The Future of Learning in a Networked World

A ten-day road tour in New Zealand visiting educational centers and talking to different people involved in education: university researchers, vocational school representatives and members from different learning and teaching communities got together to exchange ideas on the future of learning in a networked world.
It should be pointed out that most participants were from English-speaking countries (New Zealand, Australia, Canada), technologically more advanced (Finland) and not densely populated.
I was fortunate to have been invited to participate and am very much lagging behind in my posts as so much happened at the same time, perspectives and impressions and I had very little time to sit down to digest and put it all online. As we kept hopping into planes, buses and trains all the time, and talking to different people, packing and unpacking and kept all discussing how to introduce change and make learning happen in a more meaningful way, at certain times I felt just like my students at school who move from one classroom to another every 50 minutes, exposed to all kinds of new technologies we were unable to connect meaningfully for a longer moment or find a moment to digest. The internet was either inexistent, poor or too expensive.

However, I am very thankful to Leigh and Stephen to have given me the opportunity of leaving my routine and inspite of the bumps, uncertainties, frictions and obstacles and sometimes difficult choices to be made, all has turned out to the best. It is today at John’s place, with open windows to the sun, feeling free to spread your things out, plug our computer anywhere and wander off from time to time to talk to the people present that gave me more bonding time and think about it. It is difficult to capture all the moments at one go but I will try to comment on moments that have struck me along my first (and hope not last) unconference.

Photos are on Flickr, some too few posts have been made on the community walk map and the class blog. Cutting off now and will take some time to have a look at the sunset as in 15 minutes there is a conference on Elluminate. Time to go…again