Diana Laurillard views on trends that impact in education

Diana Laurillard is a Professor of Learning with Digital Technologies at the Institute of Education, University of London. I recently found at the Future Classrooms Lab (EUN) website, a video where she talked about some trending topics in education. I had to read papers during my Master Degree  where she was cited very often. It was wonderful to find her talking about topics as for example:

  • The role of teachers,
  • The role and weight of technology infrastructures for education
  • Her opinion about the huge potential of MOOC for enabling Teacher Professional Development online
  • Her vision of a future 2025 classroom


She starts the interview defining teachers as learning designers. Then, she recognizes the important role of ICT for education as the ‘sine qua non‘ but at the same time, she tries to limit their weight alerting that not all innovations must be guided by technologies («there are much more things to thinks about not just ICT»).  

She goes on saying that schools are places for learning and socializing at the same time. The impact of  new e-devices in a real-time connected world, opens new opportunities for learning alone and with others. Maybe we’d have to reflect on how much the so called non-formal or informal learning contributes to the whole learning achieved by students. What’s acquired within the school walls and what’s outside.

Another idea that I want to highlight is her affirmation that teachers are the real drivers for innovation. In my opinion there’s a serious thread that the ICT industry ends up imposing their solutions to the educational world. So her emphasis on teachers as main drivers for innovations is very welcome.

She also insisted on giving students the capability of directing their own learning (self-direct learning). Schools shouldn’t be places anymore for just  sitting, listening and watching but for doing things (learn by doing) with others. She finished the interview stressing that schools must be workplaces where everybody learn and not only students. In my opinion this idea of  ‘workplaces where everybody learn‘ is directed related to the vision of Schools as learning organisations (Schlechty, P. C. (2011)).

I wrote this post as a volunteer learning reflection after visiting the Future Classrooms Lab (EUN) website. I arrived there following a link provided by a MOOC  about Future Classroom Scenarios (#FCScourse) run by the European Schoolnet Accademy

I invite you to watch the video to check if I collected exactly her ideas. If something I wrote is wrong please let me know it commenting this post. Thanks for reading.

Deja una respuesta

Tu dirección de correo electrónico no será publicada. Los campos obligatorios están marcados con *

Este sitio usa Akismet para reducir el spam. Aprende cómo se procesan los datos de tus comentarios.