Quality in Learning, Education and Training (QLET)

"We assume so often that only by offering extrinsic rewards can we win students' loyalty and so when those rewards are stripped away, as they are in a non-formal educational context the only glue we have is the fundamental joy of learning and teaching."

The corridor of uncertainty: How sticky are you... How sticky are your courses? What sort of glue is required to keep learners involved? How do we awaken interest and create the critical momentum and engagement that are needed to guarantee completion? It all depends on what type of course we're talking about and the glue needed on an open online ...

"This issue is in a way a kind conglomerate of approaches and ideas, when it is as its best. From a geological perspective, a conglomerate is a rock, which consists of individual objects that stands out, and of matter that act as an almost cement-like texture, holding these objects together. This matter – made of finer grains – stems from the individual objects. Likewise, as a conglomerate the individual articles in this issue raises specific issues, and at the same time, the theoretical approaches are like fine grain that binds the individual studies together.


Editorial, Rikke Ørngreen & Staffan Selander"

Designs for Learning NUMBER 2/2014 | Quality in... Designs for learning has a clear focus on learners in their making and transformation of knowledge. The journal will focus on necessay conceptions of learning, agency, modes and media in relation to meaning making in formal and informal sites of learning.

"The world is changing – education must also change. Societies everywhere are undergoing deep transformation, and this calls for new forms of education to foster the competencies that societies and economies need, today and tomorrow. This means moving beyond literacy and numeracy, to focus on learning environments and on new approaches to learning for greater justice, social equity and global solidarity. Education must be about learning to live on a planet under pressure. It must be about cultural literacy, on the basis of respect and equal dignity, helping to weave together the social, economic and environmental dimensions of sustainable development."

UNESCO: Rethinking Education - Towards a global... What education do we need for the 21st century? What is the purpose of education in the current context of societal transformation? How should learning be organized? These questions inspired the ideas presented in this publication. In the spirit of two landmark UNESCO publications, Learning to ...

What the Words (of L&D) Mean - Guest Post by Jay Cross | Litmos Blog

What the Words (of L&D) Mean - Guest Post by Ja... Introduction by Brent Schlenker In a series of 2 blog posts Jay Cross shares a few words/phrases and defines them as only he can. I've known Jay for a long time and he's a big...

Linköping University, Department of Behavioural Sciences and Learning, Education and Adult Learning. Linköping University, Faculty of Educational Sciences.ORCID iD: 0000-0001-8390-7975


List of papers

1. Teachers' embodied presence in online teaching practices

2. Teacher interventions in online teaching practices

3. The emergence of online teaching practices

4. Teaching practices in Second Life

Online teaching practices: Sociomaterial matter... The aim of this study was to describe and analyse online teaching practices in the Swedish higher education context. The study had an online ethnographic approach and was based on empirical data on the teaching in two university courses. The study rested primarily on observational data but interv...

"Over time, I came to think of this as technology’s Law of Amplification: While technology helps education where it’s already doing well, technology does little for mediocre educational systems; and in dysfunctional schools, it can cause outright harm."

Why Technology Will Never Fix Education | Quali... The real obstacle is student motivation, and no gadget can create that.

"What if MOOCs are just a mirror that shows us the sociocultural problems we don’t want to deal with in our system?

What if the problem is not with the learners, but the way they have been programmed through the years? Grades, credits, failure, tuition, fees, gold stars, extra recess for good grades, monetary rewards, etc are all programmed into learners from a young age.

You can say MOOCs are failing because they lack sufficient “student motivation,” but what if it was actually the case that society has been failing for decades and MOOCs are just exposing this?"

What If The Problem Isn't With MOOCs But Someth... Is this another post about how MOOCs are misunderstood ideas that the critics all get wrong? Not quite. There are problems with MOOCs, but I'm still looking at the conversation about MOOCs in gener...

"But no matter how people slice the learning games market a clear growth pattern emerges in all of their analyses. Markets in North America and Asia both show continued growth and much of the expected interest is in the expanding world of mobile.

And although you can quibble with methodologies and definitions around what is or is not a learning game, one thing has become clear in the last 18 months, investment is flowing to the learning game sector."

Reports Highlight Strong Growth and Investor In... Ask developers or investors if there is more money pouring into or being generated by learning games and the answer is a definitive yes. Ask how much and the answers... more »

"New is the objective of “enhancing the quality and relevance of learning and teaching." This is the first time that quality of teaching and learning has been emphasized in such strong and unambiguous terms. In the early Bologna communiqués, teaching and learning were completely absent; these subjects were first brought onto the agenda in 2005 in reference to quality assurance, and, from 2007, a focus on student-centered learning."

Essay on what's next for European higher educat... This month was significant for European higher education, with the Bologna Process Ministerial Conference on May 14-15 in Yerevan, Armenia. This was the ninth conference since June 1999, when the European ministers responsible for higher education signed the Bologna Declaration, which paved the w...

Tony Bates: "...the challenge for Africa is to walk two paths at the same time. Online learning should not be used as a replacement for a high quality campus-based higher education system but as an integral part of a comprehensive system of higher education that includes face-to-face teaching, blended learning and fully online learning. Getting that balance right will be a mjor challenge."

Update on online learning in Africa | Tony Bate... The opening this week of the 10th e-Learning Africa international conference prompted this informative report by the British newspaper, the Guardian, about the state of virtual learning in Africa. I have used this to pull together a number of different strands about online learning developments i...

"The DigiSkills project, funded by the EU’s Lifelong Learning Programme, focuses on the development of digital competence for teachers and trainers. The project provides a platform for sharing best practices in ICT use, as well as an online open course centre, the Digital Competence Academy, where teachers can update their digital skills. Over 1000 teachers are currently participating in DigiSkills activities in different European countries."

Enhancing teachers’ digital skills through best... Teachers have been constant promoters of innovation in schools. However, with regard to the integration of ICT, many teachers do not possess the necessary competences for the pedagogic use of these tools.

"The 26th ICDE World Conference has a specific stream designated as the doctoral consortium. This stream intends to facilitate and provide a collegial environment where doctoral students in the areas of Open Distance and eLearning, OERs, MOOCs and Technology-Enhanced Learning present their work to a group of mentors and peers."

ICDE » The Doctoral Consortium at the World Con... The 26th ICDE World Conference has a specific stream designated as the doctoral consortium. This stream intends to facilitate and provide a collegial environment where doctoral students in the areas of Open Distance and eLearning, OERs, MOOCs and Technology-Enhanced Learning present their work to...