Technological developments in ubiquitous and mobile computing offer possibilities to all levels of education and, due to their non-reliance on traditional communications infrastructure, they offer emerging countries an opportunity to jump ahead. Exactly how these technologies should best be used in education, however, is not completely clear at this time. It is important that further work be done in evaluating potential uses of mobile computing in education. This focus group recommends that TC3 set up a Task Force on mobile learning to conduct these investigations.

This paper concerns the development of a scenario aiming at the improvement of teacher education in Geneva in the field of media, image and ICT (MITIC) in a media- and pedagogy-oriented process instead of technology-driven action as is usually the case. Among a lot of observations, experiments and constraints, the key factors we address are the lack of well-educated teachers of teachers (level F3), willingness to enhance coherence in teacher education together with pedagogical research (innovative projects), the need to take into account the evolution of the demography of teachers in professional development and the necessity to promote an attitude to and an awareness of practices in collaborative and cooperative work. In this process we have built a prototype of a new concept of teacher (F3-MITIC), and we have cooperated in a national incentive policy and proposed an agenda for the remaining problems to be solved. We conclude the presentation of our contribution by the assessment of the fundamental necessity to put in action a real e-piloting including a set of strategies, as well as projects and tools which will have to be elaborated with the actors in the field, in the four following directions: sharing data, re-defining teachers' competencies, taking care of innovative projects and designing pedagogical models of e-learning.

Various approaches can be identified to the development of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in Higher Education. These approaches are related to the situation in a particular institution with respect to the growth of ICT. These approaches are: Emerging, applying, integrating and transforming. A Higher Education institution may induce progress in various areas where the ICT-approach will have an impact. These areas are: Vision, Philosophy of learning and pedagogy, Development plans and policies, Facilities and resources, Understanding the curriculum, Professional development of institution staff, Community involvement, Assessment. For each approach a picture is sketched of the impact on the various areas. Separate attention is given to the professional development of teaching staff in each approach.

Globally, there is a need to improve the status of teachers in society. The status of teachers depends on a range of political and cultural factors that impact on the way in which teaching is perceived — whether as a trade, craft, or profession — and how these are valued. We argue that all teachers of the future will need to have a high status in their societies if they are to help those societies to realise the potential benefits of an increasingly technological future, and that a key step in achieving this is through the formation of professional associations that foster the development of structures to support a professional community of practice, and which create and enforce national or international standards for membership in a similar fashion to medical and engineering professional associations. By adopting such professional characteristics, and by allowing for the professional recognition of all levels of teachers at all levels of education, the influence and actions of these professional associations will, over time, lead to an increased status for teachers and improved external perceptions of the profession. There are a number of key issues that these societies will need to address:

Following abrief overview of the different types ofresearch and that the emphasis here would be on research which led to practical outcomes, the speakers — and the discussion which followed — covered a wide range of projects and proposals.