Podcast
Abstract:
In a context where technologies are increasingly
pervasive and where the Internet and social software are the new social
currency for many people, especially the young, there are both new
challenges and opportunities for effectively marrying ICTs and learning, be
it at school, at home or in the workplace.
However, experience has revealed the importance
of giving equal weight to the technologies, to the learning and to the
improvements in learning. The concept of technology-enhanced learning
research has emerged from that experience, shifting from reproducing
classical ways of teaching via technologies to the notion of improvements or
advancements in learning at the core of research.
European co-funded research (about 50 MEur just
over the last 2 years) is an important support for the research community to
advance the state of the art. We see, in turn, learning technologies being
integrated in business processes, corporate knowledge management and human
resource systems, and include performance support and competency-skills
governance. They are deepening the level of individualisation of learning,
i.e. the tailoring of pedagogy, curriculum and learning support to meet the
needs and aspirations of individual learners. Projects are innovating
practices of working with knowledge, transforming ideas and social practices
for problem solving and creativity, for effective decision-making or
facilitating learning in community of practises. Advances in narratives,
virtual characters and storytelling are driving forward the research agenda
on interfaces for learning.
In the years to come, the European Union will
continue its financial support for research on technology enhanced learning,
and will do so fostering a truly cross disciplinary approach, spanning
cognitive science, educational technologies, neuroscience and technological
advances in areas such as cognitive systems, semantic technologies,
interfaces.
However, if technology is truly to enhance
learning in the 21st century, the research community needs to
build a convincing body of evidence so that these new approaches do not
remain the province of research but are accepted and adopted widely by those
who train, those who learn and those who teach.
http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/ict/telearn-digicult/telearn_en.html
Biographical
Information:
Patricia Manson is Head of Unit, Cultural Heritage and Technology
Enhanced Learning in the Directorate General Information Society and
Media of the European Commission. She has worked at the European
Commission since the early 90s on ICT applications areas in the
Community's research programmes and for the past 4 years has been
involved in defining the research agenda and subsequent workprogramme
for technology enhanced learning research and for its implementation
through the funded projects. Prior to joining the Commission she worked
in the UK on a research-funded post providing technology and market
watch, as well as information and advisory services to the cultural
heritage community on the adoption of ICTs.
