rural

ATiT staff recently met in Spain with partners of RURALeNTER, a project funded by the European Commission under the Lifelong Learning Programme. "RUeNTER", as it is also known, is analysing the needs regarding public services and ICT services of citizens of four rural areas in Austria, Greece, Romania and Spain. The identified user needs will be addressed through training workshops taking place in the first half of 2011 and a supporting online portal with training support materials and social network functionalities.

During this second partner meeting, which took place on the sunny and beautiful premises of the University of Barcelona Spain, all partners discussed their progress and planning for the next stage of the project. ATiT is the leader of the Quality Assurance and Evaluation workpackage and we presented our evaluation methodology during this meeting which includes a peer review process of the project’s deliverables and the deployment of several online questionnaires to receive feedback from different RUeNTER actors throughout the project.

To find out more about the project, visit the project website. If you would like to receive the project's six-monthly online newsletter, please send us an e-mail with your details.

Partners from the SoRuraLL initiative which is testing the viability of various types of social networking tools met in Krakow, Poland on 3-4 June to discuss the progress of the pilot activities taking place in different parts of Europe. Part of their meeting was held in the Raba Wyzna Telecentre in the Rokiciny Podhalanskie region, a rural area about an hour from Krakow.  This area is currently suffering a lot from flooding in the region and the meeting served as a good opportunity to find out more about the needs of rural populations when it comes to ICT and the ways in which social networking tools can help to relieve isolation and provide useful community services to the region.

RURALeNTER is an initiative which will review the types of ICT services available in rural communities in Greece, Austria, Romania and Spain with a view to finding out just how much rural citizens know about the value such services can have.

It will also develop and deliver a generic training curriculum in these countries focusing on how to prepare rural adults to use and exploit ICT services, by means of blended learning models.

This initiative is partially supported under the Lifelong Learning Programme and will create a set of policy recommendations to policy makers and regional authorities about the ways in which rural citizens can take advantage of ICT services.  ATiT staff are involved in the evauation of this initiative. Find out more from the RURALeNTER website.

Jim O'Sullivan and Sally Reynolds presented the results so far of the SoRuraLL project during the CESI annual conference held 5-6 February in Portlaoise, Ireland.

This conference, entitled Creative Technology for Challenging Times brought together about 150 teachers and others working with ICT in primary and secondary schools in Ireland for a day and a half of presentations, exchanges and discussions about the effective implementation of ICT in Irish classrooms. One of the highlights of this conference was the presentation given by Joe Dale on 'New Tools, New Curriculum, New Opportunities', to find out more about Joe and the tools he recommends, visit his blog.

The SoRuraLL presentation provided an opportunity to showcase some of the blogs and websites being developed by rural schools in Co. Clare as part of this project.

On Thursday and Friday 14 and 15 January 2010 ATiT participated in the mid term project meeting of the European Commission Lifelong Learning Project SoRuraLL, which focuses on using information and communication technologies in rural parts of Europe, especially within the education and training domain.

Partners from Greece, Bulgaria, Spain, Belgium, Germany and Poland gathered in the excellent premises of Ellinogermaniki Agogiki to discuss the progress of development and pilots. The pilot activities are beginning now and will continue until July involving teachers in Greece, Spain and Ireland as well as learners in Germany and Bulgaria and citizens in Poland.

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.