eLearning in Europe

1

• eLearning in Europe
• Defining challenges - policies and instruments
• Global Utanningsmarked - Nordisk utfordring
• 23/24 September 2004
• Reykjavik

2
eLearning

• Wide definition technologies to support and
  within learning systems and processes formal
  and in/non-formal (including flexible and
  distance) learning
• Integration NOT separate
• Slow adoption and integration
• Technology adoption is within systems and
  processes as they are today
• Even slower systems changes
• Technologies as a lever in change process not
  directly evident

3
Education and training systems

• Still not possible to speak about European
  systems
• Some changes in systems and their role in labour
  market changes (Germany/UK)
• Lifelong learning demand growth
• Pressure to reform supply side of systems
• Attention to informal and non formal learning
  growing

4
Policy context

• Lisbon eEurope objectives
• Concrete Objectives for Education and Training
  Barcelona
• Education, training and research are the key to
  economic renewal We need an integrated strategy
  for education and research based on networking
  and mobility giving priority to the technologies
  of the future (Commission president Romano Prodi
  in an address to the European Parliament in
  January 2002)

5
Learning and technology in the EU RD programmes

• RD 2nd Framework (DELTA 1) to current 6th
  Framework - Changes in perspective and
  expectations
• Early documentation calls for research proposals
  relating to Technologies for flexible and
  distance learning
• Mid 1990s, clear shift conceptually in
  perceptions of learning technologies.
• By the 4th Framework, the terms telematics for
  education and training and Educational
  multimedia are used.
• 5th framework programme, the term eLearning
  appears
• All but disappears in the 6th framework, where
  the term Technology enhanced learning is the
  phrase used
• ? 7th Framework reference dropped and using
  only ICTs

6
Shift in calls

• FP2 (1978-1991), development of technologies and
  understanding how they might be deployed.  
• FP 4 (1994-1998), high visibility through
  Telematics for Education and Training and ESPRIT
  IT for learning and training in industries.
  Also calls for first time under TSER on
  socio-economic aspects.

7
EMTF

• Task force action plan to make European research
  more effective, to strengthen the position of the
  European educational multimedia industry and to
  enable users - households, enterprises and
  educational institutions - to derive maximum
  benefit from the application of new technologies
  to education and training.'  

8
EMTF Joint Call for Educational Multimedia
Proposals

• 6 programmes managed by 4 Directorates General
  Telematic Applications and Ten- Telecom (DG
  XIII), Information Technology (DG III), Targeted
  Socio-Economic Research (DG XII), SOCRATES and
  Leonardo da Vinci (DG XXII). Joint Call generated
  a huge response, (over 800 proposals) of which 46
  projects involving about 425 participants were
  supported with funding of 49M. The network of
  schools established in the EUN Schoolnet project
  is one of the most prominent results.

9
FP5 (1998 - 2002),

• KA2, New Methods of Work and Electronic
  Commerce, research and piloting for the
  workplace, in communities, for particular target
  groups and in the home.
• KA 3 - Multimedia Content and Tools of the IST
  (information Society Technologies) Programme
  (120M) , research firmly concentrated on
  technology deployment in formal and mainstream
  education and training systems and in informal
  and non-formal learning across society.
• Technologies for collaborative learning and
  teaching,
• Personalised learning (largely within the
  mainstream systems)
• Lifelong learning
• Professional development
• Conceptualisation and operation of virtual
  universities
• Open source systems and interoperability
• Consensus Building and Standardisation
• All reflecting the expectation for mainstream
  integration.

