Back to #EDEN

Image from Pixabay

EDEN - the European Distance and E-learning Network - is my spiritual home. Where is EDEN, you may ask? It's everywhere. It's a professional community of educators interested in technology supported learning.

I have been associated with the organisation and its various events, projects and people, since 1996. In that year I was just starting out in the world of educational technology, and I presented some of my research at the EDEN summer conference in Poitiers, France. It was the first international education event I had ever attended, and I remember sharing the stage with Gilly Salmon and Sally Reynolds. It was the start of many long associations with these and other brilliant innovators and thinkers in the nascent world of technology supported learning. Almost a quarter of a century later, we can look back at the many, many changes of the intervening years.

Let me list just a few: Smart phones and other mobile technologies such as e-readers; social media and social networks; touch-screen technologies; Web 2.0; MOOCs; and a whole host of other innovations have been birthed during this time. New teaching and learning methods and techniques and new pedagogical theories have emerged, and those of us who inhabit the world of education and training have witnessed disruption (both positive and detrimental) on a vast scale.

My association with EDEN has provided me with a rich and diverse network of international colleagues and collaborators, some of whom have become firm friends. The cream on the cake for me however, was when I was recognised by EDEN for my research and engagement in distance education and technology supported learning in Europe. In 2007 I was awarded a Fellowship, and a decade later in 2017 I was given the honour of being named a senior fellow of EDEN. I led the Network of Academics and Professionals for 3 years too - a very rewarding experience working with so many great people.

It was an honour then, to be invited to keynote EDEN's 2019 summer event, which will be held in the beautiful city of Bruges, Belgium, between 16-19 June. Check out the conference website and visit periodically, as EDEN announces more keynotes and features of the summer event. I hope to see you there!


Back to #EDEN by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.