Interview with Roger Larsen, CEO of Fronter, Norway
Roger Larsen, 33, is the Founder and Managing Director of Fronter, Europe’s largest commercial open source learning platform, with 2.2 million users. Larsen founded Fronter in 1998 based on the idea of making simple-to-use tools for collaboration and learning on the web, with the users and educationalists in control of the development and based on open standards. Simplicity, user control, and openness have therefore become the essence of Fronter’s philosophy and products, which today are used by more than 2000 learning institutions across Europe. Prior to Fronter, Larsen co-founded three Internet companies, all within the development of various web-based applications and services.
www.fronter.com
OEB News Service: Mr Larsen, one laptop per individual, curricula content sharing via Virtual Learning Environments, ICT supported infrastructure, and wireless coverage all over the campus - is this the school of the future and are we prepared for it?
Roger Larsen: The Crossways Academy is definitely one example of a school embedding technology everywhere as a natural part of the everyday teaching and learning. However, with all this technology available, I would dare to say that the Fronter virtual learning environment is what links it all together. My reason for saying this is that the learning platform is the virtual counterpart of the physical school, available from anywhere at any time, and independent of how ICT-penetrated the physical school building is. For me, the school of the future is a school that exists in both the physical learning environment, but more importantly also in the new virtual learning environment.
I would say that any school that understands the real benefits such dual presence will bring about and that is willing to undergo the necessary organisational and cultural changes to implement a learning platform is prepared to become a school of the future. Availability of digital content repositories, a structural approach for implementation, shared lesson plans, online tests and assessments, individual learning plans, digital e-portfolios, and problem-based learning will also be important tools in shaping the school of the future. A reasonably high number of computers and wireless network is also a necessity, but for me not the main measurement of schools of the future. At Crossways Academy they have both!
OEB: In just few years, Fronter has gone from being a great national success in Norway to becoming a recognized player in the field of online learning and collaboration internationally. How have the experience you gained in your home country contributed to Fronter’s international success?
Roger Larsen: I believe there are a number of experiences from Norway that have contributed to Fronter's international growth. I would, however, argue that the most important factor has been our strong culture for sharing and collaboration combined with a preference for "problem-based" learning methods within higher education.
The key to solving problems is the ability to collaborate. As the web is a unique technology for collaboration, educationalists in Norway had an almost "natural" need for web-based tools within learning and collaboration; this became the foundation of Fronter.
Following the strong culture for sharing, very early on Fronter established a reference group consisting of educational specialists within higher education and gave them the mandate to steer the development of the platform. Today Fronter has established this reference group concept in five European countries, as this has proven to be an excellent way to let the users take control of the development of the product.
Furthermore, Norway has a very high penetration of ICT in education. You see this in secondary schools, where there is almost one PC for every two students, and 100% of the schools use a virtual learning environment, which I think is unique. This has given us good opportunities to develop and tailor solutions for the educational community.
And let us not forget that Norway is a country with very long distances and, in some cases extreme weather conditions, which have contributed to creating a natural need for flexible and distant education solutions. Following this, there has always been a large group of early adaptors for new learning technology.
OEB: Judging from your experience, what are the main problems technology providers and educational institutions are facing when ICT is implemented in schools on a large scale with regard to national policies, standards, and e-readiness? Is there a difference between Scandinavian countries, which invest more in education than other countries on the Continent, and their European neighbors? For example, Denmark, Sweden and Norway are investing more than 7% of their GDP in education.
Roger Larsen: I would say the biggest challenges when implementing ICT on a large scale are related to the educational institutions’ willingness and readiness to adopt ICT in education. Organizations need to realize the positive impacts a learning platform - and ICT in general - can have on teaching and learning and on the organization itself. Their willingness as an organization and the willingness among the teachers to implement ICT and the learning platform are therefore vital. However, this is not easy, as it often requires a culture change amongst the users.
Readiness is easier, as this is related to the underlying infrastructure such as PCs and broadband. Provided there is sufficient funding available, readiness can, to a large extent, be acquired.
Obviously, the educational institution is flavored by the national policies, and these play an important role in developing willingness and readiness. However, willingness is about cultural change and must be founded within the organization. The challenge of making the schools ICT willing is always the same, independently of how much investment the country puts into education to make the school system ICT ready.
OEB: The dynamics of Web 2.0 have also raised a discussion amongst education experts as to what extent social software is applicable for learning. The learner is increasingly taking over control and selecting from a wealth of freely available online tools, techniques, sources, and knowledge bases. How does Fronter face these challenges?
Roger Larsen: The wealth of freely available tools and sources is not a new phenomenon. In fact, this is what has always been driving the development of the Fronter platform, as Fronter’s development is steered by our users organized in reference groups. New tools are added to the core platform all the time, but not until the reference groups acknowledge them as valuable for teaching and learning. This way, the platform might not immediately adopt new tools the minute they come out, but will implement or integrate all those that prove to “survive” the early-adaptor phase.
There will always be new ideas, techniques and tools – this year we hear a lot about blogs, wikis, and podcasts. Fronter’s role is to set all these tools into a system, together with “yesterday’s” tools to make sure they integrate, are reliable, safe, scale up, are accessible for disabled users, bug free, etc. - in other words, all those underlying things that are so easily forgotten when the idea is “hot”. For example, a blog is an excellent idea, but how do you guarantee authentication? And how does the blog report back to your e-portfolio?
The trend that users are becoming increasingly in charge of the learning processes and should be able to select amongst a wide variety of tools and resources is part of the Personal Learning Environment concept. Fronter has been adopting this concept for the last couple of years. At the core of the PLE concept, is the e-portoflio, which pulls in information about progress, evidence of activity and work, and which will also allow peer review.
We do not see that “web 2.0” is making any significant change to this development strategy, as we consider “web 2.0” more to be a shared expression for more advanced and dynamic tools on the web. The new “web 2.0” technology enables us to create tools in the web browser with a functionality richness and usability that was previously only available through the PC or Mac desktop. This might change user behavior, but does not change how we develop the platform very much.
OEB: Mr Larsen, thank you very much for your time.
Roger Larsen is speaking in the Opening Plenary on Thursday, November 30 at 9:30.
The interview was conducted by Beate Kleessen from OEB News Service.
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