1. Alan Bruce
ULS Ireland
EDEN Porto June 2012

2.  Defining - and agreeing - scale of social
challenge occurring around us
 Understanding the extent of change
 In a transformed world all institutions are
transformed
 E-learning as symptom and solution
 Unlocking e-learning’s Pandora’s box:
 Tahrir Square to Occupy to los Indignados

3.  Planetary urbanization
 Struggles over ownership, control and
resources
 Equality, access and inclusion – the mirage of
human rights
 Acceleration of contradictions
 Understanding crisis – living with crisis
 Tsunamis of globalization: obliteration of
borders… but creation of connectivity

4.  Ubiquity and access
 Innovation – the failed imperative
 Schools, Teachers, Families, Communities
 Continuing debate over quality and
assessment
 Replacement or supplement: masks
institutional crisis of European educational
systems
 Freedom, openness and creativity in the
digital economy

5.  Continuing impact of debate on privatization
 Critical reflection vs. commodification of knowledge:
where does e-learning position itself?
 Peer-to-peer learning economy
 Free speech and autonomous expression
 Openness as global logic based on free and open-
source software
 Battles over digital rights management and IPR
 Links between open content, open science and open
collaboration make collaborative creativity
sustainable
 Move from Information Age to Conceptual Age
(Daniel Pink 2005)

6.  Possible solution: not panacea
 Digitization transforms all aspects of cultural
production and consumption
 New digital logics alter traditional
organization of knowledge, education and
culture
 Engaging with obsolete structures – the issue
of Power
 New grammar of digital culture is being
created (Michael Peters 2012)

7.  Learning as issue of identity and creativity:
eLearning as eMeaning
 Processes of creativity no longer controlled by
traditional knowledge institutions
 Creativity now facilitated by platforms and
infrastructures that encourage large-scale
production and challenge old hierarchies
 Process of profound institutional re-structuring
comparable to European 16th century
 Centrality of access, equality and diversity
 Learning not learning unless:
Radical, Transformative, Empowering