The activities of the network were reflected in the quality of many symposia, individual papers, posters, and roundtables on the conference in Hamburg (September 2003).
Many different issues with respect to ICT in education and training were brought forward, demonstrated, and discussed in more than 50 presentations.
In particular the symposia were inspiring to future work.
The possibility of creating more international co-operation in the network by means of collaboration in international projects was also discussed at the conference. However, the actual characteristics of KP6 of the European Community were not very promising.
Maybe 2004 will bring more concrete possibilities.
Another point with respect to the functioning of the network was the huge amount of presentations each year. A solution to this problem could be the creation of a second related network. Given the present and expected development of ICT, research on ICT could be split up into a more ‘descriptive’ ICT-network and a more ‘designing and optimising’ ICT-network.
The research themes in the present network 16 ‘ICT in education and training’ could concentrate on more descriptive issues and be formulated as:
- Assessment and evaluation of the impact of ICT in education and training;
- Cognitive and social processes and effects in ICT-based learning, training, intervention, and work situations;
- Use and effects of digital learning tools and hypertext materials in different situations.
A second ICT- network called ‘Optimising ICT effectiveness in instruction and learning’ could focus on development and improvement research with main topics:
- Design and development of optimising ICT effectiveness in instruction and learning;
- Multilevel instructional, collaboration, and ICT conditions to optimise integration of learning differences in or outside school;
- Creating and optimising multilevel systems transformations by ICT in theory and practice.