The 21st European Conference on Technology-Enhanced Learning (ECTEL), organised by EATEL (European Association of Technology Enhanced Learning), will take place from 14–18 September 2026 in Valencia, Spain, as a fully in-person event. ECTEL brings together researchers, practitioners, educational developers, entrepreneurs, industry leaders and policy makers each year to address current challenges and advances in the field.
This year’s theme, “Mindful TEL: Learning Technologies Shaped with Intention,” sets the tone for the conference’s three confirmed keynote talks. Cristina Conati (University of British Columbia) will speak on personalised, explainable AI and what it means for AI in education. Rupert Wegerif (University of Cambridge, and founder of the Digital Education Futures Initiative) will ask what education is for in the age of AI, arguing for designing learning technology around collective intelligence rather than individual performance alone. Katie Stasaski (Google DeepMind) will present evidence from longitudinal studies, including one run across UK secondary schools, on how intentional pedagogical design shapes AI tutoring outcomes, drawing on DeepMind’s work integrating pedagogy into Gemini via Guided Learning.
The conference will be hosted at the UNED Associated Centre in Valencia, located in the historic Casa de la Misericordia educational complex in the L’Olivereta district. It is jointly organised by the UNED Valencia team as local host and the School of Computer Science (ETSI Informática) of UNED in Madrid. UNED, Spain’s national distance-learning university and the largest campus in Europe, is known for its network of over 60 associated regional centres, making this a fitting venue for a conference on technology-mediated learning.
Beyond the academic sessions, EATEL’s Special Interest Groups, spanning areas like educational robotics, serious games and gamification, multimodal immersive learning, and human-centred responsible AI, are expected to feature throughout the programme, alongside a Doctoral Consortium for early-career researchers.
More information: ECTEL 2026
