media in education

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 MEDEA Awards 2011 website is now available in French and German with updated information as well as the complete entry process available in not only English but also French and German. These translations have been taking place during the month of February and from now on French-speaking and German-speaking people that are interested in finding out more about the competition and possibly participating, can now roam the site in their own language. The organisation is currently working hard on the Spanish, Italian and Polish translation of the entire website, which will be available by the end of March 2011. Deadline this year is 16 September 2011!

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 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.

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.

The December issue of Media in Education is now available. In this month's newsletter you will find a short report about the Media & Learning Conference. Video recordings, presentations, photos and a final report about the conference are now available from the conference website.  

You will also find a report on how media is being implemented in French universities and a feature article by Paul Bottelberghs on a radical new approach to media literacy in education, based in the new digital culture. This issue also contains an article on electronic whiteboards, an announcement of the winners of the MEDEA Awards 2010 and lots of other news and information.  

Media in Education will be re-launched in January 2011 as "Media & Learning" and bi-monthly editions will be available in French, German, Italian, Spanish and Polish as well as in English.

BBC’s highly engaging project School Report which gives 11-14 year-old students in the UK the chance to make their own news reports for a real audience was a popular overall winner of this year’s MEDEA Awards. The MEDEA Awards were announced during the Media & Learning Conference which took place 25-26 November in the Flemish Ministry of Education and Training headquarters in Brussels and which included workshops led by this year's finalists as well as previous winners and finalists. 

BBC School Report was also the winner of the Professional Production Award sponsored by AVID. The winner of the User-Generated Content Award sponsored by SMART was Et si c'était toi?, submitted by the Lycée Technique du Centre in Luxembourg and represented by Laurence Streitz. This 4-minute film was produced by 17 to 18-year old students of the secondary school Lycée Technique du Centre in Luxembourg and deals with bullying and domestic violence. The Adobe-sponsored European Collaboration Award went to Evolution of Life, a website created by LMU Munich in Germany and CNDP (Centre National de Documentation Pédagogique) in France and represented by Yannick Mahé, offering original teaching materials about the evolution of life. A special prize was given to Pocket Anatomy, submitted by eMedia Interactive in Ireland and represented by Mark Campbell. Pocket Anatomy is a fully searchable interactive atlas of the human anatomy designed to run on a mobile device.

Over 220 people from 31 countries are taking part this week in the Media & Learning conference organised in collaboration with the Flemish Ministry of Education and Training. This conference combines presentations, discussions, demonstrations and workshops and includes the MEDEA Awards Ceremony where the winners of this year's MEDEA competition will be announced.

Online discussions have already started and are open to the public and you can follow many of the presentation sessions live online from 09.30 on Thursday 25 November until 17.00 on Friday 26 November. Conference themes include the role media can play in supporting learning at all levels, media literacy and the use of media-based learning resources.

People who have registered are already using the online conference community to extend their network and to manage their participation in this event and its related community of practice.

INgeBEELD is an initiative of the CANON Cultuurcel of the Flemish Ministry of Education and Training and offers a range of highly innovative materials and support resources to teachers and learners in schools aimed at raising levels of media literacy across the curriculum.

An open day held on November 9 provided an opportunity to teachers and others interested in exploring the use of digital media in class to highlight INgeBEELD4 - a rich resource of ideas and resources that aim to move beyond an interpretation of media literacy as simply the adoption of basic media skills. This study day highlighted the new Vlaanderen in Beeld (Flanders in images and pictures) portal which offers rich media resources including the resources becoming available from the archives of VRT, the national broadcaster and included an inspirational talk by Paul Bottleberghs of Ambrosia's Tafel, keynote speaker at the forthcoming Media & Learning conference.

The Media & Learning Conference Brussels 2010 on 25 and 26 November 2010 addresses how new media can contribute to improve learning.  Media literacy and digital fluency are amongst the most important skills young people can learn in order to find, use and create accurate information to become the creative citizens of a future society. But how can educators be sure that learners are learning better thanks to media?

During this conference practitioners, experts and researchers will discuss how learners handle video and audio in a meaningful and thoughtful manner to support their learning, how media repositories complement existing teaching and learning materials effectively, how young people learn by creating their own media and how ICT can enhance the teaching and learning process. The programme for the conference is now finalised and available online and it will be supported by an online discussion to facilitate networking and exchange of ideas before, during and after the conference within the Media & Learning community of practice.

The MEDEA Awards Ceremony takes place on Thursday 25th November alongside the Media & Learning Conference, where the winners of this year’s awards will be announced. More information from the conference website.