Conceptual

• Virtual Online University. Virtual Online University, Inc. is a non-profit corporation offering a novel and effective approach to academic excellence, professional development and life-long learning. The site offers apparently a full fledged K-12 home schooling program: curricula, support and what more. It does seem to cost something, but rather peanuts (not for the real South though). It also discusses the cryptic Multiple-Object Oriented (MOO) environment. Something to learn here??

• Canada's SchoolNet. a wealth of resources in and about Canada. Consult with on-line staff, or develop a collaborative project with Canada's SchoolNet. In the context of Learning Without Frontiers, the Vision of Learners in the 21st Century discussion paper is a very interesting initiative!

• Center for Critical Thinking. "Feeding students endless content to remember (that is, declarative sentences to remember) is akin to repeatedly stepping on the brakes in a vehicle that is, unfortunately, already at rest." What else to do? "No questions equals no understanding. Superficial questions equals superficial understanding." This site gives not answers, it asks. This site provides resources and links that help your learning and others who want to learn with you.

• FLISH97. Flexible Learning on the Information Superhighway. This conference, held May 19-20, 1997 in Sheffield - was the fifth in the series of annual "telematics for learning" events. The organizers had broadened the FLISH theme to include not just "traditional" teaching uses of the Internet (computer conferencing and the Web) but the whole range of services on the Internet, including the real-time audio and video services migrating from ISDN, the broadband services just beginning to emerge from the cable and ATM network operators, and the new fusion of multimedia, computer-based training and the Internet.

• Averroès. Medieval Latin philosopher, also called IBN RUSHD, Arabic in full ABU AL-WALID MUHAMMAD IBN AHMAD IBN MUHAMMAD IBN RUSHD (b. 1126, Cordoba--d. 1198, Marrakech, Almohad Empire). He was an influential Islamic religious philosopher who integrated Islamic traditions and Greek thought. The reason you find this link here is because of the potential collaboration LWF is seeking with the Averroès Foundation in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

• The Communication Initiative. A site worth exploring because of its interesting commitment and orientation to improve strategic communication thinking on development issues. The site provides information, ideas, linkages and dialogue on communication, development and change. A subscribtion service makes that you regularly receive relevant information by email on these issues.

• Electronic Learning Forum. Some background info and theoretical positions regarding Distance Education. A site to check out if you want to know more about ICTs and DE, DL, MOOs, WOOs, VLEs, MUDs. Clear? No? Check it out.

• New Horizons for Learning. This open learning community on the Internet is called The Building--more a verb than a noun, as it continues to grow daily. As the primary communication vehicle for our non-profit international education network, The Building:
  • acts as a catalyst for positive change in education
  • identifies, synthesizes, and communicates relevant research and information on effective teaching and learning practices
  • supports an expanded vision of learning that identifies and fosters the fullest development of human capacities
  • supports implementation of proven strategies for learning at every age and ability level
  • builds support for comprehensive lifespan learning communities.

• Knowledge Media Institute. Major research teams at the Open University, working in related areas of learning applications of new technologies, joined forces in mid-1995 to create the Knowledge Media Institute (KMi). They share a belief that our future depends on understanding and sharing knowledge, and they therefore aim to define the future of life-long learning by harnessing and shaping the technologies which underpin it. They are interested in knowledge systems, multimedia enabling technologies for disabled people, advanced telematics, virtual classrooms, customisable authoring tools, virtual science laboratories, intelligent agents, and training on demand.

• Distance Education at a Glance. Everything you ever wanted to know about Distance Education, but could find no-one to ask: In order to help teachers, administrators, facilitators, and students understand distance education, the Engineering Outreach Department at the University of Idaho has developed this Distance Education at a Glance series of guides.

• Explorations in Learning & Instruction: The Theory Into Practice Database. (TIP) The site has a lot of interesting elaborations on some 50 different learning theories, concepts and application domains. TIP is a tool intended to make learning and instructional theory more accessible to educators. The database contains brief summarizes of 50 major theories of learning and instruction. These theories can also be accessed by learning domains and concepts.

• 21st Century Learning Initiative. "Successful individuals in the 21st Century will be those who can direct and manage their own learning..." This site aims at opening doors to learning and synthesis of knowledge while provoking your intellect and soliciting your ideas. Check it out, give your input, and see the result, updated twice a year on this site where new insights are given space to develop and grow.

• Connected magazine. "... decision-making requires the creation of suitable frameworks for knowledge to be shared and developed in collaboration with others. Writing, e-mail, the Web as well as face-to-face meetings, conferences and seminars are the tools used. Writing in this context takes on the form of an on-going dialogue in the search of an increasingly clear understanding of the way things are." Connected provides a platform for exactly that suitable framework the initiator talks about. A comprehensive site with a miriad of articles raising basic questions about cyberspace, and its use. (Aussi des recources en Français!!)

• ITFORUM. Here you can find ITFORUM's papers and discussions on theories, research, new paradigms, and practices in the field of Instructional Technology. The list is a little different from most listservs in that specific discussions are conducted throughout the year. Each four weeks, leaders in the field are invited to write a short paper or essay that is posted on the list prior to discussion. This guest discussant remains available on the list for a period of a week to discuss, debate, or answer questions from subscribers. After the one week period further discussion on the topic often take place without (or sometimes with) the guest discussant participating. The list is open to anyone interested in instructional technology.

