Description:

After almost two decades of using e-learning in VET, the results are very mixed. E-learning approaches followed two different strategies to overcome there apparent weaknesses and using their strengthes. First, there are approaches to 'emulate' the relation between teacher and learner and/or in between learners or at least produce a 'stand in' for them. Blackboards, white boards, chat rooms, discussion boards are technical examples for this, 'blended learning' tries to add human resources to the e-learning approach. Second, especially in VET, it proved very difficult to adapt technical solutions for learning environments to the individual learners needs. Apart from contradictions inherent in commercial elearning products (standardisation vs. customisation), these problems especially owe to the poor learning environments, the rely on self-guided learning (implying high and - even more important - steady motivation from the learners' side), and finally to the difficulties of integrating elearning into the workplace. The fate of the latest buzzword 'mobile learning' is another example of the difficulties to integrate a technical feature (using the mobile for elearning) into the real learning needs of people.Building on various ongoing or recently finished European projects, this workshop analyses various ways of integrating elearning into VET. This integration may lead away from the technical questions of course design and the use of technical artifacts to (still and necessarily poorly) simulate learning situations. New ways of integrating the strengths of the web (especially web 2 tools) into learning may lay more in learning environments that allow information retrieval and personalised learning without this structure. In cases where courses are suitable, integration strategies are interesting that begin with the learners' needs and not the strengths of technology.

Methodology or methods/research instruments or sources used:

The workshop will consist in a thematic introduction, short presentations of the speakers and their discussion. symposium will proceed as follows:

Conclusions or expected outcomes or findings:

The workshop will contribute to:

• an understanding of the barriers that elearning faces in using existing tools for knowledge Management.
• an understanding of the future possibilities of learner-centred developments of web 2 tools
• an understanding of elearning course design centred on learnersThis symposium will address the overall objectives of the 2006 ECER conference through examining how knowledge transformation takes place at elearning in VET.