European Journal of Education, Vol. 42, No. 2, 2007

European Journal of Education, Vol. 42, No.
2, 2007
The Big Picture: understanding learning and

meta-learning challenges
ROBERTO CARNEIRO1
Futures of Learning — A Compelling Agenda

We stand at the start of a new century that promises complexity and no let up in
the scale and pace of change. Learning how to understand, adapt to and prosper
in these turbulent times has become an urgent matter and a critical competence.
Hence the decision to produce an issue of the European Journal of Education (EJE)
that is entirely devoted to the debate around the broad directions of learning policy
and practice in Europe. This publication follows two seminars that were organised
in 2005, one in Glasgow (24–25 June) and the other in Paris (25–26 November)
and which aimed to provide ‘food for thought’. Its purpose is to raise awareness
about research in the field of learning that is likely to have a significant impact on
future practice, both in the formal and non-formal sectors. As an overall outcome
of the exercise, we wish to ensure that this knowledge is disseminated amongst
policy-makers, decision-makers and practitioners.
But acting on these priorities to advance learning, using evolving theory to
develop new policies is not easy. The biggest challenge remains effective imple-
mentation. As we look ahead, there are many uncertainties that tax the ingenuity
and foresight of decision-makers in government, enterprise and civil society. They
raise such questions as:
• Can we foresee how a new generation of technologies and interfaces —

ubiquitous, embedded and mobile — will reshape access to and delivery of
learning?
• Do we have the will to bridge effectively the digital divide?
• How will effective lifelong learning policies and practices change the supply-
demand equation?
• Will the locus of learning move away from the traditional institutions of
education? What will be the future roles of governments, enterprises and
civil society when learning is taken out of the traditional institutions?
• If it is true that brain research remains in its infancy, then how will a better
understanding of the human mind influence learning in the 21st century?
• Can we expect dramatic changes in the ways we organise and transmit
knowledge between generations?
• Is the network society an enhanced learning society?
To tackle such a vast and complex agenda lies well beyond the possibilities of one
single enterprise. Rather, this issue of EJE will focus on how the learning systems
© 2007 The Author. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ,
UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
152 European Journal of Education
learn and new paradigms of learning, in particular drawing together and further
exploring broad questions such as:
— If we do not like the present situation, should we change it, change the
people in it, or change ourselves?
— How do we govern the emerging, highly densely networked society? How
can we plan for innovation in a complex environment where ‘planning
causes failure and fails to reduce risk’? How can we adapt our learning
systems for conditions of complexity and a lifelong continuum of learning?
— How can co-production and co-creation flourish in a system based on the
assessment of individuals? Can we match universal requirements and
individual needs?
— Can our 19th-century institutions lead us into the 21st? How can the
education system successfully link the past, present and future? How can
schools adjust their role within wider structures of society? How can we
address the gaps in culture and mindset between pupils and teachers? How
can we enable a shift in the balance from control to participation — for
learners and teachers?
— We can innovate where learning is voluntary. How can we innovate in the
compulsory education sector?
— How can we embed successful innovation? Replicate and scale (the differ-
ence between ‘fresh’ and ‘canned’)? If novelty and unfamiliarity are key to
innovation, how can it be sustainable? Is ‘sustainable unfamiliarity’ a
paradox? What can we learn from the failure to learn from previous rounds
of innovation? Much of today’s ‘innovation’ reinvents yesterday’s wheel.
— What are the theoretical resources from outside education policy and
practice that we can draw on for our challenge?
— How can we balance spontaneity and innovation with needs for order,
assessment and evaluation?
— How can we address the ‘soul’ needs of learners?
— How do we reconcile diverse approaches with equity and coherence?
We will be witnessing exponential change in the ways we teach and learn. Little
doubt can remain about that. Just imagine the scope and breadth of consequences
of the mass distribution of the US $100 laptop to all classrooms of the planet; or
the impact of high speed broadband Internet on students’ learning styles and
preferences; or the day when podcasting classes become the norm; or the gener-
alisation of open source campus serving disenfranchised regions and peoples of the
globe; or the dissemination of quantum computing working on solar energy panels;
or the merging of new media companies with traditional universities to generate
new forms of customised learning networks and communities of practice.
The future agenda challenges our capacity to dream and our common vision of
what will constitute a true and lasting learning society.2
Industrial Societies, Informational Societies, Knowledge Societies,

Learning Societies: a value chain3
Human beings are compelling inventors of technology.They are hardly a species, for
the simple reason that they are not very specialised. Unlike other species, humans
are anatomically indigent4 — they are destitute of ‘high-tech parts’, such as the
© 2007 The Author. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Roberto Carneiro 153
crab’s pincers, the bird’s beak or the octopus’ tentacle. Indeed, human survival is
dependent on the production and use of technology. From his very early days,
Homo faber has resorted to technological breakthroughs to extend the power of the
brain, his only truly specialised organ. Technological creation is a way of human
differentiation. Its formidable advances have served well the Homo faber in his
constant search for tools of survival, protection, shelter, hunting and gathering.
Ironically, technological progress has also come to shape the minds of those who
are their prime inventors. Humankind gradually learns to study, understand,
interpret and make sense with and through technology: Homo sapiens has acquired
a unique technological nature. However, one ought to say that Homo sapiens
precedes technology in his quest for meaning — mind before machine — in the
same way that complexity overrules linearity — the supremacy of a world of cultural
diversity and plurality over a world of first-order technological uniformity.
Education is the ultimate realm of the Homo sapiens sapiens. Nonetheless, it is
fraught with oracles preaching technological novelty, and one cannot help eliciting
innovation and enterprise as growing concerns in learning; but also, by mission —
even design — education is a place of preservation and transmission.This dual role
of both conserving and liberating, with its potential for contradiction, conflict and
even immobilisation, is more present today than ever before.5 One could even say
that this pervasive duality in education is compounded today by a rapidly changing
society. It is as if the ‘old order’ of thinking is being replaced by new paradigms of
understanding reality and of foreseeing our common predicament.
Technological discovery has seized our daily life. The increasing speed of
change makes it difficult for us to stop and reflect. The future proves less and less
to be the simple projection of the past. This is the ‘age of discontinuity’ to quote a
remarkable contemporary analyst, P. Drucker.
Education — the supreme social function — is ‘caught’ between ‘two fires’, two
kinds of society, in the transition of millennia. Evermore placed in the thin
borderline between stability and change, between preservation and innovation,
education undergoes unprecedented tensions. Indeed, educational systems are a
mirror of all the contradictions that strike our modern societies.
In our old society — stable, simple and repetitive — memory controlled project,
principles were immutably passed on, and exemplary patterns could be preserved
as archetypes. It is the primacy of structure over genesis. In our new society —
unstable, inventive and innovative — project overcomes memory, future controls
the past, patterns are constantly being put to question. It is the primacy of genesis
over structure. Society — old or new — is the natural environment for humans.
Human beings cannot survive out of society. Education, in its intrinsic sociality, is
forged by cultural experience and social learning.
Knowledge and learning constitute the two faces of one same coin: they
represent the process of societal ascent from the ‘primitive’ forms of industry and
information — predominantly economic-driven — to the more ‘advanced’ forms
of community and freedom — determined by cultural achievement. Technology
provides the ladder to climb the value chain.
Knowledge as Meta-information, Learning as Meta-cognition

