Educational Technology Diffusion in Organization: a Call for Systemic Vision and Organizational Development

The research and development in Europe of new educational technologies and methodologies is in continuous progress. We are not however seeing at the same time an equally wide diffusion of these technologies and methodologies in organizational contexts (Blain, 2011). In short, there is a quite marked difference between the speed with which research proposes new technologies and methodologies for Technology-Enhanced learning (TEL) and the speed with which the same methodologies and technologies are actually absorbed into daily practices by the end user. One of the most controversial themes of research in Europe today in fact concerns this transferability of TEL-linked practices into organizations, and their subsequent sustainability. In this paper we will attempt to present some of the main conclusions reached by a series of research projects in Europe, which deal specifically with the diffusion of e-learning within organizations. These conclusions indicate the need for a fine balancing of pedagogical/andragogical questions, the organizational/management issues involved in the different e-learning models, and the specific needs linked to their integration into a given context of application.