E-learning and learning portals are two closely associated concepts coined mainly outside education. An increasingly powerful industry offers software platforms, digital contents and learning services to commercial companies and academic institutions. Given their goals, design, and content orientation there is concern that e-learning environments are poorly suited to serve school education in many respects: catering for the specific needs of young learners; accommodation of suitability and flexibility features for teachers; compatibility with the schools' experience of learning with and through ICT; and issues of privacy, control and academic freedom. To contribute to overcome such difficulties some specific features and criteria for school learning portals are proposed. Before that the paper revises the origins and rationale of e-learning and briefly considers its impact on university education. It also considers the consolidation of e-learning services through learning portals, and the broad aims and implications of ICT in schools.
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