Article archive

On 30 September 2011, the September issue of the Virtual Schools and Colleges Newsletter has been published last Friday, a newsletter published by the VISCED project. Containing a variety of articles and reports related to the use of ICT in secondary and post-secondary education for 14-21 year olds in Europe and elsewhere, this issue includes an article extolling the value of online learning for gifted students in the US, a new report on Learning and Innovation through ICT at school in Europe and a Virtual School Symposium (VSS) taking place in the US. Among other interesting articles, you can also read the latest blog post by Paul Bacsich, VISCED's project coordinator, entitled "Hidden virtual schooling" as well as an article about the first meeting of VISCED International Advisory Committee that took in Portugal. You can read the issue at the VISCED project website.

The European Policy Network on School Leadership brings together ministries of education, associations, capacity building organisations and experts who are actively engaged in advancing leadership in European schools.

This network is being supported by the European Commission for a 4 year period and will provide mechanisms to share knowledge and experience in school leadership initiatives as well as providing opportunities for identifying further research opportunities in this field.

The network is being led by FORTH in Greece and the kick-off meeting for this network involving more than 30 partners took place in Heraklion, Crete on 6-8 September.

ATiT are a partner in this network and will be responsible for putting in place portal services for the network providing collaboration and communication services to its members.

The 9th issue of Media & Learning News includes news from the US about how students created a lecture capture and note-taking device, Nikos Theodosakis raises a few issues in his article 'Participation: Social Media's Invitation to Learners'. You can also find out about a report on the use of educational videos and digital learning materials in every class in The Netherlands, and read the final installment in our 5-part series on 3D, about displaying and viewing. Very important in this newsletter are the reminder about the MEDEA Awards deadline which is set on 16 September 2011 and the online publication of the Media & Learning 2011 Conference programme. To read all this and more, visit the newsletter's web page.

The programme for this year's Media & Learning Conference is now available and features a host of engaging speakers, topical discussions and screenings of excellent examples of media supported learning. The conference has three main themes; future trends and developments in media-supported learning, digital and media production skills and competences including media literacy, and the use and re-use of existing media resources in education and training at all levels.

Highlights of the conference include keynote presentations by Belgian child psychiatrist Peter Adriaenssens who argues that creative education is essential for the development of the brain and personality of children and Richard Harper, Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research in Cambridge, UK. Screenings showing excellent examples of media usage to support learning from Thomson Reuters in the UK, TV.Klasse in Belgium, Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and finalists in the MEDEA Awards 2011 along with discussion sessions, workshops and demonstrations combine to create a packed programme of activities.

Registration is now open on the conference website http://www.media-and-learning.eu.

The DiVa project, which focusses on Good Practice for Dissemination and Valorization of Educational Projects, has recently published its final products: a handbook for project co-ordinators, a best-practice catalogue and recommendations, and the MEDEA Awards are mentioned in the best-practice catalogue thanks to the dissemination activities undertaken by the MEDEA:EU project, of which ATiT was the project coordinator. The successful actions of the MEDEA:EU project, the European Commission-supported project which helped to extend the European identity of the MEDEA Awards through a multilingual newsletter and the European network of national contact points, have been taken up and are being enhanced by our current MEDEA2020 project.

By carrying out European studies about successful educational projects and evaluating them based on certain criteria, the DiVa project has already proven to be very useful for new as well as already started European projects and through these publications everyone can now benefit from this collection of different and innovative ways to promote, disseminate, exploit and valorize.

In this month's issue, articles included are about the launch of the European Film Gateway website, a feature article on Producing video for teaching and learning - Is there a best way to produce educational video?, news about the loss of an important science video repository with the end of AthenaWeb.org, an update on Dutch Policy on media literacy and digital skills. Also in this issue, are an announcement of the TrueTube and Moviestorm schools video competition, a feature article on Connecting those using Geo-media and Geoinformation in Schools, and plenty of other news items, notifications and announcements related to the use of media in education and training.

The second 2011 MEDEA2020 workshop entitled 'Webinar as a new Media Use Example' is taking place this week in Warsaw and is organised by MEDEA2020 partner Fundacja Obserwatorium Zarządzania.

This workshop is managed by Anna Jaruga and is being led by Piotr Maczuga and Krzysztof Zielinski. It also includes input from Nick Newman from CareersInfo, UK, Deborah Arnold, Universite Nancy 2, France and Mathy Vanbuel, ATiT, Belgium.

During the workshop, participants were introduced to how best webinars can be used to support training which included a review of best practices. Participants are then taking part in practical hands-on sessions using Adobe Connect were they are learning how to prepare and deliver successful webinars. This includes writing and reviewing scenarios, recording and trouble-shooting.

About 30 people are taking part who come from a variety of different education and training backgrounds.

The latest Media & Learning News is online now, with highlights including broadcasters' views on educational TV worldwide - international TV professionals' experiences and opinions, an article about Knowledge Pills: efficient learning and knowledge sharing for SMEs using video as well as a feature article on eduSensus - the role of multimedia in supporting Early & Special Needs Education.

Among the many interesting articles are five new resources in the Media & Learning Resources database including science video repositories and a British film archive, and events and calls such as a related competition in the US: International Student Media Awards and plenty of other news items, notifications and announcements related to the use of media in education and training. This issue is published in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish and Polish.

To download this month's issue, please visit the newsletter's website.

Course participants from Spain, Romania, Ireland and Italy took part in ATiT's week-long training course on creating and using video to support teaching and learning held 4-9 July in Leuven. Working in groups, they produced a series of 3 minute video clips about the city of Leuven which were presented to an invited audience on Friday 8 July, including the Education Alderman, Mohamed Ridouani.  For more information about these courses visit our website.

Last week the 11^th DIVERSE International Conference took place in Dublin, Ireland from 28 to 30 June 2011. The programme was full of interesting keynotes and presentations and we were delighted to be amongst them! On Thursday 30 June, Sally Reynolds (ATiT, Belgium) and Deborah Arnold (Videoscop - Universite Nancy 2, France) presented "Sound! Light! Action! Learning? Experiences from the annual MEDEA Awards", a plenary session which combined a presentation of winning MEDEA entries as well as a judging session using a sample MEDEA entry.