarking performance against that of others is a necessity. Creativity, innovation and competitiveness are essential context elements. The demographic context is increasingly significant in the EU. The scarce resources must be used in a sustainable way.
• The strategic choices for education policy in the EU include a commitment to life-long learning and the necessary implementation of student-centred learning. ICT has much to offer to student-centred learning. In the evolved DE sector, due to its close relations to distance learning, these elements have been strongly present from the beginnings.
• Web-based tools are rapidly becoming the norm and content  is accessed  via  portable  devices. Technologically mediated communication, fluency in information and visual and technological literacy are becoming the norm; however, such literacy is not formally taught to students. The proliferation of tools that enable co-creation, mashups, remixes and instant self-publication is recreating the traditional model of academic publication.
• The gap between students’ and faculty members’ perception of technology continues to widen. The renewed emphasis on collaborative learning is pushing the educational community to develop new forms of interaction and assessment. Higher education is facing a growing expectation to deliver services, content and media to mobile and personal devices. Education and training institutions should be prepared (many of them are already) to integrate this into their course delivery portfolio.
• Quality assurance has much to contribute to both lifelong learning and student-centred learning. Ways of identifying and certifying non-formal or informal learning should be found and it should be possible to assess credibly what has been learned.
• New business models are needed and education has to become pioneering itself by developing innovative tools for teaching and learning.  Technology  and structural developments  are also supported by the emergence of new business models and situations, moreover by the uptake of financial capital in the sector.
• On the social side, the subject of the digital divide, particularly that related to the age gap, has been receiving greater attention.
• Significant shifts in academia, research, creative expression and learning create a need for innovation and leadership at all levels. Institutions are faced with a need to provide formal instruction regarding information, visual and technological literacy, as well as how to create meaningful content with today’s tools.
• From a technology perspective, the following areas seem to be most important at present:
  
  
  • Technology: mobile e-learning; faster speeds via broadband  and satellite; improved computer power and affordability.
  • Courseware: improved delivery systems that are compatible across computer platforms.
  • Digital literacy: greater investment in opportunities for people to step on to the e-learning platform.
  
  The increasing performance of tools and networks  has resulted  in an increasingly structured  and institutionalised impact on delivery and access, but also on the functioning of educational institutions and systems. The emphasis has shifted towards acceleration of the broadband, access, ubiquitous and personalised learning issues, etc. Web 2.0 and social networking tools are increasingly being adopted for educational use. Access to and portability of content is increasing as smaller, more powerful devices are introduced.
  
  Calendars, contact databases, photo and music collections, etc. are increasingly and commonly stored on mobile devices. The effect of new displays and increased access to web content through the new devices can be observed.
• The momentum of the existing increased attention to virtual mobility in order to build intercultural dialogue, support the internationalisation of curricula and promote cooperation with third country universities (as an alternative to “brain-draining” strategies) should be maintained. Within the EU, virtual mobility is starting to be seen as a potential component of the Bologna process, bringing together joint titles in a cooperative way (rather than relying upon recognition of national degrees in different countries).
• At universities, in support of virtual mobility, there is a need to provide good information and advisory services. Better use should be made of technology for the better integration of existing services, particularly essential business services.
  
  

  References EUA – European Universities Implementing Bologna http://www.eua.be/fileadmin/user_upload/files/EUA1_documents/Trends%20IV _executive_summary_EN.1114611767481.pdf EUA – Universities Shaping the European Higher Education Area: http://www.eua.be/fileadmin/user_upload/files/Publications/Trends_V_universities_shaping _the_european_higher_education_area.pdf An E-learning Strategy for the University of Warwick http://www.warwick.ac.uk/ETS/Publications/papers.htm E-learning in Europe: Moving Forward, Viv Bell and Andrew Rothery, University of Worcester http://eprints.worc.ac.uk/203/1/EUNISARVB2007.pdf Curran: Strategies for E-Learning in Universities http://eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/contentdelivery/ servlet/ERICServlet?accno=ED492532 A preliminary study on the current state of e-learning in lifelong learning Cedefop, 2006 http://www2.trainingvillage.gr/etv/publication/download/panorama/5169_en.pdf Bartolomé, Antonio (2008): Web 2.0 and New Learning Paradigms. eLearning Papers Nº 8. ISSN: 1887-1542. www.elearningpapers.eu Megatrends in E-Learning Provision http://www.nettskolen.com/in_english/megatrends/ Dave Cormier: Rhizomatic Education - Community as Curriculum http://innovateonline.info/?view=article&id=550 Mega-Universities and Knowledge Media: Technology Strategies for Higher Education. J. S. Daniel. London: Kogan Page 1996 David Porter. Innovations, trends, and creativity in distance learning - Using the social fabric of the web as a strategic lens to monitor trends and innovations http://www.bccampus.ca/Assets/BCcampus+Whitepapers/Innovations$!2c+Trends$!2c+and+Creativity+in+Distance+Learning+report