Bridging the gulf between knowledge and learning steers the way to overcome a
tragic flaw of our modern age. The more knowledge seems generalised, insofar as

information appears to become accessible to all, within the reach of our bare
fingertips, the more the gulf separating a developed world and an underdeveloped
sub-world widens every day when measured in terms of effective learning oppor-
tunities. The consolidation of a Global Learning Village unequivocally places the
issues of differential learning opportunities and knowledge disparities in the front
line of international action.
Major knowledge gaps and learning inequalities are fundamental breaches in
the social brokerage systems of information. The lessons delivered by our recent
past show that welfare gaps stand a strong chance of widening in the new economy.
We need to move beyond the technological fallacy of a connected world. The real
challenge is to create a bonded world. Connectivity — or the death of distance —
ought to translate into greater personal proximity: achieving a global world where
the affluent minorities are unequivocally committed to the fate of their fellow
citizens in deprived areas, those who are the bearers of intergenerational poverty
and inherited exclusion.6
In a context of growing complexity, linear cause and effect relationships seem
to lose their explanatory power. The cognitive frameworks left by the Age of
Enlightenment — the objective truth and the power of reason — seem insufficient
to attain the supreme knowledge that we all seek and do not find.
Ways of understanding our world, strictly based on a subject-object separation,
on the superior human capacity to dominate and control the ‘exterior’ reality, and
on the supremacy of technological reason and its pragmatic imperatives, have
ceased to make sense. On the contrary, the superiority of the subject-subject
relationship, the consequent emergence of a community of subjects, the
tropism towards non-fragmentary algorithms to deepen knowledge, and the emer-
gence of holistic and integral ways of examining complexity are new paradigms
that promise to speak to our inner core of meaning-making processes in a way that
the mere exterior and material reality of things cannot. So the challenge is to ask
how we re-think and re-enact the world in our lives in such a way that, instead of
thinking of the world as a collection of objects, we think of it as a communion
of subjects.
The subject-object split is the hallmark of the Enlightenment, the separation of
the self from the world. Science is founded on the conviction that in order to know
the world we must remain removed from our subjective human experience and rely
instead on objective, reproducible, impersonal data.This is a model of mastery and
expertise: the expert as subject, the world as object. This attitude postulates a
knowledge-rich education that could often end up in meaning-free learning. This
dichotomous way of understanding the challenges of our complex modernity has
profound implications on the means chosen to better know the world.7
The codified and authoritarian way of scrutiny seeks the incessant progress of
knowledge by means of control of the exterior reality. That which is not under the
control of the scientist cannot, by definition, be known and dissected. This is the
presumption in the school of today.
Alternatively, the tacit and inter-subjective way of knowing elicits participation
as a superior value (see Figure 1). Indeed, complexity is not compatible with
simplistic algorithms of knowing — and of communication — based on an atomi-
sation of knowledge. Our attention is progressively led to a better knowledge of the
whole as opposed to a greater knowledge of the parts. These are founding direc-
tions for the school of tomorrow.

Control
Knowing by
gaining control
Homogenisation
Fragmentation Abstraction
Alienation
Disappointment Hope
and fear and play
Participation
Knowing by
participation
Inclusion
Diversity
Figure 1. Two ways of knowing
Lifelong Learning, Lifewide Learning and Learning throughout Life

Learning throughout life is a strategic proposition destined to combine tradition
and modernity. How then would learning throughout life be different from decades
of adult education policies, endless discussions focused on recurrent education, or
the recent surge of interest around lifelong learning? Is this merely a rhetorical
face-lift of old theories or does it truly encompass elements of novelty?
The stages and bridges of education are increasingly recognised as crucial. How
the system conceives the passage from one stage to another, the links from one
stream to the following, tells us a great deal about its philosophy. Are the stages
conceived as smooth transitions to facilitate mobility? Are the bridges wide, many
and inviting? They should be, because the purpose of education needs to be both
excellence and inclusiveness.
Learning throughout life, then, is both a way of organising education and a
philosophy of education; not a preparation for life but life itself, to follow the
overarching concept of J. Dewey. It must then be conceived as offering:
• Diversity of itineraries in time, content and learning styles.

• Continuing learning opportunities.
• Community participation, decentralisation, diversification of financing
and delivery, democratic consultations about the aims and practices of
education.

• Antidotes to un-learning and to de-skilling trends in vast segments of our

societies.
• New social dimensions to knowledge production and competence
acquisition.
• Action and remedies designed both to prevent and to minimise the inequi-
table distribution of intelligence in our current societies.
It directly follows that learning throughout life — a proposition widely endorsed

by public policies — is highly contingent on the formation of vibrant cultures, both
at individual and societal levels. Continuous learning poses a formidable challenge
to all knowledge-driven societies. Seldom are individuals equipped with the skills
that are necessary to self-organise and self-manage long-term knowledge paths.
Therefore, underpinning metacognitive competences and skills from the very early
stages of formal education is becoming all the more important.
Learning to organise multiple sources of information, learning to learn from
experience (experiential knowledge), dealing with the social dimensions of know-
ledge formation, learning to self-regulate the effort to learn, learning to forget and
to un-learn whenever necessary and making room for new knowledge, combining
— in adequate dosage — codified and tacit knowledge, permanently converting
inert into active knowledge — these are but a few of the pressing challenges that
form part of a learning culture.
Hence, a high-intensity lifelong and life-wide learning system addressing all
walks of life would encompass a diversified range of incentives:
• New incentives for competence acquisition in de-institutionalised settings.

