What do you think are the main challenges for the European Commissions TEL (technology-enhanced learning) research policy, and how do you see Kaleidoscope’s role in this context?

Continuity! I think that the main challenge for the EC’s technology-enhanced learning (TEL) research policy—but it might not only be the case of TEL—is ensuring a continuity of its policy that will be directly in line with the “sustainability” challenge that the Commission offered to the new FP6 instruments. It is clear that if the policy doesn’t have a long-lasting vision of the development of the field, researchers - because of their need for financial support - will just try to surf the wave of the always-changing priorities. As I suggested somewhere else, it will stimulate the development of the Acadustry, a chimera of industry and academia that will indeed be sterile. On the contrary, a policy informed by a long-lasting vision of what I deem necessary for the development of the European research area will be a strong and productive support to research. Ahead of that, academic research and R&D have the responsibility for developing a research domain that is both scientifically robust and productive.

Among the priorities I see for us, is the responsibility to organise the fight against reinventing the wheel and developing technologies that are all-but-forgotten soon after their development by PhD students or projects. A stable EC policy would be a real incentive to make this effort. In particular, the challenge will be less a question of seeing the future twenty years ahead, but rather one of understanding what we know, where the current problems and barriers are, and in which areas we can make real breakthroughs. I would like to suggest that if we engage this direction, we will be more efficient in supporting the development of SMEs in the field, offering real solutions to them, and methods to issues they have to face now, in today’s market.

Kaleidoscope has already shaped elements to support the EU efforts to set a productive TEL research area; a good example of this is the Kaleidoscope virtual doctoral school. Soon the Kaleidoscope open archive initiative will demonstrate the capacity of researchers to share and document their production properly and at an international level. However there are difficulties that come from the fragmentation of TEL on a regional basis. The obstacle raised by this fragmentation is quite difficult to overcome because the research needs are not expressed in the same way by all the European nations and the needs are not shared; learning is not yet a global market. This has an impact on the relations with users and SMEs, whose markets are in general quite local and specific. However by setting up European research teams on concrete and precise topics, Kaleidoscope has initiated a movement to build a European research force with a sustainable scientific agenda. Moreover, while building the network, a fragmentation of the research field itself appeared. We are now reducing it, though, with initiatives like the convergence workshop to be held next December to bridge research on collaborative, mobile, and inquiry learning.

What do you consider at this stage to be the most important research revelations in the field of technology-enhanced learning? What can learners expect from the future?

The inertia of knowledge building in the learning sciences is far more important than in other domains. I don’t expect “revelations” but rather a growing awareness of the complexity and the nature of what we are working on. I expect the development of frameworks and methodologies that will allow us to understand where we are, what our results are, and what our priorities should be. We are already beyond the technology push and learner-centred design; there is a growing understanding of the role and needs of teachers and institutions, of the place of knowledge in the design, and of the implementation and deployment of ICT.

The learners can expect from the future more personalised, more reactive learning environments: learning environments more integrated into the global educational system in and out of schools, formal or informal. But my discourse here is too general and common. Actually, everything has been said about the expected evolution of the learning environment in general. We now have to be more specific and say what we can expect for general education and universities, for learning at the workplace and at home, in a museum, or on the playground. Because we understand the needs better, learners should expect more relevant and specific learning environments.

They should also expect learning environments that are more coherent or inline with the assessment and accreditation procedures in schools, universities, or at the workplace. There is an “evaluation divide” that has to be addressed; this is not a “revelation” but one of the key challenges we have to take up. As you can see, this not only addresses the learner, but also the teachers, the trainers, and the institutions.

How do you react to the criticism sometimes made of researchers generally that they tend to research topics which are of interest to them and which they find important rather than the topics that society as a whole expects and needs them to research?

This is a normal tension that exists everywhere, and which may exist forever, I’m afraid. The more you progress, the more you understand your ignorance, and you see that the problems you’ve been considering may have been badly formulated, which in turn means the more you will develop research that may be less self-explanatory for the so-called society. I say “so-called” because it may well be the case that the market and the users, the policy makers and the parents, do not have the same view on what the priorities are and what the focus of research should be. It is not even clear that they can effectively articulate research problems, just as academics may have difficulty in envisioning the application of what they are doing. Nobody is really right, nobody is really wrong in that matter. We need a better understanding of each other, better respect of each other’s responsibilities and competencies.

Let me give an example: Researchers have invented dynamic geometry that the society didn’t ask for but is now using widely, whereas society is asking for technology to enhance the learning of maths that researchers seems unable to provide! Maybe this demonstrates the misunderstanding. The difficulty in learning mathematics is a problem that is too vaguely formulated. On the other hand, even if dynamic geometry has had an impact, it hasn’t provided a definitive solution for the learning of geometry, although it has improved its teaching.

We need a place where both are able to interact and understand each other better. We need a kind of gateway among the academic world, the users, and industry. It is a challenge that Kaleidoscope has taken up together with specialists in the dissemination and transfer of technology, who should be able to act as facilitators in building the needed linguistic, conceptual, and political bridges.