  
  

Informal learning in the era of Web 2.0

1  Introduction

This article focuses on individual development through e-learning and learning in communities. Individual development through e-learning ranges from education to training-related activities, together with any other technology-enhanced learning activities not necessarily  mediated by formal educational institutions. Participation in online communities can produce both intentional and unintentional learning. The latter occurs when communities do not foresee learning as their main objective but generate learning as a side effect. The three e-learning territories that this article covers are:

Individual development through e-learning involves education and training-related activities mainly at home, together with any other technology-enhanced learning activities not necessarily  mediated by formal E&T institutions. This territory is characterised by non-formal learning processes and especially by means of informal learning activities.

Learning communities are communities organised by individuals or groups of people to meet, share and learn about a specific subject. The learning taking place is non-formal, in the sense that it is not mediated by a teaching institution. The learning purpose is explicitly perceived and agreed on by the members, although not necessarily leading to formal recognition. Learning taking place in these communities may contribute to the development of skills and competences for the workplace, but also for private and social life.

Communities generating learning as a side effect do not foresee learning as their main objective. Establishing a relationship with other members of these communities is prompted first and foremost by a common interest or common value commitment resulting from either geographical or intellectual proximity, demographic similarity, common hobbies, belonging to the same NGO or charity, to name a few. These communities may take the form of popular chat rooms, blogs and fora in which informal learning takes place.

The constantly developing Internet environment has been shaped over the past years by applications and services based on Web 2.0 technologies.  This is changing how we obtain, share, create, and organise information, communicate and participate and, through these activities, how we learn.

This article presents the findings of the Learnovation territory reports dealing with informal learning in both individual and collaborative contexts. The paper shows the recent changes and developments that have shaped informal  learning  opportunities  and the ways in which innovation is fostered.  The article concludes  by presenting recommendations that should be taken into account to enhance and support informal learning and innovative development within informal learning.

2  Informal learning in the Knowledge Society

What do we mean by informal learning?

According to the vocational training policy (Tissot 2004) terminology, informal learning is:

“Learning resulting from daily activities related to work, family or leisure. It is not organised or structured (in terms of objectives, time or learning support). IL is in most cases unintentional from the learner’s perspective. It typically does not lead to certification.”

Furthermore, according to the European Commission (2000) “Informal learning is a natural accompaniment to everyday life. Unlike formal and non-formal learning, informal learning is not necessarily intentional learning, and so may well not be recognised even by individuals themselves as contributing to their knowledge and skills.”

Unlike formal and institutionalised learning, informal learning is not organised or structured, nor is it necessarily intentional  from the learner’s perspective, and it can be said that informal learning is characterised  by “unintentional learning” contrary to expected learning outcomes. All of this makes informal learning a barely- defined or investigated  area of learning. From a business  point of view, training solutions can provide comfortable offers for expected and intentional learning; however, when it comes to unintentional informal learning, it is difficult to establish the exact target users/clients and the appropriate solutions. Different sources claim that up to 70-90% of all learning activity is informal.

The following table sets out the main differences between formal and informal learning:

Table 1: Formal vs. informal learning (European Commission 2001)

The information society that surrounds us provides endless informal learning opportunities. New technologies have  made  information searching and processing  faster  and easier,  and the efficient  publication  and dissemination mechanisms contribute to a broader circulation of information. This is explored further in the following section.

New ways for learning citizens

When Time magazine declared “you” as the person of the year in 2006, it focused the spotlight on the role of people to promote issues they consider important and the crucial role that technology can play in the process of individual empowerment.

“It's a story about community and collaboration on a scale never seen before. It's about the cosmic compendium of knowledge Wikipedia and the million-channel people’s network YouTube and the online metropolis MySpace. It's about the many wresting power from the few and helping one another for nothing and how that will not only change the world, but also change the way the world changes.” (Time magazine, 2006)

Nowadays, it is impossible to speak or read about the Internet and its social impact without mentioning “Web 2.0”. In the daily life of Internet users, Web 2.0 technologies establish, through blogs and forums, virtual peer-to-peer network sites (professional or non-professional), wikis, bookmarking and sharing tools, tagging, own content creation and distribution portals, etc. Most of these activities support learning in an informal way, which offers people a vast and practically infinite universe of informal learning situations and practices with the aid of Web 2.0. With the aid of these technologies, people can create, share, exchange and remix their own content. The Internet is no longer a medium for learning, but a big playground in which people can search for whatever tools and contents they like.

