Rob Arntsen, MyKnowledgeMap's CEO, provoked a lively debate at this year's ALT-C about the relevance of Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) within modern educational institutions. The debate was a result of Rob's keynote address entitled 'Reflections and questions on the changing role of technology in education'.

Rob said he was "delighted to have struck a nerve" amongst the attendees and identified that that the "first instance of VLEs has not been sophisticated enough".  His address focused on the emerging role of e-repositories versus VLEs and the importance of getting educators at all levels involved in technology.

This was followed up by Communications Director Tom Holland demonstrating the ALPS system.  The ALPS system is a personal learning space system designed by MyKnowledgeMap, which allows students of five Yorkshire Universities to complete assessments using mobile devices.

The ALPS system is powered by Multi-Port Mobile, one of the products we had on display this year. Our display, which also included Compendle, received a lot of interest at ALT-C and we are looking forward to working with some of the people we spoke to in future.

Of the range of talks at ALT-C we attended this year, MyKnowledgeMap was particularly impressed by the opening keynote by Hans Rosling, Professor of International Health from the Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm.  He delivered an inspiring demonstration of the work his company Gapminder.org has done to present world health data using animation. He discussed the importance of good design in creating engaging, educational and entertaining learning.