• New incentives designed to recognise, measure and accredit tacit knowledge
and learning by doing (or doing by learning).
• New incentives to enhance the accumulation processes of human, social and
cultural capital.
• New incentives to harness the dynamism and creativity unleashed by greater
social diversity.
• New incentives to change the role of the State: moving away from the public
provision of monolithic services and turning to regulatory roles in a context
of multiple providers.
• New incentives to ‘learning without constraints and without frontiers’.
• The International Commission on Education for the 21st Century8 pro-
posed four pillars of learning: Learning to Be, Learning to Know, Learning
to Do, Learning to Live Together.
Learning to Be takes on the nature of a timeless priority, already recognised in the

Faure Report in 1971 that takes on the inner journey of each and every one as a
process of spiritual and existential broadening that bestows a final meaning on life
and on the pursuit of happiness.
Learning to Know is a form of learning that lies within the scope of scientific
and technological progress. This pillar appeals to the urgent need to react to the
multiplicity of sources of information, to the diversity of rich multimedia content,
to new ways of knowing in a society that is closely interconnected.
Learning to Do aspires at connecting knowledge and skills, learning and
competence, inert and active learning, codified and tacit knowledge, creative and

adaptive learning. Learning by doing and Doing by learning9 lead us to the key to
face an uncertain world and also the changing nature of work.
Learning to Live Together encompasses the extraordinary challenge to
rediscover a meaningful relationship, to raise the thresholds of social cohesion, to
make viable the sustainable foundations for community development. It contains
the core values of civic life and identity-building within a context of multiple
belongings.
The four pillars of learning set out the lasting foundations for lifelong and
lifewide learning in a scenario of a Learning Society.
Scenarios of a Learning Society10

Departing from Education and flowing through the Knowledge-driven age we
arrive at scenarios of a learning society designed to overcome the shortcomings of
both a bureaucratic vision and of the economic domination over the education
sphere.
A fully comprehensive model will consider the intersections of three key
variables: paradigm shifts; delivery modes; and driving forces. In turn, each of these
key variables is allowed to develop longitudinally throughout time. Thus, they are
permitted to unfold into three dimensions: past; present; and future.
A summation of the 3 by 3 resulting combinations could be briefly described in
the following matrix:
(a) Paradigm shifts: from industry (past), to globalisation (present thrust),

and moving towards a New Renaissance period (utopian vision).
(b) Delivery modes: from uniform, rote systems (past) to segmented distri-
bution (present market-driven trend), and gradually accommodating
increasing levels of personalisation/customisation (utopian vision).
(c) Driving forces: from bureaucracy-led (past preference for national or
State-controlled systems) to market-led arrangements (present move),
which, in turn, should give way to empowered communities (utopian
vision of a radical devolution to civil society).
My feeling is that we are swiftly moving from a Clockwork Orange education to a

Knowledge Age, championed by a combination of a global order with market
segmentation in distribution channels. The latter doctrine stems from the belief in
a promethean knowledge, a knowledge generation capable of releasing humankind
from bondage and of achieving a supreme order of wealth.
The Big Picture that we favour does not end here. Economic theory, on its own,
is grossly unsatisfactory to address a grounded humanistic and societal dream.The
end of history would be too clumsy without a further horizon to aspire at. Hence,
our concept of a Learning Society that achieves the unity of learning. It is a vision
made up of robust learning communities that are fully empowered to conduct the
business of education and training in accordance with their communal identities.11
A civil society of this calibre exercises its prerogatives to the farthest limits of
subsidiarity, i.e. any State intervention is contained within the primordial rights of
self-aware and self-determining communities (see Figure 2).
Both Education and Learning would spring from a vision constructed around
a three-nested system: the learning classroom, encompassing teachers and

Customised Communities
Learning
Society
Segmented Knowledge Market

Age
Clockwork
Uniform Bureaucracy
Orange
Industry Globalisation New Renaissance
Figure 2. Scenarios leading to a Learning Society
students; the learning school, bringing together superintendents, principals,

school leaders, administrators, parents, school board members, trustees; the
learning community, extending reach and scope to community members, life-
long learners, the media, business communities, social and cultural institutions.
Addressing educare — in the purest Greek understanding — is a central tenet
to this dream. The proposition of a Learning Society remains a ‘mysterium tremen-
dum’. It is a powerful appeal to the realm of human will and consciousness to reach
beyond simple knowledge as a panacea and a new consumption commodity to be
managed in our daily portfolio of conveniences.
From ODL to e-, Blended, and Flexible Learning

In a paper presented at the International Commission on Education in the 21st
Century (UNESCO, 1994) we advocated an approach to education cycles based
on an evolutionary process. The unfolding of education systems would comprise
four distinct stages:
• stage 1: product-oriented
• stage 2: consumption-oriented
• stage 3: client-oriented
• stage 4: innovation- and community-oriented
These stages propose a somewhat common interpretation of life cycles in educa-

tion, progressing in value from linear ‘Newtonian’ behaviours to multi-dimensional
complex systems (self-organising communities and learning hubs). While the
former identify themselves with first-order organisations inspired by physics, the
latter coincide with higher-order systems inspired by biology: catering for a ‘new
ethics of relatedness’ and also the effecting of advanced ‘shared consciousness’
(re-membering).
Distance learning can operate, in this context, as a kind of ‘leading sector’
(Rostow) to engine the transition from industrial modes of teaching to knowledge-
based systems of open learning. In this case, technology acts as a catalyst to

‘transformative or creative destruction’ patterns in education and training. More-

over, technology-enhanced learning can provide a take-off towards the formation
of a new education paradigm by fostering (‘sharp stimulus’) demand in a sustain-
able fashion and pushing innovation in supply.
While the old industrial model seeks growth that is based on the expansion of
inputs (low returns to scale condemned to diminishing returns), new learning
inaugurates an age of productivity growth and efficiency gains (growth in output
per unit of input). This is achieved by ‘openness’ — an attribute that allows proper
knowledge diffusion and healthy competition.
The changing canon of learning produces a fundamental change in education
as it moves gradually from industry to service.
Taken from this angle, new learning would rebalance the strengths between
supply and demand, encourage the shift from a monopolistic and uniform provision
to manifold providers focused on stakeholders, transform teaching institutions into
learning networks, and also foster the move from objective knowledge transmission
to personal and social learning. In this changing landscape, education institutions
would undergo major pressures to replace the traditional emphasis on all taught
learning by a blend of flexible learning: some taught learning, a great deal of self-
learning, as well as increased assisted and group learning. Learning interacts with the
world through active knowledge (as opposed to inert knowledge), i.e. the wholesale
knowledge which adds value to problem-solving and interpretative abilities.
Un-bundling education services would also allow for enhanced opportunities in
a new learning world that is able to bridge the old mismatches between demand
and supply of learning. Information technologies could act as a bridge between
new and old learning by approximating supply and demand, enhancing flexibility
and customisation, promoting an equitable distribution of learning resources,
combining distance and proximity (face to face) strategies, boosting the effective-
ness of classroom learning and teaching, augmenting lifelong learning opportuni-
ties for continuous skills upgrading and personal/social development in the
workplace, and assisting in the expansion of teaching competences.
ODL, or its re-incarnation in the form of flexible learning, would harness a host
of new technology-push tools (e- and b-learning) to produce a triple empowerment:
• Empowering people, citizens and workers, as active learners.

• Empowering education institutions to nurture learning hubs and broad
knowledge networks.
• Empowering corporations as knowledge-driven institutions and training
agencies at the service of lifelong learning opportunities.
Is this a far-fetched dream? Can learning processes truly come alive? How would
flexible and network learning emerge as a paradigm shift in the story of education?
Six major thrusts in the changing patterns of education and learning can be
envisaged:
• Learner-centred rather than teacher-centred learning.

