At the start of my academic career, some 25 years ago, I had the chance of working closely with Professor José Enes (1924-2013), then the Vice-rector of the Portuguese open university, Universidade Aberta (UAb). José Enes was one of the most important Portuguese philosophers of the 20th century and I had the honour of being his «last» assistant. Although very intense, our collaboration at UAb lasted only for three years. However, soon after his retirement we continued... Read full post

The history of educational technology has been mostly dominated by an overconfident optimism and sometimes even blind faith in the future. In our circles, the majority of speakers and opinion-makers still try to show educational technology development as a coherent narrative of sequential dialectical oppositions in which the new replaces the old, to use Manuel Castells' characterization of the Information and Knowledge society. However, our real history is not a straightforward succession... Read full post

As open education and eLearning mature and become mainstream across the world, the discussion on quality assurance emerges with a renewed importance, strength and impact in our field of practice. Although there are significant variations in how this topic is addressed in each regional context, there's an underlying feeling which is shared by all stakeholders. It relates to the urgency of establishing effective processes that positively discriminate appropriate practices in online learning,... Read full post

A propos des attaques terroristes à Bruxelles et dans le monde / Over de terreur aanslagen in Brussel en in de wereld

In the aftermath of the recent deadly terrorist attacks in Brussels, the EDEN community shares once again the shock and deep sadness caused by the terrible events that have taken place in Europe and in other regions of the world during the past months, taking the lives of many innocent people. Our sympathy and solidarity goes once more to the victims, to all... Read full post

This past weekend the European eLearning community was confronted with a very sad news. We have lost Erik Duval. A Professor at the Department of Computer Sciences at the Catholic University of Leuven (K.U.Leuven), in Belgium, he was one of the most brilliant scholars in our field today. His contribution to research on the topic of augmentation of the human intellect has been widely acknowledged across the academic community. In addition to this, he was also a most kind and generous human... Read full post

The future of any community depends on how its members are able to understand it, by anticipating possibilities, preparing for its challenges and realising its opportunities today. The same principle applies to academic and professional communities as well. As the largest European organisation representing the open, distance and eLearning community, EDEN has always dedicated much attention to the preparation of the future in our field. One of the ways in which we conduct that effort is by... Read full post

The importance and impact of a major Association such as EDEN comes from its ability to give a true and powerful expression to the aspirations and concerns of the community it serves. This means to be able to represent all kinds of actors involved and convey its different voices. In the field of open, distance and eLearning, EDEN clearly stands out not only as the largest European network of institutions and individual experts, but also the one which best represents the diversity of the... Read full post

The Swiss philosopher Alain de Botton suggests in The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work that however powerful our technology and complex our organisations are, the most remarkable feature of the modern working world might be one simple spiritual quality: the widely held belief that our work should make us happy. In short, our societal progress lies in an expectation that our jobs are fulfilling and not soul-destroying.

We should be, therefore, feeling very lucky and proud as our academic and... Read full post

As I predicted in the EDEN President's Blog one year ago (see here) 2015 proved to be a very good and successful year for EDEN. The European open, distance and e-learning community is scaling up and so is EDEN.

Throughout the year our Association continued to widen its outreach. We've increased the number and impact of our events, as well as redesigned their formats in order to enhance networking and interactivity. We've boosted our web presence and online communication,... Read full post

The publication last September of the OECD report “Students, Computers and Learning: Making The Connection” has caught a wide attention in the media all over the world. The idea conveyed to the public opinion was that contrary to previous belief data had shown that the use of technology in classrooms doesn’t boost education results after all. In fact, according to the study students who use computers moderately at school tend to have somewhat better learning outcomes than... Read full post