Interactive learning environments?

In the last issue, my co-editor, Joe Psotka, introduced a discussion on interactive learning environments and education, discussing the sort of changes which may be needed in curricula and assessment before computer technology could lead to real improvements. The fact that the journal’s title and scope is broad means that we could indeed host a series of editorials on different perspectives of interactive learning environments. As I begin to grow into the editorial role for this journal, I can see one clear dilemma – what does the title mean? Far from being a superficial question, this is a challenge for the editorial team. We want to maintain and develop the journal’s respected position, but we also want to be clearer about the articles we seek which will stimulate pedagogic practice, research impact and the design of improved experiences for learners. The focus on developing, implementing and evaluating sustainable environments for learning is simple to justify. To draw from draft guidance issued by the UK’s Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education concerning entrepreneurship education (2012), the current labour market ‘‘requires graduates with enhanced skills who can think on their feet and be innovative in a global economic environment. There is an acknowledged need, as well as a political imperative, for an infrastructure that supports and enhances enterprise development across the curriculum’’ (p. 2). We are not talking here of an infrastructure of lectures and passive informationgiving from high quality videos online. We are also not envisaging even scholarly articles giving accounts of a specific technology tool which has had great impact on a particular body of students. We have a broader vision of an infrastructure or environment, which, to support the development of graduates in Higher Education, must enable and encourage interaction, a dialogic model of learning ably discussed by Laurillard (2002) and one which is embodied in notions of good learning and teaching practice. But we are not confined here to thinking in this journal of the micro environment for the learner enabled by technologies which adapt to the learner’s need and encourage collaborative and connected learning, however exciting that may be. Rather, we search for strong conceptual papers as well as rigorous systematic reviews and research which genuinely offer the field either generalisable conclusions or initiation of, and contributions to, learning debates. A great new insight or paradigm which sets us connecting with each other via social media or face to face is worth a place in such a journal. It seems to me that Interactive Learning Environments is not about ‘‘new technologies’’ as such but about learning environments which, through the affordances of technology, improve engagement in learning, and, as a result, develop our thinking about learning. While the above reference discusses Higher Education, this journal is certainly not confined to one specific sector of education provision, nor to educational institutions. Most of our lives are spent in a workplace of one kind or another, perhaps many, and throughout that time there will be Interactive Learning Environments Vol. 20, No. 2, April 2012, 101–102