• Encouraging variety, not homogeneity: embracing multiple intelligences and
diverse learning styles.
• Understanding a world of interdependency and change, rather than memo-
rising facts and striving for right answers.

• Constantly exploring the theories-in-use of all involved in the education

processes.
• Reintegrating education within webs of social relationships that link peers,
friends, families, organisations, and communities.
• Overcoming the knowledge fragmentation that is typical of a first enlight-
enment mode of understanding in favour of more holistic and integral ways
of knowing.
Can Knowledge Constructivism Win over Drill-and-Practice?12

Schools, universities and teachers have throughout time been the ‘knowledge
pillars’ of human and social progress. Dreaming of a learning society without
catering for its contribution sounds inadmissible. Schools still provide the best
embryo of multipurpose learning centres; universities are central knowledge hubs,
irreplaceable factories of new knowledge and homes of advanced learning. Teach-
ers meet the core requirements to occupy the forefront of lifelong learning enter-
prises. The all-learning society relies on teachers as leaders, not laggards.
The traditional associationist theory — brilliantly designed under Thorndike’s
genius — influenced the entire pedagogical preferences of the 20th century. Under
these assumptions, drill-and-practice coupled with bonds and rewards would
suffice to address a core theory of aptitude distribution; the Bell curve provided with
the undisputed statistical dogma. Teachers would qualify as semi-skilled workers
with the prime duty of carrying out instructions designed by curriculum experts.
New learning theories emphasise a ‘new core’ constituted by knowledge con-
structivism and learners who actively engage in self-management of cognitive
processes. Constructivism sheds new light on the role of intersubjectivity vis-à-vis
social learning: knowledge is elevated to the category of personal and social
construct, indivisible from cultural conditionalities and their forceful interplay.The
road to knowledge and cognition is thus contingent on memory, history, language,
ethnicity and affection.
Culture, in itself, acts as a powerful marker of knowledge appropriation and
transmission. Symbolic language pervades the entire universe of knowledge;
speech — naming things — is intertwined with thought. While knowledge results
from the internalisation of social interaction, language provides the material foun-
dation of thought.13
In the narrow associationist inspiration technology tends to be regarded as a
potent informational tool (IT); conversely, new learning theories would tend to deal
with technology as powerful relational and communication (IC) instruments.
Intelligence ceases being treated as a natural and inelastic endowment.
Research shows that long-term immersion in demanding environments can favour
the acquisition of robust ‘habits of mind’. Incremental expansion of intelligence is
attainable through generative learning: a balanced combination of effort and
ability, appealing to expert instruction and competent mentoring. Teachers’
abilities become critical and expandable through effort and on-going professional
development.
The hallmark of a learning school, then, is its ethos to continually seek new
knowledge and to provide the leadership enabling a new teacher professionalism.
Teachers are fundamentally learners, eager to engage in the institutional negotia-
tion of improvement goals and in the strengthening of solid vocational identities.

Anywhere, Anytime: the emergence of Flexible Learning

With distance learning the education enterprise has witnessed a gradual death of
space and of time, a phenomenon that is a commonplace consequence of tech-
nology and also the result of the information society.
School has lost its monopoly over the learning locus. The workplace, the home,
or sheer mobility (on-the-move) offer powerful loci of flexible learning. Ubiquitous
and distributed learning are taking over the norm, allowing learners a much more
effective management of their resources for learning.
Figure 3 illustrates four alternative educational paradigms and the challenge
posed by flexible learning approaches.
same
place
shift or
traditional year-round
school education
same different
time times
old-media flexible
distance learning
education
different
places
Figure 3. Four alternative educational paradigms
Technology steps in to empower both the learner and the educator and the
coming of age represented by increased personal sovereignty over space and time
affects both parties concerned in the learning enterprise. The prize-winning ques-
tion remains in knowing whether or not distance and flexible learning will further
empower the lifelong learner, particularly at the low learning end.
Can D equate LL? Is technology-enhanced learning narrowing the gap between
learning-averse people and learning-eager people? Will ICT eventually act as a
catalyser or, on the contrary, as a hurdle to slow pace and little motivated learners?
How can the disappearance of space and time encourage a further allocation of
individual resources for learning?
The lowering of physical barriers to the effectiveness of learning efforts is a
positive contribution to overcome the anxiety of learning.14 Furthermore, technical
solutions vis-à-vis LMS and LCMS are rapidly evolving into invisible or fading-out

technologies. Platforms are bound to become increasingly intuitive and friendly,

thus allowing for maximum degrees of freedom in customised teaching or learning
paths. Flexible learning can turn into a resourceful paradigm for new education
modes and the creation of a new generation of learning environments.
Ambient Intelligent — The Invisible Learning Interfaces15

An evocative scenario of what might be the normal learning environment in less
than a decade is the Ambient Intelligent interface for new learning. This would be
the case with Annette and Solomon in the Ambient for Social Learning. The
following description is a telling tale of a near future in education (2010):
It is the plenary meeting of an environmental studies group in a local ‘Ambient

for Social Learning’. The group ranges from 10 to 75 years old. They share a
common desire to understand the environment and environmental manage-
ment. It is led by a mentor whose role it is to guide and facilitate the group’s
operation, but who is not necessarily very knowledgeable about environmen-
tal management.The plenary takes place in a room looking much like a hotel
foyer with comfortable furniture pleasantly arranged. The meeting is open
from 7.00–23.00 hours. Most participants are there for 4–6 hours. A large
group arrives around 9.30 a.m. Some are scheduled to work together in real
time and space and thus were requested to be present together (the ambient
accesses their agendas to do the scheduling).
A member is arriving: as she enters the room and finds herself a place to
work, she hears a familiar voice asking ‘Hello Annette, I got the assignment
you did last night from home: are you satisfied with the results?’ Annette
answers that she was happy with her strategy for managing forests provided
that she had got the climatic model right: she was less sure of this. Annette is
an active and advanced student so the ambient says it might be useful if
Annette spends some time today trying to pin down the problem with the
model using enhanced interactive simulation and projection facilities. It then
asks if Annette would give a brief presentation to the group.The ambient goes
briefly through its understanding of Annette’s availability and preferences for
the day’s work. Finally, Annette agrees on her work programme for the day.
One particularly long conversation takes place with Solomon who has just
moved to the area and joined the group. The ambient establishes Solomon’s
identity; asks Solomon for the name of an ambient that ‘knows’ Solomon;
gets permission from Solomon to acquire information about Solomon’s
background and experience in Environmental Studies. The ambient then
suggests that Solomon joins the meeting and introduces himself to the group.
In these private conversations the mental states of the group are synchronized
with the ambient, individual and collective work plans are agreed and in most
cases checked with the mentor through the ambient. In some cases the
assistance of the mentor is requested. A scheduled plenary meeting begins
with those who are present. Solomon introduces himself. Annette gives a 3-D
presentation of her assignment. A group member asks questions about one

