management

Last week on 26 January, the Kick-off meeting for the European MEDEAnet project took place in the Irish Institute in Leuven, Belgium. This 3-year networking project resulted out of the success of the MEDEA Awards, an annual competition that encourage innovation and good practice in the use of media (audio, video, graphics and animation) in education. The motivation behind MEDEAnet is first of all to extend the reach of the network of the MEDEA Awards by providing opportunities for local events linked to the MEDEA Awards and to involve not only early adopters, but also mainstream practitioners in networking opportunities.

MEDEAnet partners will organise workshops in 7 countries sharing best practice with the input of MEDEA Award winners and finalists; provide a 12-part series of public webinars on related topics; publish an annual report on media literacy, skills in educational media production and the use of media-based teaching resources; promote knowledge building and sharing amongst practitioners and roll-out a large-scale dissemination and exploitation strategy on media and learning. Secondly, plans to establish the MEDEA Foundation as a legally constituted membership organisation in 2012 are underway. MEDEAnet, which is supported under the European Commission's Lifelong Learning Programme, involves partners who either have a national or a large-scale regional brief and who are mandated to support innovation in teaching and learning as part of their organisational responsibility. Through them this network will reach teachers and trainers who are less skilled and motivated to use media-based learning approaches.

298 people from all over the world participated in the Media & Learning Conference on 24 -25 November in the Flemish Ministry of Education in Brussels. This conference organised by ATiT and the Ministry brought together educational broadcasters, policy-makers, practitioners, educational media producers and researchers in a packed 2 day event that included screenings, discussions and demonstrations. Supported by the European Commission's Lifelong Learning Programme and with the help of sponsors like Adobe, Liberty Global and Telenet this event combined presentations about existing media-rich teaching resources and experiences with debate and discussion about future trends, drivers and developments.

Networking was at the heart of Media & Learning and the size and nature of this conference meant that there were no shortage of opportunities for making new contacts and planning collaborations. Media & Learning also featured the MEDEA Awards and included the prize-giving ceremony for this annual competition now in its 4th year. Keep up to date with Media & Learning 2012 on the conference website.

The 9 finalists for the 2011 Annual MEDEA Awards were announced on 28 October 2011.

The finalists are (in alphabetical order): Armi di distruzione di massa by ITIS Avogadro di Torino (Italy), Changing Lives by Drogheda Special Olympics Club (Ireland), IMPRINTING by Scuola Secondaria di Primo Grado “Brofferio”, Asti (Italy), INgeBEELD by CANON Cultural Unit (Belgium), Monkey Tales by Die Keure and Larian Studios (Belgium), The European Chain Reaction by Qworzó Primary School (Belgium), The Merchant of Venice by University of Education Salzburg (Austria), Twig by Twig (UK), and Werner Heisenberg by INTER/AKTION GmbH (Germany).

This year the competition attracted 115 entries from 28 countries and the overall winner will be announced during the MEDEA Awards Ceremony which takes place on Thursday 24th November during the Media & Learning Conference 2011 in Brussels.

A further 13 entries were highly commended by the international jury. All those entries which are finalists as well as those who are highly commended will be added to the MEDEA Awards’ media gallery of showcases highlighting excellence in the use of media to support teaching and learning.

For more information visit the MEDEA Awards site.

Partners in the E-ViEW consortium are preparing to roll out a pilot series of management courses early in 2012 aimed at work-based learners and are currently developing the approach which will taken for elements within these courses. As part of this preparation, ATiT staff helped to organise a meeting of eLearning experts to advise on the current set of plans and to support partners in their work. This meeting took place on 11 October in Leuven and involved partners from Poland, Portugal, Ireland and the UK along with experts from the Netherlands, Ireland, Estonia, Bulgaria and Portugal. Find out more about E-ViEW on the project website.

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.

On Wednesday 1st of June 2011, the MEDEA2020 consortium gathered at the Ramada Viking hotel in Waterford, to discuss the progress of this European Project. The project partners also participated in the EdTech conference where the MEDEA Awards were presented.

The second Media & Learning 2011 Conference website is now online with more information about this year's event. The aim of this conference is to bring together people interested in the take up of media in support of learning across all sectors, to discuss future trends and developments in media-supported learning, to share experience in how best to promote digital and media production skills and competences including media literacy, and to debate the best way to use and re-use existing media resources in education and training at all levels.

If you would like to contribute to the conference programme with a presentation, workshop or demonstration, the deadline for receipt of contributions is 1 June 2011. Visit the website to find out more.

If you want to get a sense of what the conference offered in 2010, you can view the photographs, videos, programme and discussions of last year’s conference in a flashback of Media & Learning 2010.

The dates for the next Media & Learning Brussels 2011 Conference were announced today and this conference will take place on 24-25 November in the Flemish Ministry of Education & Training Headquarters in Brussels. The annual awards ceremony for the MEDEA Awards will take place during Media & Learning on 24 November.

Aimed at policy-makers and practitioners, Media & Learning 2011 will bring together people interested in the take up of media in support of learning across all sectors, media literacy and the re-use of media based resources in education and training as well as broader issues related to ICT skills and digital competence generally.

More information including the public call for input will be available from the Media & Learning website shortly. The deadline for receipt of ideas for the agenda is 1 June 2011.

ATiT is organising the next week-long course Using Video to Support Lifelong Learning  from 4-9 July in the Leuven Institute for Ireland in Europe, Leuven, Belgium. This week-long course will provide participants with the basics of video capture and editing as well as training on how to publish their video materials online. Aimed at enthusiastic newcomers, this course will also address issues to do with video as a learning tool and how best to use video at all levels of teaching and learning. Funding to cover the full costs of participation including accommodation and flights is available through the Comenius/Grundtvig programme of the European Commission, full course details are available here. The deadline for application for this funding is 14 January 2011.

Last week, ATiT staff met with project partners for the RURALeNTER project, funded by the European Commission under the Lifelong Learning Programme, to plan the training sessions on public services and ICT services that will be organised in four rural areas in Austria, Greece, Romania and Spain in 2011. In the first year of the project, the partnership has been busy researching rural dwellers' needs and are now ready to begin delivering courses.  These taking part will begin with a self-assessment test which will enable them to choose whether to opt  for a basic computer and ICT skills training before moving on to a training course based on scenarios linked to topics like social networking, e-government or self-promotion through the Internet. 

The RURALeNTER project is funded under the Grundtvig Multilateral subprogramme, which recently celebrated the 10th year of Grundtvig in Flanders with an anniversary event  in the Ministry of Education and Training in Brussels. Staff from ATiT representing RURALeNTER took part in this event  where they learned more about other Grundtvig-supported multilateral adult education projects by Flemish partners, including some initiatives focusing on rural areas. A publication showcasing the best-practice examples of Grundtvig-funded projects was also presented.