Peer-learning  and changing  roles in terms  of who teaches  whom  are also typical  of the new virtual environments. The provider-consumer roles are changing, and learning is no longer about “consuming” the learning products, but more about each learner being able to create his/her own knowledge and learn with the aid of versatile resources and peers. For example, in a community, members can co-produce content and learn from the co-production process at the same time.

Furthermore, the activities related to Web 2.0 technologies, including informal learning, have highlighted the rapid development of new innovations, adaptation of new ideas, technologies and trends and their popular use: when a new tool or application is available, it is most probably first tested and used in the informal learning zone by “early birds” rather than in an institutionalised learning context. These new online services are user-centred and often even “user-co-built”.

The following table shows some of the popular applications used by millions of people around the globe.

Individual development through e-learning

Individuals acquire skills and knowledge, but also attitudes and values, from daily experience and from all educational resources and influences in their own environment: at home, at work, through hobbies, through conversations, through the media, etc. Informal learning takes place through spontaneous and self-managed activities.

With the emergence of Web 2.0, the e-learning 2.0 concept was launched rapidly. Advocates of Web 2.0 suggest that the Internet is moving from passive publication to active participation, that the Internet is one of the major knowledge repositories for personal knowledge acquisition (or informal learning) and will consequently put increasing pressure on traditional, formal E&T systems. Furthermore,  it can be assumed that informal learning is already triggering non-formal or even formal learning processes. The following comparative table summarises the characteristics of e-learning 1.0 and 2.0, of which the latter benefits from Web 2.0 technologies.

Table 2: From (e-)Learning 1.0 to (e-)Learning 2.0 (Ehlers et al., 2008)

• Educational  content convergence  is being developed through grassroots-based interest groups, using social computing amongst other things. The effects of these emergent “convergence dynamics” on social relations and on learning (providing opportunities for and barriers to learning) are not yet well understood.
• Recent studies show that, despite significant investment by the EU and Member States, around 43% of EU
  citizens are still classified as “non-participants” in the knowledge society.
• A further alternative position argues that new technologies provide a space for individuals to create a profoundly individuated social space that is insulated from others and external reflection, and is merely centred on “egocasting”.
• A key challenge is to acknowledge  and try to reconcile these conflicting and sometimes paradoxical dynamics within goals based on active citizenship and participation.
• A more difficult set of challenges is faced by technology design when cultural contexts, as well as social relationships, are considered.  Although it is becoming well accepted that social networking technologies require cultural embedding, practical ways of achieving this are not well developed.

Learning through communities

Two types of communities  are addressed here: (non-professional) learning communities  and communities generating learning as a side effect. Both are usually Communities of Practice (CoP). According to Wikipedia, a CoP is a “process of social learning that occurs and shared sociocultural practices that emerge and evolve when people who have common goals interact as they strive towards those goals”.

Web 2.0, which promotes more sophisticated social dynamics online, is not just a technological progress but, more importantly, a social and cooperative “lever” enabling advanced common knowledge creation, sharing and interchanging. This promotes learning and “collective creativity”. Communities of Practice based on Web 2.0 are typically built from the bottom up and they enable more effective exchange of tacit and explicit knowledge and building of personal relationships between individuals and groups that would otherwise be very unlikely to interact. Changing roles, not only in content provision but also in traditional roles of “novice” and “master”, are mixed, and this is replaced by the peer-to-peer approach and recognition system. Most of these Communities of Practice would not exist without the current technology.

The following table illustrates the positive impact that ICT can have on communities:

Table 3. Role of ICT in communities according to Ala-Mutka (2009).

Also, the new technologies  provide versatile and effective means of communicating which affect learning indirectly. Different tools, such as e-mails, mailing lists, blogs, forums, chats, videoconferencing, etc., offer endless means of asynchronous and synchronous communication. The communities can also be much wider and larger, favouring thematic and geographical extension.

The present challenges of communities are twofold: on one hand, policies should seek to better understand the learning dimension embedded in any offline and online community activity and uncap the learning dimension of this work. On the other hand, this should be done discreetly, focusing on transferring learning awareness from sectors in which it takes place openly to others in which it does not. At the same, learning should be made visible  and  available  by fostering knowledge  management  approaches  that  fit with  the  dynamic  and unpredictable nature of today’s communities.