of Annette’s decisions and alternative visualizations are projected. During

the presentation the mentor is feeding observations and questions to the
ambient, together with William, an expert who was asked to join the meeting.
William, although several thousand miles away, joins in to make a comment
and answer some questions. The session ends with a discussion of how
Annette’s work contributes to that of the others and the proposal of schedules
for the remainder of the day. The ambient suggests a schedule involving both
shared and individual sessions.
During the day individuals and sub-groups locate in appropriate spaces in the
ambient to pursue appropriate learning experiences at a pace that suits them.
The ambient negotiates its degree of participation in these experiences with
the aid of the mentor. During the day the mentor and ambient converse
frequently, establishing where the mentor might most usefully spend his time,
and in some cases altering the schedule. The ambient and the mentor will
spend some time negotiating shared experiences with other ambients — for
example mounting a single musical concert with players from two or more
distant sites. They will also deal with requests for references/profiles of
individuals. Time spent in the ambient ends by negotiating a homework
assignment with each individual, but only after they have been informed
about what the ambient expects to happen for the rest of the day and making
appointments for next day or next time.
This scenario — and its underpinning technologies — stresses the fact that
learning is always a collaborative activity, involving strong interchange within a
community and between communities. These communities may be very broad,
spanning disciplines, but having a common purpose (e.g. working more effectively)
or related to a particular profession. They may be within a single (large) organi-
sation or span many organisations. Systems for individual learning for work will
therefore need to address issues of social interaction in a virtual world; the
automatic identification of communities of purpose within a population of learn-
ers; learner roles and behaviours; the creation and transfer of knowledge within a
virtual learning community; and the ownership of knowledge created by learners
within the system.
Team Learning, a ‘human technology’, emerges as key to the foundation of
learning schools.16 Through the discipline of group interaction and discussion, joint
learning can transform the collective thinking of members and compound the
value of metanoia by reaching out to other interconnected communities which are
equally engaged in the pursuit of meaningful change.
Imparting and Brokering Knowledge: towards a new social contract

It is now commonplace to observe a deep current in the quest for a paradigm
change: drifting away from dispensed teaching in large educational machineries;
giving way to distributed and demand-driven ‘action learning’; and resorting to
decentralised networks of institutions.17
Three archetypes of new knowledge will shape the next stages in knowledge
theories. They form a web of 3 Cs: Chaos, Complexity, Consilience. Let us briefly
allude to them as prime sources of new thinking.

‘Newton’s mathematic organisation of the middle world — from molecules to stars —

reveals serious deficiencies in a number of respects’.This is how Van Doren18 introduces
chaos analysis as a high sensitivity approach to slight variations in initial states.
Chaos theory is fraught with a new lexicon: fractals, strange attractors, Mandelbrot
sets, multibody systems. This new science is equipped to deal with a world of a
subtle God — even a careless God — not a malicious One, in Einstein’s own
words. Disorder is not necessarily contrary to the attainment of a new order state.
Quite often the former acts as a pre-requisite to the latter.
Complex thinking reclaims a new canon in thinking and knowledge manage-
ment. It springs from tentatives to explain how complexity can follow non-linear
and discontinuous paths to arrive at higher orders. This would be the case with
P. Krugman’s punctuated equilibrium theories of self-organising systems19 and
with Kaufman’s NK models in molecular and evolutionary biology. Complexity
places itself at the ‘edge of chaos’, the thin borderline between perfect internal
order and total disorder to trace breakthrough developments.
Consilience is advocated by Edward Wilson,20 a renowned social biologist who
retrieves William Whewell’s21 ‘jumping together’ of knowledge by the linking of
facts and fact-based theory across disciplines to create a common ground of
explanation. In line with the Ionian Enchantment of Ancient Greece, consilience
seeks the key to the unity of knowledge; taking on board the fundamental premise
that the ongoing fragmentation of knowledge and resulting chaos in philosophy are
not reflections of the real world but artefacts of scholarship. Consilience resumes
a positivistic faith in scientific knowledge to add meaning and explanatory power
to human intervention in the surrounding world.
Recent research into the nature of knowledge has led to establish a clear-cut
distinction between codified and tacit knowledge.Whilst the former resonates with
scientific and academic knowledge, the latter is becoming evermore important in
the business world. Evidently, corporate differentiation and business competitive-
ness are much more contingent on the availability and retention of tacit (implicit)
knowledge, incorporated in people, than on the use of codified (explicit) know-
ledge which is currently available in more or less public sources of knowledge.
Nonaka’s proposition of a knowledge spiral, and his seminal theory of ba, are
an elegant, albeit intriguing, approach to the creation and diffusion of knowledge
in our organisational world. Likewise, social learning springs to the very core of
new learning approaches as a consequence of innovative modes of knowledge
transmission that resort to oblique exchanges of experience and reflexivity between
learners. New learning acquires a strong relational flavour. By the same token,
lifelong learning demands closeness and proximity. Hence, the issue that follows is
whether or not distance learning can provide the quantum of vicinity and the
robustness of community that new learning longs for.
Are virtual communities good surrogates for real communities? Can distance
tutoring create motivation for learning? How effective is e-learning as a meta-
cognitive driver? Under which conditions are forums the adequate medium for
interactive learning? When addressing lifelong learning necessities can Distance
support Trust?
A search into the realm of this evolving universe allows us to discern five
paradigmatic mutations. Amongst other key features, this structural change aims
at crossing a dividing line that was never breached during the industrial age,
notwithstanding the most vigorous denouncements fired at the educational

perpetuation of an underclass of non-achievers and low-skilled in successive

generations.
New knowledge faces the pressing challenge of re-inventing a more inclusive
societal pattern of human relationship:22 a new way to inclusive knowledge (see
Fig. 4).
CLASSICAL APPROACH NEW APPROACH
What to teach Where to learn

How to teach When to learn
Initial Education Flexible Learning

For a lifetime throughout life
Fragmented Knowledge Holistic Knowledge
Status-ridden Knowledge Inclusive Knowledge
‘Have-nots’ ‘Haves’
Figure 4. The way to inclusive knowledge
Learning throughout Life, Learning Identities and Knowledge-driven Cultures

