European project

With more than 1200 content pages, the recently launched Re.ViCa wiki is probably one of the largest open resources on the topic of Virtual Campus available today. Developed by the Re.ViCa project team, this wiki contains information about programmes, initiatives and leading institutions as well as a rapidly growing series of country reports describing Virtual Campuses around the world. Visitors are welcome, if you would like to add to or augment the wiki, then all you have to do is register.

26 people took part in the final workshop organised by the Re.ViCa team in Maastricht this week. Participants included International Advisory Committee members, project partners and guests who provided valuable input and feedback on several project outputs. Guests included Uswege Minga
from the Open University Tanzania, Lutfor Rahman from the People's University of Bangladesh, Terry Anderson and Rory McGreal from Athabasca University, Canada, and Mohd Ismail Ramli from MARA University of Technology in Malaysia.

As part of the European Commission supported SoRuraLL project, ATiT held a workshop in the Clare Education Centre in Ennis on Thursday 7 May on the topic of Social Networking and how tools supporting the creation of user-generated content can be used in primary and secondary schools.

Teachers from 5 primary schools in County Clare took part in this workshop which also provided an opportunity to talk about the trials that will take place in the 2009 - 2010 school year.

Staff from University of Hull and ATiT met in Hull last Thursday to work on the pedagogical framework which will be used in the EduTubePlus project. This framework will build on the work of both partners and will match in part the selection criteria used to categorise video clips describing the different activities video can support in the classroom.The framework will be used both as a way to make available examples of good use of video in the classroom as well as a way for teachers to create their own learning scenarios using video resources.

A meeting of the Re.ViCa partners including Nikki Cortoos and Sally Reynolds from ATiT took place on Tuesday 21st in EuroPACE when the team spent the day working on the final outcomes of the project. The extensive project wiki on the topic of Virtual Campus will be made public during the M-2009 conference, being held on 7-10 June 2009 in Maastricht in the Netherlands.

The team are also working on a series of Critical Success Factors to be made available in the project handbook, due to be published in September along with a comparison of European and Non-European Virtual Campuses.

The next meeting of the project’s International Advisory Committee will also take place during the M-2009 conference.

If you would like to be added to the mailing list to receive updates from the project team in the form of monthly newsletters, visit the project web site.

The latest newsletter from the Re.ViCa project team is now available from the project web site. Stories this month include an update on how the country reports are being evaluated and the current state of the wiki on Virtual Campuses as well as a description of how the work on refining the list of Critical Success Factors is progressing.

This month's newsletter also includes several announcements and links to recently published Virtual Learning resources. For more information about Re.ViCa, visit the project web site where you can also apply for a password to access the Virtual Campus wiki which will be launched publicly in June.

UNED hosted the recent EduTubePlus partner meeting in Madrid on 9-10 March where task leaders met to discuss progress in creating EduTubePLus, a new service that will provide curriculum-related digital video materials for European schools. ATiT launched the first version of their online content resource full of materials to help teachers and pupils create and adapt their own resources for inclusion in EduTubePlus. This resource will be made available to teachers taking part in the EduTubePlus trials from September onwards.

ATiT is organising an information evening for teachers in the western Irish county of Clare on Social Networking Tools and Platforms in Education in conjunction with the Clare Education Centre on Thursday 7 May at 19.00. Teachers taking part can find out more about social networking software and how it is being used in schools throughout Europe. They will also be invited to discuss how tools like YouTube, Flickr, FaceBook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Bebo can be used to support teaching.

This event is part of the recently launched SoRuraLL project and will also be an an opportunity to find out more about the trials taking place in Clare during the 2009/2010 school year and how teachers in the region can get involved.

For more information contact info@atit.be

ATiT has recently joined a new project called Rural Social Networking for Lifelong Learning (SoRuraLL) which will investigate the potential offered by social networking tools and platforms to those living in geographically and socio-economically disadvantaged rural areas.

More specifically, SoRuraLL will develop and implement experimental learning approaches examining the potential offered by these new trends and tools for the alleviation of the socioeconomic disadvantage suffered by rural populations in Europe, and in particular for the enhancement of rural citizens’ opportunities for effective and meaningful lifelong learning.

ATiT will be responsible for managing a trial involving schools in the East Clare region of Ireland. This is a Lifelong Learning Programme project (KA3) involving partners from Greece, Germany, Poland, Bulgaria, Spain and Belgium. The kick off meeting of the project took place in Patras, Greece on 29-30 of January 2009.

The first meeting for the MEDEA:EU project took place in Roosbeek on 2-3 February involving the three project partners, UNI-C in Denmark, IADT in Ireland and ATiT in Belgium. MEDEA:EU which is supported under the Lifelong Learning Programme is a dissemination activity aimed at making the MEDEA Awards available to a wider European audience.

The project will do this by making information about the MEDEA Awards available throughout Europe through a network of National Contact points as well as by making materials including the MEDEA web site available in French and German as well as in English.

MEDEA:EU will also support a European Collaboration Award, aimed at recognising excellence in the use of multimedia in Education realised through cooperation between organisations in 2 or more countries. More information about MEDEA:EU will be available from 28 February from the MEDEA web site.