10
FP 6

• Far fewer projects
• Much less emphasis as an RD topic
• FP4 really represents high point in RD
• Realistic probably
• Technologies far ahead of users
• Focus should be on supporting take up and
  adoption (or if not, accepting this wont happen
  at least very soon!)
• Recognises the shift which is given voice and
  visibility in the eLearning Initiative and
  programme

11
Increased coordination of Education, Training and
Technology Policies

• Watershed EMTF initiative a move away from a
  dominant focus on developing technology into the
  wider issues of implementation and adoption.
• Already present in Leonardo and Socrates 1 (and
  in predecessors)
• Widely found in other programmes such as Social
  Funded programmes (ADAPT/EQUAL)

12
2002, Lisbon strategy eEurope Action Plan

• A leap forward in wider policy regarding learning
  technologies. ICT technologies presented as a key
  driver in achieving the economic and social aims
  of the eEurope strategy. The dominant concerns
  are social cohesion and improving European
  competitiveness. In this context, there is
  explicit concern for the personal needs and
  circumstances of the learner and ensuring access
  and flexibility to meet the needs of all
  citizens. New emphasis on the communication
  technology part of ICTs as a means to support
  collaboration, reflecting the widely held view
  that learning is a social process and not
  something undertaken in isolation.

13
eLearning Initiative Programme

• Signalled the need for coordinated wholesale
  structural investment as well as initiatives to
  encourage take up and adoption. This new effort
  intended to 'coordinate Community actions
  concerned with eLearning mobilizing the
  educational and cultural communities, as well as
  the economic and social players in Europe', was
  labelled the eLearning Initiative (2002- 2004),
  later formalised into the eLearning Programme. 

14
eLearning Programme

• 'The eLearning programme is a further step
  towards realising the vision of technology
  serving lifelong learning. It focuses on a set of
  actions in high priority areas, chosen for their
  strategic relevance to the modernisation of
  Europes education and training systems.

15
Reflections

• Slow adoption of technologies
• Market stagnant?
• Public investment huge but evidence of meeting
  policy aims of access, quality, increased LLL etc
  unclear?
• Technology stimulating market growth in
  educational products and services (esp HE)? -
  Jury is out.
• Technologies for learning or for presentation and
  information?

16
Reflections

• Most activity is piloting or peripheral to
  mainstream
• Some outstanding work and achievements
• Sustainability remains an issue
• Value in terms of either ROI or policy
  objective/target achievement not yet demonstrated

17
Self learning individual learning responsibility

• Policy aim market expectation
• Is a switch in technologies for existing self
  learning group
• Not clear that availability of technologies is
  changing anything else?
• Surprise? No - Building self efficacy and
  changing behaviour Linked to issues of
  expectations, motivation, return and reward to
  individuals as well as building self efficacy
  through early learning.

18
Some policy success

• eLearning Initiative and subsequent Programme -
  an initiative undertaken by the political
  leadership of Europe to align their investments
  in ICTs for education and training against the
  broader eEurope and eLearning strategies.
• Investment / application of technologies should
  help drive Europe's general economic social
  agenda.

19
Some policy success

• At Member State and EU level, making technologies
  available and providing policy support for their
  use in education and training has been perceived
  as a good thing in itself.
• If the future is about technology, then everyone
  must have access to ICT technology applications
  and it serves to ensure that everyone is able to
  use them.
• Helps to highlight need for reform and change

20
Resistance and concerns

• Concern for instrumentalist dominance of
  education and training policy
• Technology is seen as part of instrumentalist
  agenda
• Anxieties that the agenda is about efficiency
  in education and training systems
• Commercial suppliers concern that public
  instruments are not helping to develop a market
  but actually damaging and disrupting its natural
  evolution

21
Policies, politics and change

• Frustration with the slow pace of change and
  reform in the education and training systems has
  pushed technology into the systems in the hope
  that absorption of technology will effect the
  desired changes. Expected changes are not
  occurring (at least not at the pace hoped for),
  and the absorption rates of the technologies are
  significantly less than expected.

22
Policies, politics and change

• Players in the education and training systems
  have moved from position of generalized
  resistance and antipathy to technology to one of
  passive acceptance. But relatively little active
  endeavour to see where the technologies can
  really effect change and drive reform on the
  ground.
• Policy dilemma - how to push open the envelope
  while recognising reality
• Ambitious political aims continue to be
  developed but recognising more realistically that
  the systems are not going to change just because
  the technology is there to do things differently