A comprehensive vision of personal learning as vitally important to all stages of
one’s lifespan will address three different development goals:
1. Personal and cultural development — related to sense, meaning-making

and spiritual wealth.
2. Social and community development — related to citizenship, participation
and sociality.
3. Professional development and sustainable employability — related to pro-
duction, job satisfaction, material welfare and economic pursuit.
Learning in the new millennium is expected to make a major contribution to the

achievement of the third aim — the traditional goal set by the economics of
education. The evolution of our world towards complexity and interdependency,
however, brings out the necessity to provide a broader frame for lifelong learning:
putting upfront personal and cultural advancement, as well as citizenship devel-
opment — two further human development needs that are far from being con-
cealed within a narrow economic approach.
Moving from rhetoric to actual implementation is still far from being achieved.
Permanent and lifelong education have pertained to the educational lexicon for
decades. Hence, it is necessary to open new avenues exploring life as a fundamental
learning asset — not strictly in an expanded time horizon sense, but profiting from
life’s unique experience as an invaluable subject of reflection. Learning is inevitably
a consolidation of dense inner journeys, it appeals to ‘The TreasureWithin’.There is

no quick fix inventory of magical solutions. The UNESCO Commission on Edu-

cation for the 21st Century alludes to a number of overriding priorities. A renewed
policy thrust would contemplate, inter alia, four cardinal areas:
1. Offering study-time entitlements for all after compulsory education.
2. Carefully examining the strong features of the dual system and extending
its strengths to overcome the current ‘trust gap’ between companies and
schools.
3. Developing networked learning and strong partnerships to enhance life-
long learning opportunities.
4. Putting teachers and educators at the centre of the learning society and
providing them with incentives to embark on lifelong learning strategies.
Vaulting volatility marks our working context. The market puts a premium on
multicompetences and mobility. The spread of tele- and e-work calls on novel
self-management competences. Likewise, the central tenet of autonomy and self-
determination resorts to the critical issue of personal and vocational identity.
These questions do help us to understand the extent to which charting a
fully-fledged vocational identity is a formidable enterprise. Unless organisations
are identity enhancers they will fail to find the effective path towards collective
knowledge and community learning.
Giving credence to this pursuit, it is now possible to devise a theory on the
emergence of vocational identities, a sort of hybrid — homo sapiens cum faber.
Each human repertory at stake would necessarily include some, or all, of the
following features, with allowance for different combination patterns. Each par-
ticular combination reveals a specific stage in a developing vocational self:23
1. A knowledge base (the cognitive genome).

2. A portfolio of competences.
3. A preference for learning strategies.
4. A discernible path towards the strengthening of identity (construction of
self).
5. A foundation of emotional stability and of self-esteem.
6. A set of strategies to enhance personal assets.
7. A commitment to both the vision and priorities of the relevant organisa-
tions, regarded as learning opportunities.
8. A conscious evolution — including the social dimensions of identity
formation.
Consciousness, brain research findings conclude, revolves around intricate

mechanisms of knowledge processing and selection based on value carried out in
the two components of our forebrain: the limbic system and the cerebral cortex.
Purposeful conduct calls for the assistance of semantic memory, motivation and
awareness.
Conscious Evolution sets the stage for autonomy and meaning making in the
process of vocational identity formation. Placed at the summit of a long personal
evolutionary chain it stems from a robust landscape of consciousness24 grappling
with the deepest, most intractable dilemmas of vocation and identity, and grows
increasingly wary of shallow activism. In the absence of consciousness and voca-
tional identity learning lacks purpose, work is remotely associated with personal

development, and the drive to learn is erratic. Intent is commensurate with voca-
tional identity; personal and professional fulfilment are its main outcome.
Building a New Social Contract: towards Full Citizenship

In a global learning environment, Education as a Right finds a natural partner-
ship in Learning as a Duty. In other words, the New Millennium is a kind of void
canvas that the theorists of the natural state so eloquently described. From Plato to
Rousseau, Hobbes to Rawls, social philosophy sought supreme harmony through
the formation of stable and lasting social contracts. Contracts that are freely
negotiated and that establish codes of conduct based on a balanced interplay
between rights and duties in society.
EDUCATION AS LEARNING
A RIGHT AS A DUTY
LEARNING WORK
OR AND
STUDY LEARNING
CREDITS CONTRACTS
Figure 5. New Citizenship: Rights and Duties
It is worth mentioning at this juncture another remarkable human trait: unlike

common animal sociality, human social existence stems from the genetic propen-
sity to nurture long-term contracts that evolve by culture into moral precepts and
laws. We engage naturally in lasting covenants; moreover, we accept the necessity
of securing them for survival: long-term friendship, family bonding, pertaining to
a community, cultural links. Learning is also an enterprise of the communal mind;
one of its fundamental principles is ethics and catering for our foundation insti-
tutions of sociality. Thus, a learning society posits a sovereign opportunity: to
establish a new equilibrium between social rights and individual duties. Also, a
time to reconcile individual and collective — or cultural — rights (see Figure 5).
During an address to high-ranking representatives of the European social
partners, assembled in Thessaloniki, we proposed the following concept:25
The social contract is mostly an implicit agreement, accepted by all parties

concerned. The post-war social contract, which lasted successfully for some
50 years, is at present grossly outdated. This terminal stage is becoming
apparent in a number of assumptions that no longer hold today: stable and
full employment; the benefits of the welfare state; a limitless economic growth
machinery; absolute faith in democratic governance; a strict separation
between constitutional powers.
There remains little doubt that unless a new concerted effort is put into practice
to produce a different social contract, tailored to serve the complex information

society and to make the most of the learning challenges, our societies will run into
growing difficulties. In this new contractual approach, the economy will go on
playing an important role; however, it is neither the sole nor the primordial factor.
Full citizenship standards, striking a right balance between duties and rights, will
increasingly call upon values such as justice, fairness, equity and solidarity in both
our national and international orders.
Conscious citizenship lies at the root of participatory democracy. Participation
demands a threshold level of social capital and trust capable of upholding higher-
order common purposes. This sphere of public interest surpasses the simple rights
of individuals to difference. This is the reason why democratic rule is at the heart
of citizenship education. Making allowance for a Learning Society is closely tied in
with deepening democratic beliefs and committing future generations to perfecting
democracy.
Schools and universities are — and have always been — bastions of sociality.
They are social institutions to the marrow and the seedbeds of societal governance.
Education establishments and educators are at the forefront of a new society. They
are the engines of a new world. They carry the prime responsibility of making
possible a better society: building the foundations of a new social contract that
elicits education, knowledge and learning as the key ingredients of a new deal.
In a cognitive fashioned society, knowledge carries the potential of becoming a
more powerful discriminator of human fate than in the former industrial society. In
other words, the premium awarded on knowledge and competences demands
better attention to those groups of low-achievers that are falling through the
loopholes of our basic education systems.
The quest for a new knowledge paradigm can not be separated from the goal
of a more equitable distribution of knowledge in societies.
Presentation of the Issue

