The Wales-Wide Web

Last week I was in San Sebastian for a meeting of the ERNACT Network.

According to the Ernact web site, "Derry City Council and Donegal County Council established ERNACT EEIG (European Economic Interest Grouping) in 1990 as a joint crossborder subsidiary of both local authorities. Its objectives were to enable both council areas to co-operate on the theme of communications technology and the emerging information society.

Since then ERNACT has evolved into a network of regions comprising the Province of Zeeland (NL), Region of Cantabria (E), City of San Sebastian (E), Region of Olomouc (Cz) Borough of Wirral (UK) and City of Derry, County Donegal and County Galway (IRL)" although I think there are now more regions involved.

"At 1999's Interregional Management Committee Meeting the ERNACT Regions agreed on a new mission statement: 'The ERNACT regions have a pretentious mission statement I won't embarrass them by printing but lets say they are committed to providing information services through local government regions.

It seems that at each meeting of the network they organise a seminar around a key theme in the use of ICT. This meeting the them was e-learning and I was one of there invited speakers, together with Sergio Abramovich from the Catalonia Open University and Josu Aramberri form the Universidad del Pais Vasco in Spain.

Having been to a series of difficult and dull events lately, I was not bursting with joy at the thought of yet another meeting. Still Ihad promised I woul.d go. And it was even 12 degrees and the sun was shining plus the hotel was sup[reb and I had a great room overlooking the beach. So things were looking up. Perhaps my luck had changed.

And to be truthful it turned to one of the more interesting and thought provoking meetings I have been to in some time. I had agreed to speak on something around pedagogy and e-learning - although the title was "From a tool for the few to availability for all". And likewise - although the other speakers also had long designated titles - they tended to focus on the pedagogic aspects of the use of ICT.

So much so that I wonder if on the one hand we are fast moving to some kind of consensus in direction for e-learning development amongst researchers - based on new pedagogic approaches, on standards based modular software applications etc - but at the same time are moving ever further from the vendors and implementations in major institutions.

So what was so good about the seminar (apart from the hotel and the weather)?

First the vision and commitment of the participants. But even more their approach - coming from ways to provide learning opportunities in their regions. It seems to me that we are seeing different emergent forms of organising learning. How much this is down to the influence of e-learning I am not sure - or how much it is due to the very real pressures for more extended access to learning throughout peoples life-cycles and throughout the community.

local governments are very well placed to coordinate the new and emergent networks. Additionally local governments can bring together the 'learning' and the 'cultural' agendas- and the 'cultural is particularly important in developing e-learning materials.

Finally - and this may be my own political bias showing here - but I think that the effective privatization of much of e-learning - through private companies, corporate universities etc. - has contributed to the poor learning experiences so often reported. Local governments have some claims to representing communities and to democracy - I think a healthy dose of local democracy could be very good for e-learning.

I could go on...but I have already been writing this post for ten days - below I list a summary of the findings of the short group work sessions - they are interesting in reflecting the concerns of many at the meeting. Also at the bottom of this post I attach my two presentations to the conference - the first on pedagogy and e-learning and the second on new networks for the organisation of (e)-learning.

Extended text for this entry:

1. There is not one model - many pilot experiences providing knowledge we can utilise
2. We are still fighting to understand and implement constructuivism
3. There are many lessons still to be learned about e-learning
4. We are not so concerned with technology but with the social development of contents, learning and the meaning we give to tools.
5. Many organisations are not making the pradiogm shift needed but are copying old modes of development.
6. The importance of open code
7. The importance of standards
8. The need for a reassessment of the roles of teachers and tutors - teachers may be becoming more important - but they need more social support.
9. The need for networks of resources
10. The need for personal learning environments
11. E-learning as a a tool for local administration to counter the digital divide and for social purposes
12. Finance - conflicts within the existing finance models and the public private divide - eg over district access to wireless
13 The changing roles of students - who are now active players in their own learning - and who should be setting their own targets and goals and should demand tailored curricula with coherent activities.