How can the TEL research community supported by Kaleidoscope avoid the dangers of constantly "re-inventing the wheel", i.e. how is it possible to record and make current and previous research activities and findings available on a very wide scale for the next generation of researchers?

In my opinion, the best instrument we could employ for this purpose is currently a documented open archive, in line with the current Open Archive Initiative. Such an archive will provide a central and sustainable repository on the model of the well-known ArXiv, which is heavily used by researchers in physics, mathematics, and computer-science.

To develop such an archive, we will need to agree on metadata at a scientific level and hence on the definitions and concepts that lie behind it. It will make the current scientific results and resources available to PhD students, researchers, and projects. Moreover, we must consider that an open archive is multilingual, raising in a very concrete way the question of the epistemological diversity in our field in Europe and beyond. We thus also have to support the development of better mutual understanding and awareness of the differences that prevent us from fully sharing our production today. This should also apply to software and digital resources, indeed combining the standardization efforts that are already being engaged in at a technological level.

Other materials, like video records and large corpora — like those of learning trails—must be shared in the same way. This will take some time since it is very unlikely that such a movement will find its cruising speed very quickly. We must be willing and patient! We must be supported by a stable policy with a long-lasting vision.

Are researchers the best people to lobby policy-makers, and if not, then who should provide the interface between those carrying out front-line research and those responsible for policy making in the same field?

First, here as elsewhere, the researchers need mediators in order to communicate with policy makers. Who can to do that is not clear; the answer might lie in people who are closer to specialised dissemination or to R&D. But there is a difficulty specific to TEL that you may not find in every field. Because people have been educated in schools and have often had the experience of being parents of students and pupils, they feel that they have knowledge about learning that they can claim with the same authority as researchers. This is a very interesting phenomenon, and it constitutes one of the more important barriers in communication between researchers and society, especially policy makers. Look, either researchers express their results in terms not directly understandable and that are seen as jargon, or they express them in everyday language and it is seen as truism…

There is a need to build a communication channel. In my opinion a medium like the eLearning Europa web site or a conference like Online Educa Berlin can contribute - and actually are contributing to this effort. How could it be more systematic? A solution might be by ensuring that all PhD students are trained in general communication, dissemination strategies, and science popularization. This should be part of a modern researcher’s training. By the way, in big ICT companies, the researchers are not in direct contact with the market: the R&D engineers and possibly marketing people are between them and the users or consumers. Why should academia make the economy of this interface? If a research group cannot afford that, it may be possible for a larger organisation like Kaleidoscope to provide this interface, this “gateway” among academia, the society, and industry.

Kaleidoscope is offering support to PhD and Master’s students through the Virtual Doctoral Schools. What are the barriers to implementing a successful Virtual Doctoral School in Europe in the field of TEL, e.g. national differences regarding supervision practice, etc.?

We have just started a systematic exploration of the commonalities and differences, of the obstacles and of the facilitating conditions for the full establishment of such a school. The fact is that we should probably anticipate difficulty in reaching a consensus about the way PhDs are trained and also about the content of their training. What could constitute a course at this level? At what point are the scientific contents shared enough so that they can be considered as a common reference? The building of a TEL doctoral school is not only a pedagogical enterprise and an institutional partnership, it is really a scientific construction whose result will have an impact far beyond the PhD training.

I see this as a convenient back door to the shaping of the scientific foundation of TEL research. Moreover, this common reference must be flexible and open to rapid evolution; a virtual doctoral school should provide resources that the supervisors and students are able to adapt to their needs and view of PhD studies.

Kaleidoscope is developing an infrastructure at a PhD level; Prolearn is developing an infrastructure at a Master’s level. This is interesting and suggests that a common effort should be made in the near future to bridge the two networks and to reach an even more integrated policy for the development of TEL research. Indeed, there are stimulating and interesting challenges for the coming 7th framework programme. I hope the European Commission will take it up with us in a spirit of continuity in view of the huge effort we have all made up to now in search of robust and sustainable integration of the field.

About Dr. Nicolas Balacheff
Dr. Nicolas Balacheff is Directeur de Recherche (senior scientist) at the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS). He also serves as Director of the Leibniz Laboratory in Grenoble, France, a multidisciplinary laboratory in computer science and discrete mathematics, with 100 researchers. In addition, he is the present scientific manager of Kaleidoscope, the European Network of Excellence on technology-enhanced learning.

About Kaleidoscope
Kaleidoscope is the European research network shaping the scientific evolution of technology enhanced learning. It integrates the leading research teams in the field, who work collaboratively across educational, computer and social sciences to transform the quality and reach of the learning experience. Kaleidoscope fosters innovation and creativity through the development of new technologies, methodologies and concepts, defining the challenges and solutions for interdisciplinary research.

Kaleidoscope’s goal is to inform knowledge transfer between education, industry, and the wider society. Through its scientific programme, Kaleidoscope is helping to build a dynamic knowledge-based economy for Europe, engaging with social, economic and political stakeholders at all levels.
www.noe-kaleidoscope.org