LINC 2010 engages and inspires

Conference focuses on the present and future of technology-enabled learning worldwide

Approximately 200 participants from 40 different countries converged at the MIT Learning International Networks Consortium (LINC) 2010 Conference on May 23-26 to discuss on how universities worldwide can better provide distance education and e-learning resources to current and future students.

The conference, titled “University Leadership: Bringing Technology-Enabled Education to Learners of All Ages,” focused on how online tools can improve the universities’ pool of future applicants and provide resources to adults and working professionals, in turn promoting lifelong learning.

MIT Chancellor Phillip Clay delivered remarks on May 24, expressing his great support of and hopes for LINC. He praised the consortium for its embodiment of collaboration on the largest scale, thereby creating new best practices for reaching diverse populations of learners. He acknowledged that e-learning offers tremendous potential to people of all ages, all over the world.

“It is no longer news that the world is flat,” Clay said. “Those who are not connected [via the Internet] are even further behind today than they were in 2001, [when LINC first began].”

Robert Hawkins, senior education specialist at The World Bank Institute, further expanded on the subject of education beyond the classroom, presenting “The Top 10 Global Trends in ICT and Education.” Among these are the popularity of and demand for mobile devices, cloud computing, one-to-one computing, teacher-generated open content, and gaming — all of which Hawkins described with examples of their implementation as educational tools.

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