• Acacia Initiative (IDRC). The Acacia Initiative is an international effort to empower sub-Saharan African communities with the ability to apply information and communication technologies to their own social and economic development.
  Acacia est une initiative internationale destinée à conforter les efforts déployés en faveur des collectivités locales de l'Afrique subsaharienne, et notamment leur capacité de mettre les technologies de l'information et de la communication au service de leur développement social et économique.

• The "No Significant Difference Phenomenon". This site provides selected entries from the book, "The No Significant Difference Phenomenon" as reported in 355 research reports, summaries and papers -- a comparative research bibliography on technology for distance education.

• Learning Development Institute. The Learning Development Institute is a transdisciplinary networked learning community devoted to excellence in the development and study of learning.

• About Self Directed Learning: ED312457 89 Supporting and Facilitating Self-Directed Learning. ERIC Digest No. 93.. A digest of an articel that provides some insight in institutional and other requirements to establish an environment where self-directed learning can take place. Quite some requirements... Author: Lowry, Cheryl Meredith

• The 18th ICDE World Conference.. "The New Learning Environment: A Global Perspective." The conference took place June 2-6, 1997. The Penn State Conference Center, State College, Pennsylvania, USA.

• Reinventing Schools - The technology is now!. Dr. Arthur Clarke speaking from Sri Lanka on the role of information technology, telecommunications, and entertainment in K-12 education. (RealAudio Plugin required)

• 1999 New Frontiers in Learning Conference. October 4-6, 1999, Stakis Brighton Metropole, Brighton, England
  A new educational culture is presently emerging, one which takes the traditional models of teamwork, creativity and cross-curricular projects and fosters these learning strategies on a global scale. New Frontiers in Learning is an annual international conference held at selected sites around the world. The conference is designed to stimulate and provide opportunities for educational administrators, teachers, theorists and researchers to systematically explore and analyse multiple pathways to teaching and learning. (Mirror site in Europe)

• EdWeb. The purpose of this site is to explore the worlds of educational reform and information technology. "With EdWeb, you can hunt down on-line educational resources around the world, learn about trends in education policy and information infrastructure development, examine success stories of computers in the classroom, and much, much more." Check out the EdWeb K-12 Resource Guide, including the Online Discussion Groups and Electronic Journals. A very exhaustive list of online discussion groups and electronic journals related to education, learning, instructional design and what more. Regularly updated!

• Renewing the Progressive Contract with Posterity: On the Social Construction of Digital Learning Communities. Food for more thinking.

• Media Theory. The home page of a dedicated lecturer, committed to keeping this site very much alive. Full with on-line resources, for learners and teachers. Links to sites of the Media and Communications Study Site, the Association for Media, Communication and Cultural Studies, and a list of publications on the issue of Media Studies. If media are your interest, this site is worth wandering through.

• The International Center for Transdisciplinary Research (CIRET). Cette association développe l'activité de recherche dans une nouvelle approche scientifique et culturelle - la transdisciplinarité - dans sa tentative de prendre en compte les conséquences d'un flux d'information circulant d'une branche de connaissance à une autre et de créer un lieu de rencontre et de dialogue entre les spécialistes des différentes sciences et ceux des autres domaines d'activité, en particulier, les spécialistes de l'éducation.
  (English) A non-profit organization which aims to develop research in a new scientific and cultural approach - transdisciplinarity - whose aim is to lay bare the nature and characteristics of the flow of information circulating between the various branches of knowledge. The CIRET is a meeting-place for specialists from the different sciences and for those from other domains of activity. A perspective on Learning Without Frontiers from a scientific point of view!

• William Calvin. Talking about new insights in learning, developments in neurological science and controversy. Chek this out! William Calvin's very exhaustive site contains full chapters of some of his books, animated illustrations, and much more. We're not yet sure if we agree with everything he claims, but that should not be a reason to not include this link here.

• MIT Media Lab. "If anything can be certain about the future, it is that the influence of technology, especially digital technology, will continue to grow, and to profoundly change how we express ourselves, how we communicate with each other, and how we perceive, think about, and interact with our world. These "mediating technologies" are only in the first stages of their modern evolution; they are still crude, unwieldy, and unpersonalized, poorly matched to the human needs of their users." MIT Media Lab is one of LWF's partners in exploring the opportunities and pitfalls of new technologies in learning. See also a contribution from the founder of the Media Lab, and two of his colleagues: Creating a Learning Revolution

• Centre for Research in International Education. The goals of the Centre for Research in International Education are to promote national and international research collaboration on any issues related to intercultural relations, international education and the globalisation of education through information technology.

• Time/Space/Views/Voices. - co-creation and sharing - "A Renaissance of Social Dimensions is Needed" - "A Conceptual Superstructure or Cognitive Panorama Bridge."
  Heiner Benking (Club of Budapest) designed a means of conceptually categorising data and information from various fields the same way, called a cognitive panorama. Cognitive landscapes can be seen as spacial scaffoldings to help find and order what we know and what we don't know, in different representations, languages or media. Complex?

• Nelson (De Luca) Pretto. Author of Education and Multimedia (Uma escola sem/com futuro - educação e multimedia), published in April 1996 by Papirus Publishers, São Paulo. He is a Professor of New Communication Technologies at the Federal University of Bahia (UFBA) Education Department

• Research Center of Information Technologies and Participatory Democracy (CITIDEP) click para versão portuguesa [VOOR]. Research Center on Information Technologies and Participatory Democracy The Center has as its primary objectives to foster citizenship, protect our heritage and the environment, studying and promoting processes of participatory democracy, especially through the research and development of new information technologies and political, administrative and planning frameworks that facilitate these processes.