For those who are familiar with this column, you can jump to this edition's Current Items below.

For those of you new to this item, you may be interested to know that:

• From time to time ALT-N will provide summaries of articles published in English on the SURF E-learning Theme Site that may be of interest to members of ALT. Links to PDFs of the work and contact details will be provided. To receive email notification of SURF newsletters e-mail: e-learning@surf.nl with the subject heading 'subscribe English newsletter'.
• The E-learning Themesite focuses on developments within Dutch institutions of higher education. It publishes information on practical evaluations, instruments, and research results related to Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and educational innovation. The site also contains discussions about leading publications and websites. It is aimed at all Learning Technologists involved in the use of ICT in educational innovation. The site contains an archive of newsletters. The site is an initiative of the SURF Foundation, the higher education and research partnership organisation for network services and information and communications technology (ICT) in the Netherlands.

Current Items

The development of a Personal Competence Manager
Lifelong learning plays an important part in achieving the knowledge economy. The European-sponsored TENCompetence (The European Network for lifelong Competence development) project faces the challenge of solving a number of issues relating to lifelong learning in developing the Personal Competence Manager. The Personal Competence Manager is a technological and organisational infrastructure for the lifelong development of personal competence for EU citizens. Individuals, groups, institutions and organisations will be able to use this manager free of charge. TENCompetence project manager Jocelyn Manderveld describes the developments of the first (completed) stage of the project.

In English All reports and publications produced within the project as well as general information on the project
In Dutch the web article - De ontwikkeling van een Persoonlijke CompetentieManager
Contribution by: Jocelyn Manderveld (SURF) 

Speech is silver, focus is golden
What is it that makes collaborative learning on the Internet so hard? This was the subject addressed in Arja Veerman’s PhD research. In this article she reviews her three most important findings and what we can learn from them with respect to the latest hypes. She emphasises the importance of collaboration and oral exchange with the title ‘Speech is silver, but focus is golden’. Focus on the content turned out to be of crucial importance in learning. The notion that the new generation of young people can do everything simultaneously and learn from it as well therefore appears to be a bubble.