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News and Background Information on the Conference | |||
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Reviewing Lifelong Learning Events at Online Educa Berlin 2007
With the help of his young “eyewitnesses”, Carneiro figured out that to him learning is much more than developing cognitive intelligence. He claimed that Europe needs diversified learning activities and new modes of teaching and learning to, in his words, “help drive meaning”. The former Portuguese Education Minister presented what he and his fellow participants recorded in the course of the recently held 2007 European Union E-Learning Conference “eLearning Lisboa” - better anticipation, organisational changes, the empowerment of people to become better managers of their own human capital assets as well as fewer barriers and more inclusion. Ben Janssen from the Dutch “Long Life Learning!” initiative focussed on adult education and the educational demand for skilled employees. He spoke about the advantages Open Educational Resources have in this context, but also about the difficulties in implementing sufficient learning opportunities in the higher education system. “Universities”, he said “are too slow in responding to the current needs of people”. Due to demographic trends, the declining enrolment of young students would not help to fill the yawning gap. According to him, universities tend to offer the same courses to the same age groups and fail to open up to other types of learning and learner groups, such as non-degree retraining courses for adults or gap courses for students not progressing through the traditional learning routes. Access to the educational system should be made easier and more attractive. Thus, a national, innovative, open and flexible infrastructure for adult education has to be developed in order to achieve the quantum leap needed for participation in lifelong learning activities. Open – in this respect – should imply much more than just offering open access to a large content-base. To this date, the course programme of the Open University of the Netherlands has been viewed by 430,000 unique visitors and an increasing number of regular visitors – and the demand is still increasing, he said. Brian Durrant, for his part, was aiming towards invisible ICT in the classroom. He also figured out what is meant by a macro vs. micro approach. In London, his organisation helps 2,600 resident schools to pool their knowledge. What is needed, he said, is a clear approach to management. Furthermore, schools should be capable of installing a self-review framework. Further advantages of the macro or bottom-up approach were simplified standardisation as well as a better economy of scale and effort. “It would take the whole community of schools forward,” Durrant concluded. Rahim Habib, SMART Technologies, Canada, gave an insight into his approach to “E-Learning in a Knowledge-Based World”. He advocates a holistic view whereby teachers receive better training and the quality of available content improves. The ensuing Question and Answer period also showed that the discourse on e-learning and lifelong learning has become essentially content-focussed. In the “Lifelong Learning” session on Thursday, November 29th, these issues were treated even more tangibly. Operational experience while implementing “Digital Terrestrial TV and TV Learning Games in Vocational Training and Lifelong Learning” was the topic of Andrea Lorenzon from Giunti Labs. Giunti Labs has helped an initiative of leading publishers, labour and training organisations and broadcasters in Italy to add several e-learning materials to their Digital Terrestrial Job TV Channel via their e-learning content management technology, learn eXact. Dr Christoph Meier, University of St. Gallen, Switzerland, pointed out what is needed for individualised development planning. His approach centred on assisting users in making comparisons with individually defined peer groups in order to generate and test ideas for training and development activities. The European level of lifelong learning was once more the focus of the presentations given by Thomas Fischer, Institute for Innovation in Learning (FIM-NewLearning), University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany and Brian Holmes. Fischer explained the targets of the European R&D project, EAGLE, or “European Approaches to Inter-Generational Lifelong Learning”, and the many traps people face while establishing new approaches. He, for example, emphasised that learning content and processes should be controlled by the learners themselves, not by the teachers – a key message for everyone involved in developing innovative learning methods. by Nina Wittrock December 11, 2007 |
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A broad range of issues – from school education to training on the job-activities to future learners’ capabilities – was addressed in Online Educa`s “Lifelong Learning” plenary on Friday, November 30th. The plenary did embrace speakers from advanced e-learning nations, like the UK and the Netherlands, as well as present the ideas of a leading technology supporter, the former Portuguese Minister of Education, Prof. Roberto Carneiro. A profound thinker and mastermind in the field of e-driven learning, Carneiro gave an upbeat analysis of Europe’s strategy towards comprehensive e-learning adoption in lifelong learning. The day before, Brian Holmes, Agency for Education, Audiovisual and Culture, Belgium, had pointed out the EU’s lifelong learning strategy in the session “Supporting Lifelong Learning”. His fellows from Germany, Italy and Switzerland also put a strong focus on best-practice examples and strategy realisation.