The ethical and equitable uses of technology in education have long been an issue: from ethical issues relating to informed consent of subjects for usability studies, to equity issues implicit in the right of access and consideration for individuals in terms of gender, age, disability, ethnic origin, religion and socioeconomic status. (read)

As the nature of learning shifts to include a new array of tools, from mobile devices to interactive furniture, to social media, researchers from the Kaleidoscope Network of Excellence are calling for new, forward-thinking approaches to inquiry based and collaborative learning that will support education in the 21st century. The researchers recently gathered to discuss the integration of issues and research concerning both collaborative and inquiry learning at a workshop organised by Kaleidoscope, as part of the annual Computer Supported Collaborative Learning conference held at Rutgers University in the United States. (read)

Starting January 2008 at CSALT, Lancaster University, U.K. (read)

Roger Säljö , professor of education and psychology of education at Göteborg University, Sweden, is an internationally-renowned expert in the area of learning, interaction and human development from a socio-cultural perspective. Much of his work relates to issues of literacy and numeracy, and to how people, through interaction, acquire competences and skills that are fundamental to learning in a socially and technologically-complex society. He has worked extensively with issues concerning how the so-called new technologies transform human learning practices inside and outside of formal schooling, and has been responsible for the Swedish research program, LearnIT. His international work includes serving as member of the board and chairman of the Nordic Academy of Graduate Studies (NorFA) in Oslo, and he has participated in many EU activities in the field of education and the uses of technology in education. From 2005 to 2007 he was president of the European Association for Research on Learning and Instruction (EARLI) .

Säljö is a keynote speaker at the upcoming Kaleidoscope Symposium (http://www.noe-kaleidoscope.org/group/symposium/). He recently shared his thoughts as to how learning with technology is not only transforming how we learn, but is also redefining what we need to know. (read)

A new case study developed by Dr Angelique Dimitrakopoulou, Professor at the Aegean University in Greece, provides an extremely clear explanation (read)

With the popularity of mobile technologies and social software, Piia Näykki (Educational Technology Research Unit, University of Oulu, FI) sought to discover their impact on collaborative learning. (read)

Leading European researchers in the field of Technology Enhanced Learning recently gathered with young researchers and PhD students from Central and Eastern Europe and the Balkan region, as part of the 3rd TEL enlargement workshop, organised by Kaleidoscope partner University of Sofia (Bulgaria). The workshop was part of the Balkan Conference in Informatics (BCI 2007). (read)

Effective collaborative learning involves an orchestration of learners’ internal and external ‘collaboration scripts.’ At a recent talk at the London Knowledge Lab, Frank Fischer (Professor of Education and Educational Psychology, Ludwig Maximilians Universität, Munich, DE, and leader of the Kaleidoscope group Computer Supported Collaborative Learning) showed how scripting collaborative learning can yield dramatic and specific gains. (read)