European project

ATiT met with its 7 MEDEAnet partners in Bucharest on 23-24 April for an appraisal and planning meeting. Hosted by the Romanian partner, the NGO ActiveWatch, this meeting focused on supporting the developing the Media & Learning network, how to facilitate the steady growth of the network and plans for the coming 6 months. Partners’ workshop and webinar plans and the preparation of the 2012 report on the status of media education and media literacy in partners’ countries occupied much of the discussion along with discussions about the launch of the new Media & Learning Association.

The online social media course aimed at Lifelong Learning Project managers and staff being run by ATiT as a partner in the Web2LLP project is now fully operational. The first two weekly sessions of this 5 week course have been delivered to up to 30 participants and responses have been really positive so far. This course serves as a pilot for the full version of the course which will be run in Italian in June and in French and English in September. To find out more including how you can register, visit the Web2LLP online training site.

ATiT staff met with its Web2LLP partners at the second project meeting which took place last week on 4-5 October 2012 in the warm and culture-rich city of Florence, Italy. With this project we aim to improve web strategies and maximise the social media presence of lifelong learning projects.

During the meeting the partners discussed the results of the user needs analysis of LLP project managers' use of social media in their web strategies.120 responses are being analysed which are being used to inform both the online and face-to-face training which will take place in the first part of 2013 and which ATiT is organising. In the coming months, the partners will be finalising and publishing interviews with project managers showcasing good practice in the use of social media for dissemination and valorisation purposes as well as preparing 2 handbooks on establishing efficient web strategies and integrating social media.

Social media are increasingly important for Lifelong Learning Programme projects as they provide important validation and verification channels. The Web2LLP project is organising face-to-face and online courses on web strategies and social media for managers and members of LLP projects. The week long face-to-face course will take place in Leuven, Belgium on 18 – 23 February 2013 and you can apply for funding to your LLP national agency by September 2012.The online courses will be held in February – July 2013. These 10 hour courses organised in 5 modules of 2 hours each are available in English, French or Italian and will be backed up by an online help desk and support service. Furthermore, to help better understand your training needs in respect to social media, you are invited to complete a very short questionnaire which will take no more than 5 minutes to fill in. Find out more from the Web2LLP website http://www.web2llp.eu/

Partners in the VISCED project on Virtual Schools have been meeting this week in Sheffield to discuss the work to date and to plan for the final stages of the project. This meeting also included a gathering of the project's International Advisory Committee where the outputs of the project including critical success factors for the successful deployment of virtual schools were disussed.

These meetings followed the very successful Virtual School Colloquium which brought together virtual schools from 14 different countries, these included schools catering for students that are travelling or seriously ill. It also included schools aimed at marginalised and isolated students.

Full details of the presentations given will be available shortly on the VISCED project website.

ATiT recently launched a website for Web2LLP which aims to boost the dissemination strategies of LLP projects by providing personalised support and training on the integration of social media. The team will also identify best-practices and share resources. The partners in Web2LLP are University of Luxembourg, Web2Learn, Coventry University, Pixel and PAU Education as well as ATiT. The project team will provide a pilot online course in autumn followed by face-to-face and online courses in Spring 2013. Find out more from the project website.

The European Policy Network on School Leadership (EPNoSL) aims to improve school leadership in Europe by setting up a collaborative network in which members co-construct, manage and share knowledge intended to inform policy in the area of school leadership.

Much of this knowledge sharing is taking place in a portal designed and supported by ATiT and through a series of webinars that have taken place in recent weeks. In the portal you can find academic research materials, interviews with school leaders, recordings of the webinars that have taken place and policy documents.

E-ViEW partners are meeting this week in the University of Porto. The main topics for discussion are the final plans for the international activities amongst students from Portugal, Poland, Ireland and the UK. These activities follow on from the the national activities that have taken place amongst work-based learners in most of the partner countries. Several of these activities will take place against the backdrop of the Olympics taking place in London and the European Football Championship takng place in Poland. Theye will focus on several of the cometencies identified in the E-ViEW Framework for work-based learning and will utilise the online E-ViEW Virtual Campus. Find out more from the E-ViEW project website.

MEDEA2020 is a project supporting the annual MEDEA Awards which involves partners in Spain, Italy, France, Poland and Belgium. It is led by ATiT and involves the organisation of workshops, the support of the monthly Media & Learning newsletter, the annual Media & Learning conference and other dissemination actions as well as the awards scheme. Project partners met this week in Torino to discuss the progress of the project and to support the organisation of a workshop in Torino on the use and re-use of media resources. Find out more about MEDEA2020.

ATiT staff met with Web2LLP project partners last week on 1-2 March 2012 for the Web2LLP Kick-Off Meeting hosted by DICA-lab in one of the campuses of the University of Luxembourg in Luxembourg City.

Web2LLP aims to boost dissemination strategies of LLP projects through providing personalised support and training about integrating social media, as well as through identifying best-practices and sharing resources. Following a pilot training, ATiT will organise a face-to-face training and five two-hour online (videoconferencing) sessions aimed at current and potential LLP project managers in the beginning of 2013. The face-to-face week-long training will be organised in Leuven, Belgium and a grant to cover the full costs of participation including accommodation and flights is available through the Comenius/Grundtvig programme of the European Commission.

ATiT is also responsible for the project dissemination and will publish the project website soon. You can already subscribe to the Twitter Channel and join our Diigo group where we share related resources. Web2LLP is funded with support from the European Commission through the Lifelong Learning Programme.