1. From Learning over E-Learning to MyLearning
Wim Van Petegem
K.U.Leuven – AVNet, Kapeldreef 62 – bus 5206, B-3001 Heverlee (Belgium)
wim.vanpetegem@avnet.kuleuven.be
Abstract. Lifelong learning is the new adagio knowledge, skills and competence, within a
for modern European citizens preparing our personal, civic, social and/or employment-
knowledge-based society for the next decades to related perspective.“ [1]
come. Therefore, we need open and flexible All forms of lifelong learning are equally
learning systems, enabling individual learning valued, whether it is formal, non-formal or
pathways for all citizens, suitable to their needs informal learning. Learning opportunities should
and interests at all stages of their lives. be therefore made available to all European
This paper will address the question how citizens on an ongoing basis. In practice this
universities should support the individual means that we need open and flexible learning
citizens in their lifelong learning trajectory, by systems, enabling individual learning pathways
transforming learning into e-learning with the for all citizens, suitable to their needs and
help of modern ICT, and further into a interests at all stages of their lives.
personalized way of learning, MyLearning. This paper will address at least partly the
question how to support the individual citizens in
Keywords. Lifelong learning, e-learning, their lifelong learning trajectory, by using all
virtual learning environment, personal learning kinds of ICT possibilities for transforming
environment, MyLearning learning into e-learning, and further into a
personalized way of learning, MyLearning.
1. Introduction: Lifelong Learning Especially the ever changing role of universities
in this new world of teaching and learning will
That learning is not only happening at school, be analysed and suggestions to deal appropriately
is an understatement. Young children learn to with future challenges will be developed.
crawl, to stand, to speak, to eat, and so much
more, all at home, on their own, with the help of 2. From Learning to e-Learning
parents and other family. And this learning
process gets more formalized when they go to 2.1. Learning with e-technologies
school: mathematics and languages, science and
technology, etc. are nicely packaged into
'learnable' objects learners need to digest with the
help of teachers and other educational support
staff. Once they graduate and obtain their
(formal) degree, they can start a professional
career. Needless to say that at the same time a
new learning phase starts in their life: to keep
their employability safe for the future, learning
should go on, on the workplace, in dedicated
educational institutions, with friends, and in
many other occasions. Lifelong learning is the
new (or old?) adagio for modern European
citizens actively participating and taking up
responsibility in preparing our knowledge-based Figure 1. Learning anywhere, anytime,
society for the next decades to come. anyhow
The European Commission defines Lifelong
Learning as: „all learning activity undertaken For ages teachers and learners have been
throughout life, with the aim of improving using ’technological tools’ to enhance
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2. communication, collaboration and information environment in which the teacher and the learner
distribution. The tools used are ranging from are separated by space and/or time and where the
blackboard and chalk, paper and pencil, printed gap between the two is bridged through the use
books and photo copies, radio and television, to of on-line technologies.
modern information and communication
technologies (ICT). With the introduction of ICT At the same time and together with the
into education, we moved the predefined times, management of the learning process, it became
places and ways of teaching into the new apparent that also the management of all learning
paradigm of learning anytime, anywhere and content (documents, presentations, simulations,
anyhow. tests, graphics, audiovisual material, multimedia,
It is beyond the scope of this paper to etc.) needed a more systematic approach
elaborate on all e-technologies and the history of allowing the (re-)use of the resources over
their introduction to support lifelong learning. individual courses. This resulted into the
Nevertheless, the major breakthrough was the development of a learning content management
emergence of Internet and especially the World system (LCMS). Linked with the learning
Wide Web (WWW). Indeed, in the mid 1990’s, resources provided e.g. by the library, the VLE
the Internet was booming, first in North-America turned into a complete digital learning
and later in Europe. Universities were environment on institutional level to provide
developing their first websites, merely as source integrated access to all resources and activities
of academic information. Teachers – early related to teaching and learning [2].
adopters – were experimenting with own
websites to support their courses. They were 2.2. e-Learning and hybrid learning
offering extra learning material on-line,
including self-tests, simulations, etc. and in some In this way teaching and learning transformed
cases even dealing with all organisational aspects into their e-equivalents, almost together with the
from student registration up to automatic Internet hype around the millennium. Contrary to
evaluation. While in the beginning those the Internet bubble, e-learning is still apparent in
websites were concentrated on individual (higher) educational settings. Though, we see
courses, later on a broader and more complete that in most cases e-learning is not replacing
spectrum of teaching and learning needs were traditional (face-to-face) learning, but is mostly
handled. considered as an add-on. This combination is
referred to as ‘blended learning’, the mix of
virtual and physical learning resources and
activities. It simply means that the total learning
experience is enhanced and enriched by a digital
environment, which is smoothly integrated in the
physical world of teachers and learners.
2.3. e-Learning and lifelong learning
As a specific mode of attending a course or
programmes of study where the students rarely,
if ever, attend face-to-face classes or need on-
campus access to educational facilities, e-
learning is of tremendous importance to lifelong
learning. Indeed, e-learning is naturally suited to
Figure 2. Digital learning environment, called distance learning or flexible learning.
Toledo, at K.U.Leuven, with different actors Professionals with learning needs can easily
and activities supported access courses from their home or work space,
and turn it into a private e-learning environment.
