"Adaptive learning environment", a new entry of the TEL Dictionary

Marcus Specht at the Mobile Learning Day (2009)

"Adaptive learning environment" is one of the challenges in TEL research, from the very beginning since indeed every one wanted learning environments to be as adapted as possible to... to what? To the learner style and state of knowing, first, but also to the content and the teaching objectives. It means that adaptation is a concern which is present in all aspects and all questions in the TEL research area.

Still, to define "adaptivity" is not too much of a challenge, but exploring carefully this concept in the case of TEL research raises issues which may turn into research challenges. It is the way I understand Marcus Specht, when in the definition he wrote for the TEL Dictionary he refers to "the convergence or possible conflicts between disciplines involved in research on adaptivity".

The learner is a user to who a learning environment must adapt and resist… It must resist when an evolution is necessary for the learning process, but adapt when it facilitates it. This suggests that the concept of adaptivity has to be shaped more accuratly to be useful for the design of TEL environments. Differentiations must be introduced in the models and frameworks, and reflected by the discourse on adaptive learning environments, depending on the fact that the driver of adaptation is the learning process, the learner (as a person), the content or the teacher.

By the way, is there a difference between "adaptivity" and "personalisation" of learning environments?