Sheffield (UK), May 2010 - Learning Light is leading an EU-wide consortium of organisations developing effective ways to use eLearning to reach and engage "marginalised" learners. This 300,000-euro project is funded by the EU under the Leonardo Transfer of Innovation scheme.
The project involves Learning Light, The Workshop Sheffield (TWS), and the learning-development consultancy, VMRS (all based in Yorkshire), along with partner organisations in Italy, Greece, Romania, and Poland.
The recently completed first phase of the project involved research in these four countries, as well as in the UK.
Learning Light's David Patterson explains, "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."
"Having disseminated and explored the results of this research at a conference in Poland in early May, we are moving on to use an open-source learning-management system developed by our Greek partners as we launch a series of workshops to attract and engage the interest of people in these groups."
"We will then roll 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 adds. "The aim is then to engage these people in learning through more flexible learning-delivery methods and technologies, including eLearning."
Learning Light expects to continue its involvement with this project beyond the initial two-year period of EU funding.
Patterson comments, "Dissemination and sustainability are the key issues of this project. In recent years, Sheffield has become the headquarters of a number of innovative eLearning companies. This project is allowing us to export some of the eLearning expertise we've developed here and allows other European Union countries to model what the UK is doing."