3  Innovation paradigms of informal learning

As mentioned above, Web 2.0 has significantly changed the ways of obtaining, sharing, creating and organising information, communicating and participating, thus favouring informal learning. The following table presents a comparison produced by the HELIOS e-learning 2000 and innovative e-learning 2010 projects. Furthermore, to exemplify the current practices in informal learning, some examples are provided on how Web 2.0 technologies already in use encompass a great deal of the i-e-2010.

Table 4: From e-Learning 2000 to Innovative e-Learning 2010.
Source: HELIOS (2007) + examples of ICT (own adaptation)

• Bottom-up – top-down. The bottom-up approach implies that the initiative to act is taken by the individuals and groups themselves and is not dictated by authorities or directed institutionally. The bottom-up approach is self-managed,  peer-supported and  community-based. This  applies,  for  example,  to self-initiated portfolios, blogs and entire communities starting out as individual or small group initiatives.
• Non-professional – professional.  Activity, and learning through it, takes place outside the professional context, although the skills obtained can naturally also be used professionally. The (learning) needs and objectives can be related to any trivial or day-to-day matter about which a citizen is curious.
• Learning-centred – value-centred.  In value-centred  action, learning is a secondary  output after other purposes and not necessarily formally expressed. Value-centred actions develop a sense of affiliation, e.g. political/environmental/social activity group or a community of people suffering from the same disease.
• Community-driven – individual-driven. These two characteristics are not mutually exclusive, but rather reinforce  one another.  Although  community-driven, the outputs  of an activity  are accomplished  by individuals. Within communities, both the individual and the group dimensions are fostered and, while a member may have personal learning objectives, these interact with and are influenced by other community members and contribute to the “collective intelligence” of the community itself.

4  Conclusions and recommendations

Based on the above, we can present several conclusions that can also serve as recommendations for policy, practice and research.

• Support  for bottom-up,  spontaneous  initiatives.  Balance  between  supporting  bottom-up  community initiatives and institutional inputs to sustain the effectiveness of the communities.
• Broadband access and digital literacy. It is important to continue the support for the acquisition of digital skills and the support of multi-modal (mobile, wireless, cable) access to the Internet for households. It is important to spot and support segments of the population with poor e-skills.
• eInclusion challenge. Make sure that online communities are equally accessible by the entire population, especially when dealing with interaction. This can be done through actions on the provision of general ICT infrastructure to ensure e-access, greater emphasis on issues of e-accessibility and usability aspects, the building of individual capacity or e-skills, e-content and e-services development and the promotion of e-participation, e-democracy and active citizenship.
• Support for content quality. Market dynamics seem to lead the way forward. Most of the applications that enable the creation of these communities and the underlying learning are spontaneously created either by commercial or non-profit entities and, therefore, follow private interests. Support should be given to Open Educational Resources (OER) initiatives and any other scheme that leads to quality content.
• Recognition and certification. Recognition of informal learning and providing certification schemes that have the capacity  to validate  acquired  skills, even if these are acquired  through  informal  learning communities,  should be developed. Learning should be made explicit in these communities  without negatively affecting the attractiveness of these communities.
  
  

  References Ala-Mutka, Kirsti (2009). Learning in Online Spaces and Communities – how, what and when? Presentation at the Learncom expert workshop, 31 March 2009. http://is.jrc.ec.europa.eu/pages/EAP/documents/Session4.pdf Ehlers, U., Riley, D. & Paviotti, G. (2008). QMPP – Quality Management in Peer Production. Quality for e-Learning 2.0: New Quality for New Learning. Presentation given at the Microlearning Conference 2008, “Microlearning & Capacity Building”, University of Innsbruck, 25 – 27 June 2008; URL: http://www.microlearning.org/ml08_prelimprogram.pdf European Commission (2000). A Memorandum on Lifelong Learning. SEC(2000) 1832. http://www.bologna-berlin2003.de/pdf/MemorandumEng.pdf European Commission (2003). Implementation of “Education & Training 2010” Work Programme. Validation of non-formal and informal learning contribution of the Commission Expert Group. http://ec.europa.eu/education/policies/2010/doc/non-formal-and-informal-learning_en.pdf HELIOS (2007). HELIOS yearly report 2007: e-Learning for Innovation. http://www.menon.org/menon/publications/HELIOS%20thematic%20report-%20Access.pdf Tissot, Philippe (2004). Terminology of vocational training policy: A multilingual glossary for an enlarged Europe. Centre for the Development of Vocational Training. Publications of the European Communities. http://europass.cedefop.europa.eu/img/dynamic/c313/cv-1_en_US_glossary_4030_6k.pdf Time magazine (2006). Time's Person of the Year: You. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1569514,00.html