ALT-C 2010, the 17th International Conference: "Into something rich and strange" - making sense of the sea-change.

Learning technology is part of the fabric of formal and informal learning. Meanwhile, a sea-change is taking place. The sea-change involves a structural and pervasive shift in the nature of the Internet. Specifically: we and our learners are always connected; the devices we use are growing in capability and diversity; the information environment and the tools and services that we use to navigate and to interact with it and with each other are in great flux.

The challenge posed for education is great. It is to increase effectiveness, productivity, and quality, whilst institutional and agency budgets are reducing, rather than just to promise improvements. At the same time we need to ensure the spread of innovations that are scalable and of long-term value, both educationally and financially, whilst keeping learners and learning at the heart of our thinking.

The Association for Learning Technology Conference (ALT-C) 2010 themes will be:

1. the changing paradigms and structures for learning;
   
2. increasing productivity and effectiveness, whilst mitigating risks;
   
3. responding to and shaping the organisational landscape;
   
4. meeting the changing expectations and needs of learners, employers, and society;
   
5. the changing design skills and knowledge needed to support learning and teaching with technology.

Programme Co-Chairs

• Vanessa Pittard, Director of e-Strategy, Becta, UK
  

• Professor Richard Noss, Co-director of the London Knowledge Lab and Director of the Technology & Learning Research Programme - Technology Enhanced Learning
  

Keynote speakers will include:

• Barbara Wasson, Professor of Pedagogical Information Science at the Department of Information Science and Media Studies, University of Bergen, Norway
  

• Sugata Mitra, Professor of Educational Technology at Newcastle University
  

• Donald Clark, Board Member of Ufi, and former CEO of Epic Group plc