As more and more functionalities were Examples could be found in the models of the
integrated into the systems, the terms virtual Open University (e.g. in the UK, Germany or the
learning environments (VLE) and learning Netherlands – a good starting point for further
management systems (LMS) became popular
around the millennium, to determine a digital
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3. information is the network of distance teaching will not go into detail, though, for more
universities, called EADTU [3]). information, we refer to the Re.ViCa project, in
In these models flexibility exists in the fact which a review is made on past research,
that learning could happen anywhere, anytime development and implementation projects related
and anyhow. Or, as the Open University of the to this subject, with the aim to redefine the
Netherlands says [4]: concepts in order for them to be applicable to the
Interactive CD-ROMs and DVDs, plus the educational needs of today [5].
possibilities of the Internet, enhance the In the challenging way this ‘multicampus’
educational process. Many students make use of idea leads to online networks of individual
an electronic learning environment to organize learners, student groups and/or teaching staff –
their personal work location. Course sites, sometimes linked to but often independent from
newsgroups, e-mail and conference facilities the institution – called learning communities or
make distance learning even more appealing. communities of practice. Each participant in
This enables people to combine their study with these networks can be considered a small virtual
work and private life and to determine where, ‘campus’, learning from home, work or through
when and at what pace to study. a mobile device.
In this way this university profiles itself as a
prime university for lifelong learning. 3.2. Towards MyLearning
3. From e-Learning to MyLearning The formation of such informal on-line
communities responds to a need for individual
3.1. The concept of ‘multicampus’ learners to manage their own learning over the
boundaries of institutions and institutional
With the introduction of ICT, and with the systems [2]. The closed and structured learning
emphasis on internationalisation in higher environments as commonly used and completely
education, it is clear that learning is no longer controlled by higher education institutions
happening on one single campus (and certainly themselves is challenged by the parallel trend in
not if that campus is your own working space). society where individuals are willing to take over
Universities have agreements or contracts with the control by their own and to develop and use
various other institutions worldwide to enable the newer ICT systems and tools in an innovative
and support a growing number of teaching and way. Social software or ‘Web 2.0’ is part of this
learning activities taking place at and between phenomenon. The term social software refers to
different campuses. computer-mediated communication and
interaction tools and applications that may result
in ‘community formation’, managed by the
individuals. Social software systems allow links
between users; the ownership and control of
these links – who is linked, and who isn't; what
kind of information is shared and what not – is in
the hands of the user. There are many
applications with social software characteristics
that facilitate human connection and
collaboration in specific contexts and education
is considered just one of them.
In this way, social software challenges the
boundaries of a closed digital learning
environment by substituting a combination of a
Figure 3. Videoconferencing and live Personal Learning Environment (PLE) (referring
streaming to support multicampus education to the personal control) with a Collaborative
Working Environment (CWE) (referring to the
Several names have been used in the past or community building and social networking).
are still in use to define this type of From here it is only a small step to call this
collaboration: virtual university, virtual campus, MyLearning environment, in analogy with the
virtual mobility or multicampus education. We well-known MySpace.
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4. addresses exactly the needs of the modern
lifelong learner. He or she is mastering the own
learning process, absorbing and creating
knowledge, digesting it into (new) learning
objects, ready to share them with others, and this
all happening at the time, place and pace that
suits the best. Needless to say that MyLearning
requires careful attention to new skills of both
teachers and learners, in different areas, like
technological, pedagogical or organisational
competences. Appropriate training in these fields
on individual and institutional level is condition
sine qua non to implement successful
Figure 4. MyLearning environment MyLearning environments. Preparing teachers
and learners to grow in e-competence is clearly a
A similar trend is seen with respect to new and challenging role for universities, or
contents. The closed digital repositories and (e-) better for networks of universities, higher
libraries linked into the digital learning education institutes, and their partners.
environments are challenged by a strong
tendency towards Open Educational Resources 5. References
(OER). OER are teaching, learning and research
resources that reside in the public domain or [1] EU Commission, DG Education and
have been released under an intellectual property Training, 2006.
license that permits their free use or re-purposing http://ec.europa.eu/education/policies/lll/life/
by others. OER include full courses, course what_islll_en.html [05/04/2008]
materials, modules, textbooks, streaming videos, [2] Van Petegem W., Karaimo A.-K., Using and
tests, software, and any other tools, materials or choosing new educational technologies. In:
techniques used to support access to knowledge Boonen A., Van Petegem W., editors.
for all. Different initiatives are taken nowadays European Networking and Learning for the
in this domain, like OpenCourseWare @ MIT, Future. The EuroPACE approach; 2007;
Open Content Initiative @ OU-UK, the Open Garant Publishers (Antwerp, Belgium);
Archive Initiative, etc. For all learners wherever 2007. p. 95-101.
in the world it becomes now possible to have [3] EADTU, European Association of Distance
access to high quality educational content and Teaching Universities, homepage.
tools freely available on the Web, next to the http://www.eadtu.nl/ [05/06/2008]
(more closed) repositories in the LCMS at the [4] Growing through lifelong learning. A profile
own institute. Again, the closed learning of Open Universiteit Nederland in 2006.
environment is heavily challenged by this new http://www.ou.nl/Docs/English/
trend, turning part of the Web into one global Corporate_brochure_2006_UK_def.pdf
resource of learning material [2], as part of [05/06/2008]
MyLearning environment. [5] Reviewing (traces of) European Virtual
Campuses. Re.ViCa project website
4. Final remarks http://www.europace.org/rdrevica.php
[05/06/2008]
The concept of MyLearning in the social
(digital) environment in which it is taking place
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