Blended Learning Symposium - Helsinki, Finland

Wow, what an amazing experience!! I was very privileged to spend a week in Finland , courtesy of the University of Helsinki . I was invited to present a keynote session entitled Designing for Blended Communities of Inquiry and my workshop on Passion, Curiousity-Driven Learning and Web 2.0: What's the Connection? for the University's 3rd Annual Blended Learning Symposium.

A few interesting facts about the country of Finland. First, it's sandwiched between Sweden and Russia, which have both had a "heavy" influence on the history of the country. Probably, the first inhabitants were the Sami (Arctic aboriginal people probably distantly related to the Inuit). It sounds like the first Europeans arrived from Eastern Europe (around Hungary). The country was ruled by Swedish Kings for an extended period of time and in 1550 Helsinki was founded by the King of Sweden to compete with Tallinn in Estonia for Baltic Sea Trade. Russia conquered Finland in 1809 and a monumental Empire-style city plan was constructed for Helsinki to showcase the power of Russia and the Tsar. The design architect for many of the buildings was Carl Engel, the same guy who designed many of the major buildings and monuments in St. Petersberg became the first European country to grant women full political rights in 1905 and in 1917 they became independent from the Soviet Union in 1917. The country elected it's first female president, Tarja Halonen, in 2000 and she was re-elected for a second term in 2006. Presently, 86% of the women between the ages of 25 to 55 work outside of the home.

With the current global economic recession Finland is facing pressure to reform some of its socialist traditions. For example, there is discussion about extending the age of retirement from 63 to 65. Education is a key focus for Finland and currently all post-secondary students receive free tuition and an allowance to attend higher education institutions. There is growing pressure though for students to complete their studies in a shorter time period (43% of Finns aged 20 to 29 are studying versus an OECD average of 25%) and for students to take more applied rather than liberal arts degrees.

A couple of conference sessions that stood out for me were Kristiina Kumpulainen's keynote session on learning and the impact of technology and Helena Forssman's talk on Linking Innovation and Learning. Kristiina is the Director of the Cross-disciplinary Initiative for Collaborative Efforts of Research on Learning (CICERO) and she is using Wenger's community of practice framework to guide much of her work. Helena's husband is a senior manager with Nokia so she travels the world. Currently, she is based in Athens, Greece where she help coordinate Virtual Student Innovation Competitions.

I was overwhelmed by the hospitality of the conference organizers and participants and I even learned a few Finnish words:

• Kiitos - thank you
• Tervetuloa – welcome
• Sulautuva opetus – blended learning

Mina and Susannah took time on the weekend to show me the sites of Helsinki and Eeva and Laurii invited me to their home in neighbouring Espoo to enjoy an afternoon of cross-country skiing on the sea ice. I made sure to take lots of pictures of my Finland adventure and I'm hoping that I can stay connected to this educational technology community through my participation in The International Virtual Benchmarking Project.