This issue of EJE brings together a number of contributions that reflect the ‘state
of the art’ thinking on the Futures of Learning. Five of the articles in this issue
(Carneiro, Leicester, Punie, Underwood and Watson) developed out of contribu-
tions to the seminar; three were specially commissioned by the guest editors in
order to cover aspects we felt important to include. Three of the articles (Lefrere,
Tuomi and Leicester) deal with broad visions that fashion our collective thinking
on education and learning in the 21st century though from different perspectives
and viewpoints. The other articles (Hargreaves, Punie, Watson and Underwood)
offer a set of original insights on infrastructures and resources for learning in the
future. Each article is presented in more detail below.
Following the opening overview article by Roberto Carneiro which has posed
some very challenging and thorny questions about learning agenda-setting and the
emergence of new knowledge paradigms, the second article by Graham Leicester
reflects on the issues discussed at the seminar held in Glasgow and asks the
question: ‘Policy Learning: can government discover the treasure within?’
Leicester starts from the observation that in order to flourish in today’s
complex and fast-changing world it is necessary to become a learning intensive
society. He makes a strong point that government cannot support that move unless
the policy process itself reflects the theory and practice of lifelong learning it seeks
to encourage in others. The article suggests a number of measures to facilitate

learning within the policy process, including tackling denial, making space for
reflection, empowering the boundary spanners and practising innovation as learn-
ing. Referring to the report by the Delors Commission published by UNESCO in
1996 on education for the 21st century, ‘Learning: the treasure within’, Leicester
concludes that it is no longer possible for government to ignore the turbulence and
complexity of its operating environment: it needs to find its own ‘treasure within’.
We move from there into an exploration by Yves Punie of ‘Learning Spaces:
an ICT-enabled model of future learning in the Knowledge-based Society’. Based
on extrapolations from trends and drivers shaping learning in Europe, the article
also takes into account the broader perspective, envisaging and anticipating future
learning needs and requirements. Punie argues that the ‘learning spaces’ vision
puts learners at the centre of learning but, at the same time, conceives of it as a
social process and thus the potential of ICT-enabled learning spaces can only be
fulfilled when firmly embedded in a social and institutional context open to
innovation and supported by a favourable policy environment.
Paul Lefrère’s article on ‘Competing Higher Education Futures in a Global-
ising World’ focuses on the consequences for higher education of a globalising
world with access to capability-enhancing technologies and technological insights.
Following a discussion of a number of scenarios and trends in higher education, he
then takes the Middle East as a case study, asking the provocative question of
whether the challenge will not be ‘keeping up with Dubai’. Lefrère examines the
developments in the Middle East as an interesting test bed of scenarios for higher
education in general as this region is important both as a market for European
higher education and as a space where the competing influences of the US and
Europe are significant. The article explores the kinds of issues that may be at work
and the implications for European higher education policy.
The article by Jean Underwood, ‘Rethinking the Digital Divide’, examines the
impacts of student-tutor relationships. She starts from the observation that the
conceptualisation of the digital divide into the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots’, and
particularly the economically developed world as ‘high tech’ and the developing and
underdeveloped worlds as ‘low tech’, is no longer tenable.The purpose of the article
is to provide new definitions of what it means to be digitally impoverished or rich;
to identify mechanisms for achieving digital richness; and to consider the economic
and social equity issues which ensue for learners on either side of the digital divide.
In this context Underwood argues that the Digital Divide that is most important in
educational terms is that between students and their teacher. Quoting M. Prensky,
she poses the crucial question about whether the ‘Digital Native’ students should
learn the old ways, or their ‘Digital Immigrant’ educators learn the new ways.
Underwood concludes her article by drawing attention to the fact that the modes of
learner assessment currently in practice remain trapped in the book age and are
becoming increasingly inappropriate in the digital age.
Andy Hargreaves’ article on ‘Sustainable Leadership and Development in
Education: creating the future, conserving the past’ draws on research of thirty
years of educational leadership in eight US and Canadian high schools, as well as
on the literature on environmental and corporate sustainability. The article pre-
sents seven principles of sustainability in educational change and leadership devel-
oped by Andy Hargreaves and Dean Fink and seeks to address questions such as:
How can we reconcile innovation and sustainability? How do we build a future on
the foundations of the past? How can the energetic innovator and the prudent

Puritan live and work together? He argues that while overconfident reformers are
prone to dismiss the past, those who are the targets of reform are inclined to
romanticise it, neither of which approaches responds to the real challenge. The
challenge for educational leadership, as he analyses it, is to consider that the past
is a subject for intelligent engagement which is connected to change and the future
through coherent life narratives.
Ilkka Tuomi in his article on ‘Learning in the Age of Networked Intelligence’
presents ten theses on future education and learning. He highlights emerging
trends that will shape educational systems, focusing on the impact on learning of
innovation economy and knowledge society. The article elaborates the changing
dynamics of production models since the first industrial revolution, arguing that in
the last few years we have been in the midst of a globalisation process that is
qualitatively different from the earlier ones. Tuomi describes recent developments
in innovation research and outlines a new theoretical view on innovation which
connects it with social change and learning.With a ‘downstream’ innovation model
highlighting the active and creative role of user communities in making innovations
real, there will be inevitable repercussions for educational institutions and learning
activity. In this context he challenges the policy-makers to reflect on why we will
need education in the future.
‘Building the Future of Learning’ is the subject of the article by LesWatson who
asks whether we have forgotten about buildings in the excitement about e-learning.
His article focuses on the need for new 21st century buildings and refurbished spaces
to reflect our educational approaches and philosophies. He argues that buildings
should combine educational ideas, with imaginative technology and architecture to
create the learning futures we wish to see and enable tomorrow’s ways of working
and learning. His article uses the Saltire Centre at Glasgow Caledonian University
as a case study to illustrate how some current key ideas in educational thinking can
influence the learning facilities we provide. The building, through its variety of
spaces, embraces learner differences and supports a concept of learning as a social
process putting human social interaction and conversation at its heart.
Part II of this issue includes two articles. The first on ‘Inter-Ethnic Relations
among Children at School: the perspective of young people in Scotland’ is by
Malcolm Hill, Catherine Graham, Catriona Caulfield, Nicola Ross & Anita
Shelton. The background is the many changes in recent decades in the policies
and academic writings about inter-ethnic relations with a growing focus on the
effects of different forms of racism and anti-racism. The authors note, however,
that relatively little research has been undertaken on the experiences and percep-
tions of children. This article therefore reports on findings from three linked
studies which highlight the viewpoints of white and minority ethnic children as
they made the transition to secondary schools.
The second article, by Geert ten Dam & Monique Volman, is on ‘Educating
for adulthood or for citizenship: social competence as an educational goal’. The
authors discuss the social competence students should acquire to participate in
society in an adequate manner. The focus is on social competence as an educa-
tional goal and on the question of how to evaluate the efforts of schools in
enhancing the social competence of their students. They explore the instruments
necessary to assess educational results in this field and, on the basis of a review
study, analyse the type of instruments currently available and the problems iden-
tified in measuring educational results in the field of social competence.

