Summary of project research findings

• individual identity matters
  
  
• virtual learning works and can cross age, gender and ethnic boundaries
  
  
• participation is not interaction and it is participation that is vital
  
  
• we all need an audience for our work. This is specifically true of children.
  
  
• asynchronous communication which gives time to reflect, and to contribute works better than synchronous
  
  
• bandwidth needs to be symmetrical (VDSL not ADSL) to allow full participation
  
  
• facilitation and mediation are essential for successful online learning communities to develop and sustain
  
  
• authoring and annotating are needed as well as browsing and selecting
  
  
• access needs to be anywhere, anytime, on any device so standards must be open
  
  
• children are generally massively under challenged and thus many learning problems are due to boredom
  
  
• children can and do multitask
  
  
• Software should be used to empower participants as contributors, not just to explore other's work

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