LEARNING DESIGN FOR VOCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY ENHANCED LEARNING (VOCTEL)

The 'learning design for smart growth' is an important part of co-funded by Leonardo Da Vinci agency projects which aim at transferring innovation via distance education. Such projects are focusing on information and digital skills needed by professionals to build online training sessions for employees or disseminate information related to products and services to customers. Learning design is usually problematic due to many reasons. Obstacles to be overcome when designing for innovation and learning have to do with learners' habits of learning, educators' resistance to change, workload of teaching online, organizational/institutional constrains, technological affordances to name few. Information decay and information obesity are two more external exigencies that make distance education more difficult than ever before to monitor and maintain quality of performance. The specific model uses updated European Union research, literature and the new perspectives in education to inform trainers about learning technologies and methodologies that seem to address market demands and take into consideration students' frustrations. The format of the learning design is based on a new model called EDECES: create more experiences (less instructions more real - life scenarios) and personal learning spaces (personalized curriculum), active critical dialogue and peer reviewing, explanations about what you have learnt and adaptation to new digital environments (reflections and reflexivity), creativity (products of rhizomatic learning), constant democratic evaluation (weekly polls) and finally sharing with the community of practice. While connecting human to human and information, the EDECES model relies on the powers of the networks to maximize impacts. It is important to discover new paths and follow them to see where they are going like Odysseus looking for Ithaca.