Sustaining TEL: From Innovation to learning and practice

Wolpers, M., Kirschner, P. A., Scheffel, M., Lindstaedt, S., & Dimitrova, V. (Eds.) (2010). Sustaining TEL: From Innovation to learning and practice. Proceedings of the 5th European Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning, EC-TEL 2010. September, 28 - October, 1, 2010, Barcelona, Spain. Berlin: Springer Verlag.These proceedings of the fifth European Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning (EC TEL 2010) exemplify the highly relevant and successful research being done in TEL. Because of this great work, this years’ conference focussed on „Sustaining TEL: From Innovation to Learning and Practice“. The last decade has seen significant investment in terms of effort and resources (i.e., time, people, and money) in innovating education and training. The time has come to make the bold step from small scale innovation research and development to larger scale and sustainable implementation and evaluation. It is time to show the world (i.e., government, industry, and the general population) that our field has matured to the stage that sustainable learning and learning practices – both in schools and in industry – can be achieved based upon our work. The present day TEL community now faces new research questions related to large scale deployment of technology enhanced learning, supporting individual learning environments through mashups and social software, new approaches in TEL certification, and so forth. Furthermore, new approaches are required for the design, implementation, and use of TEL to improve the understanding and communication of educational desires and needs of all stakeholders, ranging from researchers, to learners, tutors, educational organizations, companies, TEL industry, and policy makers. And the TEL community has taken up this challenge. As can see in this volume, in its fifth year the conference was once more able to assemble the most prominent and relevant research working in the TEL area. The conference generated more than 150 submissions which demonstrates a very lively interest in the conference theme, and thus significantly contributing to the conference’s success. After detailed deliberations, 24 submissions were selected as full papers; in other words EC TEL 2010 has an acceptance rate of less than 24%! That is just one indicator of how quickly this conference has established itself as one of the main research dissemination venues in the field. The conference also has accepted 10 submissions as short papers; papers presenting ideas relevant to the community, but which were not yet ready as full papers. Apart from this highly competitive scientific programme, the conference also solicited key note presentations from • Prof. Judy Kay, Director of CHAI - Computer Human Adapted Interaction Research Group, University of Sydney, who presented a visionary talk on Personalisation, HCI and learning. Her vision is to support a highly personalised way for people to interact with the computers that they carry, those embedded within the environment as well as desktop computers. • Dr. José Ángel Martínez Usero, Director of International Projects, Technosite-Fundación ONCE, who presented state-of-the-art research trends in accessible elearning: Interoperability of solutions, ubiquity of resources and personalization of services. • Pat Manson and Marco Marsella, from the European Commission, Unit 'Cultural Heritage and Technology Enhanced Learning' who presented the future funding of TEL from EC point of view, focussing on the updated Framework 7 work programme, relating to new calls for proposals and other funding instruments. Other highlights of the conference were: • TEL in Spain: A track on TEL driven by researchers from Spain and their projects. • Industry: In this track, industry took up the opportunity to discuss urgent needs, recent developments and new findings with research regardless of their origin and market interests. • STELLAR round table: A discussion of the STELLAR network of excellence on new and emerging topics in TEL, including a lively discussion of the grand challenges of TEL. • DATATEL lounge: Discussion on how to strengthen TEL research by exchanging data sets of research findings in the lovely atmosphere of the Barcelona yacht harbour and beach. • Hotel Garden Poster Reception: EC TEL again opened with a poster exhibition (in the marvellous hotel garden). Participants had the opportunity to enjoy high profile posters with often very provocative topics while having a lovely sip of Cava. • Demo Session: For the first time, EC-TEL allowed selected researchers to demonstrate their achievements live. Participants were able to walk up and actually try out new developments, findings and algorithms. Preceding the programme, a number of high-profile workshops and a doctoral consortium took place. The workshops focused on specific topics in a more interactive fashion in the conference, thus deepening and developing topics. The doctoral consortium provided a unique opportunity for advanced PhD students to present their work in progress in front of experienced and reputable researchers in the field of technology enhanced learning. In conclusion, we need to remind ourselves that technology enhanced learning is there to be actively used in the real world. While sustainability is often seen or experienced as an unwanted “have to do” for many researchers, it is clear that the real world application of TEL will significantly contribute to helping overcome many current societal problems. It is, therefore, the responsibility of researchers to ensure the uptake of their TEL related findings in real life. This conference has shown that research has taken up this challenge and that the first efforts show good results