Learning Technology in Transition: from Individual Enthusiasm to Institutional Implementation

“In April 2003, The Association for Learning Technology (ALT) celebrated its tenth anniversary and this book has been produced in order to commemorate this landmark achievement.” So speaks the Editor of this panoramic of articles by authors primarily from the United Kingdom, but also from The Netherlands and Australia, as she begins the first of eleven chapters that chronicle the evolution of learning technology in ALT’s first decade. As the book’s title indicates, the articles relate how the uses of learning technologies in higher education and further education began with individuals who enthusiastically promoted their use. Then, at about the mid-point of this ten-year time period, with the help of several government based funding initiatives, the use of learning technologies began to become embedded into institutional structures and strategic plans. The individual enthusiasts who had been working in advance of the institutions became leaders on related committees and in departments dedicated to the use of learning technology.