6. Open Learning: Media, Environments and Cultures

The aim is to host researchers who see the need for a pedagogical fundament for theoretical and empirical research in the area of media education, open learning and cultural contexts for learning with media.
The increasing availability of information communication technologies and their integration with other media (text based, video, TV etc) seem to bring new challenges in the design and implementation of learning and teaching curricula in which 'open learning' becomes a growing norm. Such challenges are often addressed in terms of their technological, pedagogical, didactical and sociological significance in educational contexts.

There is now more awareness that 'Open Learning Contexts':

• are multifaceted and their nature is largely dependant on the quality of use and engagement with and within them as well as the circumstances or the purposes for which these 'open contexts' are being employed;
• can serve for either to promote diversities and inequalities or to empower users for more democratic relations;
• need to be examined and analysed by considering the social and cultural transformations accompanying their use.

In other words, one needs not simply to approach 'open learning contexts' as resources for teaching and learning but also to question the process of 'resourcing' itself. This network provides a forum for collaborative research and discussion of these issues through the organisation of paper sessions, symposia and working groups.
 

How Network 6 is distinct from other EERA Networks

Networks with adjacent topics, and with which the network occasionally organize symposia are: 16, 22 , 13 and 27. NW 6 differs from these in its focus on, primarily adult learners, the use of media (in a much broader sense than ICT implies) and that it reviews the cultural contexts in which learners produce or consume eductaional media.