Education is the crucial factor for attaining the benefits of an information society. It is also widely recognized that the nature of learning will have to change in order to achieve this. Societal trends such as globalization, ICT innovation and increasingly complex work processes place new demands on the types of knowledge and competences learners should attain. Furthermore, the frequency, place and time in which learning will take place will change. ICT will be a key enabling factor for these changes.

This paper addresses this process of change within education, and aims to sketch the ICT-enabled learning environments of the future. We coin these as “Virtual Learning Spaces” or VLC’s. A VLC is an ICT-enabled dynamic learning environment of the future that takes the learning context of the end user as its starting point. VLC’s operate regardless of time and location and are crucial to attain the goals of life long learning. What these VLC’s will look like and what educational concepts will be used to develop them, is largely unclear at present. In order to address these issues, this paper addresses two main research questions:

• What 6 scenarios best depict the virtual learning spaces with the highest potential benefits for education in 2020?
• In order to make these 6 virtual learning spaces a reality, what roadmaps should be followed?

The first question is addressed by conducting a scenario study. Typically, scenarios are based on combining data on things we know (e.g. trends) with dichotomized outcomes on things we do not know (see also Schoemaker, 1995; 1999). Therefore, it is not strange that most scenario studies take the current educational status quo as a starting point and use some form of trend analysis to more or less forecast future developments. The problem with this is that we want to focus on the most desirable VLC’s instead of the most likely. Hence, this paper uses backcasting methodology as a scenario method as it allows us to develop future virtual learning spaces that are not restricted by ‘what is’ but rather focus on ‘what could be’ (Van der Duijn & Stavleu, 2006). The VLC scenario’s have been developed by 3 experts panels, namely (1) educational experts, (2) educational policy / strategy makers, and (3) representatives from the creative industries. Each of these panels developed 6 scenarios independently of the other groups. Using group decision facilities, the experts were invited to vote for the 6 scenarios for learning spaces in 2020 they assessed as having the highest potential benefits for future learning. Based on these votes, 6 final scenarios have been developed.

For the second question, we developed roadmaps for the VLC scenarios. These roadmaps formalize the steps that need to be taken to move from the present towards this projected future state. Due to the limited nature of this paper, we only address the VLC roadmap that builds on the concept of web 3.0 where semantic technologies in combination with the emerging ‘web of things’ enable omnipresent ambient intelligence to facilitate learning almost subconsciously. The roadmap is based on a combination of expert interviews and secondary data analysis.

The conclusions of the paper finally, provide recommendations for policy makers, businesses and the educational sector at large what must be done to make VLC’s a reality.