medea

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.

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 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.

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.

The MEDEA Awards were well represented at the 20th annual EDEN conference, held this week in Dublin which attracted about 450 people from all over the world. Philip Penny from IADT, Deborah Arnold from Videoscop and Sally Reynolds from ATiT shared information about the awards, the Media & Learning conference and the other activities associated with the awards including the community of practice and the resources database with participants during a conference session on Monday afternoon and also via the IADT stand which was open to participants throughout the conference.

Media & Learning News readers will be pleased to know that the June issue of the monthly newsletter is out now. In it you will read about how interest in media and digital resources is growing as a US Study on media and learning has been published and questions are raised in our featured article on What's the point of media education? The MEDEA2020 partnership also reports on the First MEDEA workshop on animation and an introduction to the Italian National Film School - Animation Department is also included in this issue, along with tips on interesting sites, tutorials, guides and much more in the new section Top resources which promotes some of the latest resources in the Media & Learning Community Resources Database, and plenty of other news items, notifications and announcements related to the use of media in education and training. You can download this month's issue here and next month's publications will again be available in English, French, German, Italian, Polish and Spanish.

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 fourth Media & Learning News of this year was published today, including a feature article about the award-winning "Et si c’était toi?" shortfilm tackling student bullying, an insight into the legal re-use of audiovisual media and the Tools of the Trade series is continued with part 4 of DIY 3D Video. Furthermore, readers will find out a tip on how to expand the use of your materials in other languages by subtitling, news about a equity competition with a visual/audio-visual category and plenty of other news items, notifications and announcements related to the use of media in education and training. The following issue in May will be published in 6 languages again. Visit the current newsletter here.

The popular Media & Learning News was published for the first time in March in 6 languages, French, Polish, Italian, Spanish, German and English. The newsletter includes an article from Catalonian Television about education as a communication challenge, a feature article on MEDEA Awards' winner Pocket Anatomy which visualises the complexities of the human body and a continuation of the DIY series on 3D Video.

It also includes news about new MEDEA National Contact Points in Germany and Cyprus and plenty of other news items, notifications and announcements related to the use of media in education and training.  

5 further multilingual editions are planned for 2011. You can access the newsletter here.

The Media in Education newsletter has been renamed 'Media & Learning News' and will continue to be published every month. From March onwards, this newsletter will be available every two months in Spanish, Italian, French, Polish and German as well as English. 

Highlights in this month's newsletter include: an update on the highly successful BBC News School report and how non-UK schools can get involved in News Day on 24 March; an invitation to the International Council For Educational Media; one mother's experience of how media-rich learning materials are challenging traditional maths teaching; tools of the Trade: fancy creating your own 3-D Video? It also contains the confirmed dates for the Media & Learning Conference 2011 and plenty of other news items, notifications and announcements related to the use of media in education and training as well as the MEDEA Awards 2011.