Concluding remarks

Yves Punie (Institute for Prospective Technological Studies) presented his personal view of the conference and the eLearning landscape in general.
He observed six main ideas throughout the sessions.

1. A new vision about eLearning, based on a new society, is under construction.
Our current vision about learning is based on an industrial society: learning in schools, working on the job... Now we witness technology touching the foundations of our society, with implications for government, media, social inclusion...

2. eLearning needs a multi-stakeholder involvement.
For example: we don't need ad-hoc solutions for collaboration between schools and companies, but rather a systemic approach.

3. We need to develop a holistic view on education.
A global approach must take into consideration content, media, legal issues, infrastructure, intellectual property rights, employment, inclusion...

4. Learning is a social issue.
Not 'employees' but 'citizens'. Learning for self fulfillment, with attention to all social groups.

5. Formal learning in formal institutes is not the way of the future.
We need to take into account the enormous potential of informal learning. People read web pages and read and write blogs, use their online social network for problem solving, talk to their peers... We need to take this huge learning market into account. Much money is spent on formal learning which only count for a fraction of all learning.

6. The demographical evolutions in Europe are a serious challenge. We have a more and more elderly population, and urgently need to start thinking how we will include them in the learning society, and make use of their experience and knowledge by letting them share it with young people.