E´learning and activity: supporting communication, cooperation and coinvention

The widespread application of communication and information technologies and applications of wireless networks have transformed the learning experience of many people. Complexity and rapid change are features of life in the twenty first century. An emerging response, particularly among young people, is a shift from the passive reception of broadcast information or instructions in fixed local settings to more fluid, interactive, informal and mobile forms of ´just in time´ learning, innovative cooperation and collective forms of purposive cultural expression. Effective innovation, creative action, and rapid mobilization of emerging knowledge in such settings, necessitates high levels of sustained engagement in communication, negotiation, critical debate, cooperation and collective co-invention so that new practices are more rapidly integrated in the broader community. The paper describes a new Web based system, Unilinks, designed to support sustainable engagement in the above processes and the emerging possibilities for its application to expand learning opportunities.