Learning Light-led EU project to reach marginalised learners sparks interest from New Zealand
ENABLE, the Leonardo project led by Learning Light, which aims to bring e-learning to marginalised learners, is making such impressive progress that it is attracting interest from outside Europe.
Learning Light, a company focusing on promoting the use of e-learning and learning technologies and which is leading an EU-wide consortium of organisations developing effective ways to use e-learning to reach and engage ‘marginalised’ learners, has received an enquiry from McGirr Associates, New Zealand’s leading producer of e-learning for ‘hard to reach’ learners.
A few months ago, Learning Light’s operations director, David Patterson, was a keynote speaker at the International Association for Development of the Information Society (IADIS) International ‘Conference e-Learning 2010’, held in Freiburg, Germany. He spoke on: ‘E-learning: Regeneration, Research and Innovation’ and, among other things, gave an update on the progress in the ‘ENABLE’ project.
This 24 month, 300,000 euro project, funded by the EU under the Leonardo Transfer of Innovation scheme, involves Learning Light, The Workshop Sheffield (TWS) and the learning development consultancy, The MRS (all based in Yorkshire), along with partner organisations in Italy, Greece, Romania and Poland. The first phase of the project – recently completed – involved research in these four countries as well as the UK.
David Patterson, Learning Light’s operations director, revealed: “Learning Light is co-ordinating the pan-European project to enable ‘marginalised’ learners to develop their knowledge and skills via e-learning. This is exactly the audience which McGirr Associates is also targeting in New Zealand – and Mandy McGirr, of McGirr Associates in New Zealand, contacted us as a result of my keynote address at the IADIS conference
“In the UK, we studied the Somali community living here. In Poland, we studied women who were returning to work and we looked at other groups in Italy, Greece and Romania.
“We’ve developed two e-learning applications and we’re now rolling out this initiative across Europe, using the experience and expertise we’ve built up to identify and contact people who find it difficult to undertake formal learning,” he added. “The aim is then to engage these people in learning through more flexible learning delivery methods and technologies, including e-learning.”
“Mandy McGirr is interested not only in the research and results of the Leonardo project but also in the range of e-learning materials that Learning Light has developed covering various aspects of waste recycling operations,” said Patterson. “Having piloted these successfully in the UK, we’ve seen them put to use most effectively in Nigeria recently – among workers who, for a number of reasons, are unlikely to attend formal face-to-face training courses.”
These e-learning programmes deal with disassembling electrical equipment in the most environmentally-friendly way, following the requirements of the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive (WEEE Directive). They aim to reduce the amount of this waste going to landfill and improve recovery and recycling rates – thus helping the environment.
Patterson continued: “Many people make their living from looking for precious metal components for recycling within this e-waste, burning the waste to get to them and this releases carcinogenic substances. They are literally killing themselves to get to the ’usable‘ bits from the e-waste.”
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