 Hello! My name is Wim van Petgem and I work at the University of Leuven. I used to be the Vice President Research for Eden. I'm happy to be here with Joe Wilson, who is representing the Association of Learning Technologies, better known as ALT. Joe, maybe you can first introduce yourself. Okay, I'm very privileged. I'm the UK Ambassador for the Association of Learning Technology, ALT. My day job is I'm head of the Centre of Professional and Technical Education at a large vocational college in Glasgow. ALT is a grassroots organisation for learning technologists that was founded in the last century and does a broad range of work. Okay, last century, so that's how long? I think it was formed in the 1990s. Okay, and what was the reason why it was formed? Was there a need for it at that time? It was that bit when you think about it as the web arrived and the systems changed. And principally in the sector I'm from, in the college sector, technicians who may have been lab technicians or studio technicians were suddenly being asked to be learning technology technicians and we really had to find ways to collaborate and join up and that across the college and university sector so we could learn from each other. So it's a community of rather technical people, if I can say it like that? It does two or three things. So on one level it provides technical sharing. It also provides something called CMALT, a chartered membership of the Association of Learning Technology which allows people to develop and evidence their skills which helps them career wise move between schools, colleges and universities but it also does a lot of stuff in the policy domain both with institutions and also with government. And how do you do that policy work? What does that mean? What kind of activities are you doing for that? You're writing white papers? Yeah, so maybe if perhaps the burning issue just now I think is all around open education or open educational resources. What we've done in that kind of space is actually provide policy and white papers to government and again I'll chat about it later but education's organised in an interesting way in the United Kingdom so it's given us papers that we can take to both to our university chancellors at that middle level but also to governments to persuade them they need to pay more attention to what's happening with UNESCO and the broader world of open education. Okay, maybe we can continue on that aspect. UK education is a very particular system I think and internally and then you come from Scotland so there is that specific situation there in the UK. How does that go if you then talk about policy because I can imagine that Scottish and UK is slightly different? It's slightly different but it's actually very, very historical. It's not a recent thing. So the constitution of the United Kingdom allowed Scotland to have its own education system, its own legal system and its own religious system. So that's always been prized so even now we've got our own parliament and devolution we still have control over that so in terms of educational policy for universities, colleges, schools, work based learning is all controlled in Scotland. In England all of these controls come through Whitehall and Westminster and Wales and Northern Ireland similarly have devolved powers to look after the schooling college and university system. Does that mean that all tests have different approaches in Northern Ireland, Scotland, UK or you work on a general basis or so? Generally the issues in educational technology are not just cross-border in the UK actually global or European but what we try and do within the Association of Learning Technology is have special interest groups. So for instance as well as being the UK ambassador for the Association of Learning Technology I'm the co-chair of the Scottish Special Interest Group and that means... So you do have special interest groups geographically organised? Yes but really what we tend to do is have one quite small meeting every year where we share local practice and we usually just swap some good ideas between the college, the university sector or perhaps the libraries and other sectors that are interested in learning technology. Oh yeah I already said twice that you are UK ambassador so I mean that links up the work of what you're doing in art to the rest of the world I assume. How should I interpret UK ambassador? I think it just means that I help promote the great work that all does in building that network and doing all the good things that happen within the UK so my kind of public face out the way but also it's about making partnerships and bringing things back to the art community. You're now here at the Eden conference is there any particular message you already could take from the Eden community here that you heard in this conference and that you think oh that's something we should look at in the UK or that's something that we do different in Europe compared to what's happening in the UK? I think the refreshing thing is that we all have so much in common that changes happening so quickly that we all really need to work together and it's round all three levels that level of getting national policies right, of getting institutional policies right and also bringing you know while all focuses on learning technologies this only changes if both our teachers and our learners come on the journey with us so it's also getting the right vehicles to engage teachers and learners. So more or less across borders there is no differences. There's no big differences that we cannot overcome with technology. I think we can overcome almost all barriers now with technology and I think one of the challenges which we've seen with MOOCs and things is actually about accessibility and I think that that's the next big challenge of how we take our learning and knowledge and make it truly accessible and that's about overcoming linguistic barriers and things as well but I think there are cleverer and cleverer tools coming that's going to help us all of us with that too. Let's be back to what you said this morning in the keynote. You were talking about having, well the mission of ALT was having impact on let's say the broader and wider community. How do you envision that? What kind of activities are you specifically doing for that or is it more like a vision that you would... No we're doing, what I might highlight is somebody who's not here today but was on my slides, the work of Josie Wales in Leicester schools where taking the principles of all of that round openness brought that philosophy into the school system and then brought learning technicians from the school system up to share their expertise I think there's so much learning going on just now around back to that bit, the technology, the policies, how to engage staff, how to engage learners and the only way we will get that working is by all working together and it's the same in the library system in Scotland. For instance the Scottish National Library in some respects is taking the lead on opening up collections and things and the university system is learning from what the library system is doing. So it's not just restricted to higher education in that case. You're going much wider than that and to the whole community. It's opening things up and again that sits well with the principles of lifelong learning. Yeah okay that's an interesting topic. I think we cannot deny that there is something like it's called Brexit and so being myself from continental Europe I was just wondering how does that affect the work that you're doing? How does that affect the well okay the higher education sector in the UK will be affected and maybe also in Europe, but particularly the role of art in that. So I think there are two dimensions. First of all it was a national play-by-side and although I'm not in favour of the result I have to accept the result. I think the short term impact is probably maybe around Erasmus and a lot of the programs that schools, colleges and universities have been engaged in. We keep hearing promising noises that the government may do something in that space. We know for instance some of the Scandinavian countries that are outside of the European Union pay to be part of the Erasmus program. So we're hoping that that bit will be solved. We understand that the research part, the government will continue to fund so that bit will be solved. But I also think we're fundamentally in a networked world that these kind of political or economic barriers are things that actually all of the technologies that we use are things that we can overcome. I think also with technology that we can overcome these maybe artificial or virtual barriers that we are now implementing. I think Alt has a particular role to play I think to avoid the disadvantages of something like Alt. Yes and again I think that that's the importance of building partnerships with organisations like Aden and other global organisations. This is all about sharing and about the world of knowledge becoming a flatter and more open place. That was actually my very last question that I would like to ask. Do you have any particular message that you would like to share with Aden community but you just gave one? Or maybe you have something else that you would like to conclude with? No I think just really that Alt looks forward to working with Aden community. I can see lots of exciting synergies and I look forward to perhaps attending a conference in Bruges next year. Okay, just to reassure you Aden will not abandon the collaboration with the UK and I think there is so much in common and the technology will not separate us at all. Thank you very much Joe for this interview and hope to see you in Bruges next year. Thank you, that was a pleasure.