NOTES
1. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Roberto

Carneiro: rc@cepcep.ucp.pt.
2. Readers may find an imaginative glimpse of a 2020 global learning society in
http://thefischbowl.blogspot.com/2006/11/2020-vision.html
3. The following sections are a revised and expanded version of a back-
ground paper written for the UNESCO World Report ‘Towards Knowledge
Societies’ (2005).
4. M. Serres (Qu’est-ce que l’humain) as quoted in Savater, F. (2003) El valor
de eligir, Barcelona: Ariel, p. 23.
5. We have dealt at length with the responses of education to a dual society in:
Carneiro, R. (2001) Fundamentos da Educação e da Aprendizagem, Vila Nova
de Gaia: Fundação Manuel Leão.
6. In this section we have made use of materials and reflections developed in the
International Futures Forum, St. Andrews, Scotland, a network of good will
seeking to find ways of becoming effective in action in a world we do not
understand and cannot control (see www.internationalfuturesforum.com).
7. Carneiro, R. ‘On Meaning and Learning: Discovering the Treasure’, in
Dinham, S. (ed.) (2003a) Transforming Education: Engaging with Complexity
and Diversity, Deakin: Australian College of Education.
8. Delors, J. et al. (1996) Learning: The Treasure Within, Paris: UNESCO.
9. Landes provides a colourful description of a Doing by knowing strategy that
was successfully applied by the Portuguese navigators in their 15th and 16th
century voyages to the Indies in: Landes, D. (1999), TheWealth and Poverty of
Nations, New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
10. Carneiro 2003a, op. cit.
11. Here, we refer to M. Castells’ concepts of communal identities and cultures
of resistance that are shaping a new international order. See Castells, M.
(1997) The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture
Vol. I: The Rise of the Network Society
Vol. II: The Power of Identity
Vol. III: End of Millennium
Massachusetts, Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Inc.
12. For a consistent review on learning theories see: Resnick, L.B. and Hall,
M.W. (2001) ‘Learning Organizations for Sustainable Education Reform’.
Daedulus, Vol. 127, No. 4, 89–118.
13. Vygotsky, L.S. (1986) Thought and Language, Cambridge, Massachusetts:
The MIT Press.
14. On the mounting issue of learning anxieties see: Schein, E.H., ‘The Anxiety
of Learning’. Harvard Business Review, Mar 2002, Vol. 80, Issue 3, pp.
100–107.
15. Scenarios for Ambient Intelligence in 2010, ISTAG (European Commission —
IST/IPTS), Seville, February 2001.
16. Senge, P. et al. (2000) Schools That Learn — a Fifth Discipline Resource, NY:
A Currency Book.
17. Carneiro, R., ‘On knowledge and learning for the new millennium’, in
Conceição, P., Heitor, M.V. and Lundvall, B. (2003b) Innovation, Compe-
tence and Social Cohesion in Europe, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.

18. Van Doren, C. (1991) A History of Knowledge, New York: Ballantine Books.
19. For an abridged presentation of punctuated equilibrium theories see:
Krugman, P. (1996) The Self-Organizing Economy, Malden, Massachusetts:
Blackwell Publishers.
20. Wilson, E. (1998) Consilience — The Unity of Knowledge, New York: Vintage
Books.
21. Whewell, W. (1967) The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences: Founded upon
Their History (The Sources of Science, No 41), Johnson Reprint Corp.
22. Carneiro 2003b, op. cit.
23. Carneiro 2003b, op. cit.
24. We use Jerome Bruner’s illuminating distinction between two critical land-
scapes in his analysis of the human condition: consciousness and action.
Bruner, J. (1986) Actual Minds, Possible Worlds, Cambridge, Massachusetts:
Harvard University Press.
25. Carneiro, R. (1999) ‘Achieving a minimum learning platform for all’, in
Agora IV, The low-skilled on the European labour market: prospects and policy
options, Thessaloniki: CEDEFOP.

European Journal of Education, Vol. 42, No. 2, 2007

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The Big Picture: understanding learning and

Futures of Learning — A Compelling Agenda

• Can we foresee how a new generation of technologies and interfaces —

Industrial Societies, Informational Societies, Knowledge Societies,

© 2007 The Author. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Knowledge as Meta-information, Learning as Meta-cognition

© 2007 The Author. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

© 2007 The Author. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Figure 1. Two ways of knowing

Lifelong Learning, Lifewide Learning and Learning throughout Life

• Diversity of itineraries in time, content and learning styles.

© 2007 The Author. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

• Antidotes to un-learning and to de-skilling trends in vast segments of our

It directly follows that learning throughout life — a proposition widely endorsed

• New incentives for competence acquisition in de-institutionalised settings.

Learning to Be takes on the nature of a timeless priority, already recognised in the

© 2007 The Author. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Scenarios of a Learning Society10

(a) Paradigm shifts: from industry (past), to globalisation (present thrust),

My feeling is that we are swiftly moving from a Clockwork Orange education to a

© 2007 The Author. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Segmented Knowledge Market

Industry Globalisation New Renaissance

Figure 2. Scenarios leading to a Learning Society

students; the learning school, bringing together superintendents, principals,

From ODL to e-, Blended, and Flexible Learning

These stages propose a somewhat common interpretation of life cycles in educa-

© 2007 The Author. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

‘transformative or creative destruction’ patterns in education and training. More-

• Empowering people, citizens and workers, as active learners.

• Learner-centred rather than teacher-centred learning.

© 2007 The Author. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

• Constantly exploring the theories-in-use of all involved in the education

Can Knowledge Constructivism Win over Drill-and-Practice?12

© 2007 The Author. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Anywhere, Anytime: the emergence of Flexible Learning

Figure 3. Four alternative educational paradigms

© 2007 The Author. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

technologies. Platforms are bound to become increasingly intuitive and friendly,

Ambient Intelligent — The Invisible Learning Interfaces15

It is the plenary meeting of an environmental studies group in a local ‘Ambient

© 2007 The Author. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

of Annette’s decisions and alternative visualizations are projected. During

Imparting and Brokering Knowledge: towards a new social contract

© 2007 The Author. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

‘Newton’s mathematic organisation of the middle world — from molecules to stars —

© 2007 The Author. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

perpetuation of an underclass of non-achievers and low-skilled in successive

CLASSICAL APPROACH NEW APPROACH

What to teach Where to learn

Initial Education Flexible Learning

Fragmented Knowledge Holistic Knowledge

Status-ridden Knowledge Inclusive Knowledge

Figure 4. The way to inclusive knowledge

Learning throughout Life, Learning Identities and Knowledge-driven Cultures

1. Personal and cultural development — related to sense, meaning-making

Learning in the new millennium is expected to make a major contribution to the

© 2007 The Author. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

no quick fix inventory of magical solutions. The UNESCO Commission on Edu-

1. A knowledge base (the cognitive genome).

Consciousness, brain research findings conclude, revolves around intricate

© 2007 The Author. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.