We believe that by helping students and teachers keep alive their joy of learning we can contribute to the important cultural work of challenging the current status quo in results-driven education.

With its flexibility and rich wealth of resources, Web 2. 0 (when informed by education principles that recognise human learning as social and contextualised), can empower learners to collaborate fruitfully, using new information and ideas to build on what they already know.

In turn, education practitioners can use Web 2.0's rich resources (see this glossary) to create opportunities for transformative learning experiences, give learners of diverse needs, ethnicities and cultural backgrounds a voice, enable students with various life commitments to study, and find new ways of connecting learners with content and each other, empower learners to create their own content and enable them to reach their desired learning goals. It can also empower education practitioners to engage with students more, moving away from the front of the room to a shared space where they too become learners.

The aim of this site is to share effective practice, resources and ideas by encouraging discussion around the design, facilitation, assessment and evaluation of online communities and how they impact learning in all education sectors. We are also sharing resources and ideas around ePortfolios and Green ICT in Education.

Because collaboration and openness are two of our guiding principles, we choose to use this Ning as the forum for projects in which we are involved.

The models underpinning Ethos Consultancy's work are:

• Pedagogical philosophy
• ICTELT Framework
• ICTELT Mindmap
• ICTELT Process Model for Programme Design approach
• ICTELT Diagnostic Matrix