Opportunities, integration and issues of applying new technologies over e-learning platforms

Recent advancements in the field of social networking, Web 2.0 technologies, grid and cloud computing, and mobile communications have significantly changed many concepts at the basis of e-learning. The latter is also a valuable tool for teaching in developing Countries, especially when jointly used with satellites allowing to overcome the digital divide. In this perspective, this paper investigates several enabling technologies that can be used to improve e learning platforms, reflecting in the so-called e-learning 2.0 and m-learning. Specifically, this work showcases: i) the mobile paradigm applied to e-learning process; ii) the usage of p2p to better exploit the more "social" nature of modern frameworks; iii) the adoption of cloud computing concepts to bring e-learning services to the nextstep and iv) hazards and opportunities when employing satellite communication. © 2011 IEEE.