Annual Conference #eden16 "Re-Imagining Learning Environments - Budapest 14-17 June 2016

Our current age has been framed by the concept of the ‘information age’. Sometimes also known as the ‘computer age’. In a networked society as ours, digital technology has touched and changed many aspects of day-to-day life.  For example, many long-standing societal, business and institutional systems have either lost their relevance or have transformed beyond recognition, the music, banking and travel industries being excellent examples. Education does not stand untouched and we observe emerging and declining paradigms, changing expectations from society, our students now framed as consumers, with new and emerging types of informal learning experiences (take MOOCs for example) and all too frequently operating in unstable economic and policy environments.
The powerful combination of the ’information age’ and the consequent disruption caused by these unstable environments provides the impetus to look afresh and identify new models and approaches for education (e.g. OERs, MOOCs, PLEs, Learning Analytics etc.). For learners this has taken a fantastical leap into aggregating, curating and co-curating and co-producing outside the boundaries of formal learning environments – the networked learner is sharing voluntarily and for free, spontaneously with billions of people. More...