Professor Helle Rootzén is head of LearnT, the latest centre to be established at DTU. The centre is open to everyone who works with learning and technology with the capacity to support it.
Centre for Digital Learning Technology. That is the long form of the name of DTU’s latest centre. The short version is ‘LearnT’, and this is not the only version of the centre that does not take up much room; the centre itself is only small—for now. It will actually kick off with a staff of just three people led by Professor Helle Rootzén from DTU Compute. At the moment, the only premises LearnT commands are the three employees’ own offices.
But wouldn’t it make more sense to position a centre devoted to learning at one of the pedagogical teaching institutes?
“It most certainly would, but we’ve noted an increasing trend to apply technology to learning, and many of the small companies and universities working with learning technology actually have engineers on their payroll. That’s why it’s so important to put someone in the middle to tie all the threads together. I view this as a key assignment for the new centre,” explains Helle Rootzén.
The recently appointed head of centre is quick to emphasize that the new centre is, in principle, open to everyone who works with learning and any technology with the capacity to support better learning.
“We want to be a meeting point for DTU’s own researchers and students, primary and secondary schools, other universities and companies working to develop teaching tools for the education sector. I hope that we will be able to set up a partnership with the humanist groups at the other universities, and with didactic and pedagogical specialists so that we achieve a level of diversity that promotes mutual benefit,” she adds.
Helle Rootzén relates that a working relationship has already been established between the centre, DTU’s own Learning Lab and the University of Copenhagen. The two other employees at the centre are Associate Professor Hanne Jarmer and Education Coordinator Karsten Schmidt.
Inexpensive technology
“Up to now, learning technology has centred on replicating things that took place in the real world, i.e. copying a book or an assignment and uploading it to the computer. There’s nothing wrong with that, but things only really start to get interesting when you can do something with the technology that you can’t do in the physical world, thereby blending real life with technology,” says Helle Rootzén.
“It is only now that the technology has become sufficiently mature and relatively inexpensive that things are really starting to move,” she adds, mentioning as one example the new virtual reality goggles that no longer cost an arm and a leg.
“It’s great for small companies in particular to enter this market, because there are so many opportunities at the moment. New needs for are sure to arise for developing learning technologies and for comparing and testing them ... completing evidentiary examinations—areas without long and firmly established traditions, for obvious reasons. So the development and testing of new technology is something of a focus area at the new centre.”
The key concept is ‘adaptive learning’
According to Hell Rootzén, the key concept in the field of learning technology right now is ‘adaptive learning’, i.e. having the computer adapt to the person who is to learn something. The use of adaptive learning has encouraging perspectives in relation to how universities recruit students, for example.
“Up until now, universities have particularly attracted those people who benefit most from conventional teaching methods, but this new learning technology should allow us to broaden our palette and tailor the teaching to the individual. This means, for example, that students may be presented with questions based on the answers they have given previously. As such, the brightest students will be constantly challenged, while others will avoid setbacks even if they fail to answer correctly the first time,” she says.
“LearnT is to help us build up a reputation as experts in learing technology. We are already doing some of these things, but we need to bring everything together and add all kinds of new initiatives to highlight the fact that this is the place to go if you want to work with learning technology.”
Helle Rootzén expects LearnT to operate with a turnover of approximately DKK 20 million once it has been fully phased in. It is hoped that funding will come from sources including Innovation Fund Denmark, private foundations, EU research funding and private companies.