In the interest of “social distancing,” the COVID crisis suddenly threw learners en masse into online learning. At times, this has confirmed the worst fears of teachers and students who had not previously experienced e-learning. Children, college students and workplace and community learners have found themselves lumbered with videos followed by quizzes, canned e-textbook sequences, and endless video meetings where there is little opportunity to do much more than to listen. The learner is not only isolated at home; they have been isolated by their screens.
This situation is more than ironical—it is tragic. Since Web 2.0, we have known the social potentials of the internet. Learners could be working together in shared projects. They could be offering each other feedback on their work. They could be searching for examples of the ideas scaffolded in the curriculum and contributing content to the class. Their discussions could be formally required, valued and assessed. But tragedy is that today’s dreadful learning management systems and educational software tools were mostly engineered to replicate traditional transmission pedagogies and memory-focused assessments.
This conference aims to expand our imaginations into the social possibilities of e-learning. What should a next generation of e-learning pedagogy look like? What platforms will it require? How can artificial intelligence and learning analytics support a new kind of social learning?
The Fourteenth International Conference on e-Learning and Innovative Pedagogies featured plenary sessions by some of the world's leading thinkers and innovators in the field.
"Present or Distant? “Remote” and “Online” in Social Learning"
College of Education, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, IL, United States
"Present or Distant? “Remote” and “Online” in Social Learning"
College of Education, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, IL, United States
"The Role of AI and EdTech to Help Education to Evolve From Covid-19 Emergency Teaching to Effective Learning Ecosystems"
Professor, Learner Centred Design, University College London, United Kingdom
Rector, University of the Aegean, Mytilene, Greece
For each conference, a small number of Emerging Scholar Awards are given to outstanding graduate students and emerging scholars who have an active research interest in the conference themes. Emerging Scholars perform a critical role in the conference by chairing the parallel sessions, providing technical assistance in the sessions, and presenting their own research papers. The 2021 Emerging Scholar Award Recipients are as follows:
Modern University for Business and Science, Beirut, Lebanon
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Malaysia
Shanghai Normal University, China
Keele University, United Kingdom
University of South Africa, South Africa
Curtin University, Australia
Michigan State University, United States
Purdue University Global, United States
Regis University, United States
University of California-Riverside, USA
University of Calgary, Canada
University of Calgary, Canada
Panjab University, India
Rhodes, Greece
