workshop

Teachers and trainers from 7 different European countries are taking part in a training course this week in Leuven on the use of video to support learning. They include primary and secondary school teachers as well as adult educators and university staff and are working together in teams to produce short educational video clips as part of this highly interactive and practical workshop. Despite the sudden snow storm that descended over Leuven this week, they have already begun to make recordings and are looking forward to visiting the Future Classroom Lab in the European Schoolnet premises in Brussels. Find out more about these courses. 

21 teachers and trainers from all over Europe have converged on Leuven this week to discover how to create and use educational apps.This week-long hands-on training course is providing them with the basics of creating simple apps for the classroom and their goal is to conceive, plan and create a simple app for teaching purposes utilising the skills and knowledge they have gained by the end of the week. Course participants have a variety of experience but all share an enthusiasm for the task ahead. As well as finding out more about creating educational apps, they are also enjoying the experience of getting to know one another and to enjoy visiting the city of Leuven. 

Together with LearningTour in the Netherlands, ATiT is running a 5 day residential training course on Creating Educational Apps beginning on 4 February in the Leuven Institute for Ireland in Europe. 21 teachers and trainers will take part from Belgium, Ireland, Portugal, Romania, Austria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Lithuania, Spain, Germany and Iceland. The main idea behind this hands-on training course is to provide participants with the basics of creating simple apps for the classroom. the next edition of this course will take place on 8-13 July.

13 teachers from Croatia, Greece, France, Turkey, Italy, Romania and Belgium have been working all week in Belgium to create educational video materials as part of the course "Using Video to Support Lifelong Learning". This residential training course is aimed at trainers and teachers who would like to find out more about using video to support their teaching activities and covers the use of existing video as well as the creation of their own materials. A presentation of their outputs takes place on Friday 6 July in the Irish Institute in Leuven. 

CSP in Italy organised a two day workshop on use and re-use of video resources for teaching and learning on 20/21 April in Torino. This workshop was aimed at teachers and others interested in this topic. Participants learnt more about Italian and European initiatives in this area including EUscreen which was represented by Marco Rendina from Luce in Italy and Mathy Vanbuel from ATiT. This workshop was run in the context of the MEDEA2020 project. Oher inputs came from previous MEDEA Award winner, BBC Schools report which was given by Helen Shreeve.  

Course participants from Spain, Romania, Ireland and Italy took part in ATiT's week-long training course on creating and using video to support teaching and learning held 4-9 July in Leuven. Working in groups, they produced a series of 3 minute video clips about the city of Leuven which were presented to an invited audience on Friday 8 July, including the Education Alderman, Mohamed Ridouani.  For more information about these courses visit our website.

Almost 2000 people are taking part in the Digital Agenda Assembly in Brussels organised by the European Commission on 16-17 June. Sally Reynolds from ATiT facilitated the workshop on 'Mainstreaming e-Learning in education and training' which took place on 16 June and which identified successful eLearning policies, drivers, opportunities and expectations.

Outputs from this workshop contribute to a set of priorities and actions encouraging Member States to innovate in their education and training through adopting and integrating e-Learning into teaching and training. They also include recommendations to the Commission on how to support the Member States in this endeavour. This workshop represents the "kick-off" of the Digital Agenda action 68.

On Tuesday 31st of May and Thursday 2 June 2011 the first 2-day MEDEA2020 workshop took place alongside the annual EdTech conference organised by the Irish Learning Technology Association (ILTA). This conference took place in Waterford Institute of Technology (WIT).

This workshop on animation took place over 2 days. The first part, aimed at beginners, provided an overview of different animation techniques and included hands-on practice with different tools. Topics covered getting started with animation as a way of engaging learners, different types of animation for example 2D, 3D. The session continued with hands on sessions with different software tools (Flash and Animate) for the creation of animation. Participants carried out the first steps in creating an animated movie, and explored in that way the principles of animation.
Winning examples of animation from the MEDEA Awards were presented by Deborah Arnold from Videoscop Universite Nancy2 (France) and invited guest Yannick Mahé from CNDP (France) who is the director of award winning educational media Evolution of LIfe. Demonstrations and presentations were followed by discussions with all participants.

The second part of the workshop, aimed at more advanced users, took place as part of the EdTech programme on 2 June. On that day, examples and explanations on the use of animation in a pedagogical context were discussed: how was it produced and what is the impact on learning. How can animation motivate and stimulate the learner and aid understanding of complex abstract concepts. Also on the second day, there was a hands on session on the creation of scenarios that continued where the first day ended based on the scenarios created during day 1 from an educational and media production perspective. The workshop showed the participants clearly the first steps in the development of a short animated movie plus discussions.

The tutors on this workshop were Deborah Arnold from Videoscop, France; Yannick Mahé, from CNDP in France, Philip Penny from IADT, Ireland and Mathy Vanbuel, ATiT, Belgium. Altogether 30 participants attended the workshop over part or whole of the two days.

The next MEDEA workshop will take place in Poland in July and will cover the topic of Webinars. More information soon on this site and on the MEDEA Awards site.

Two week-long residential courses combining theory and practice are taking place in Leuven later this year. The first takes place on 4-9 July and the second on 24-29 October. Places are still available for these courses which provide participants with the necessary basic skills to create and share their own educational video materials.

During these courses, participants work in teams to produce their own educational video programme and this process is interchanged with theoretical sessions and visits to ensure a good balance of work. The number of participants is limited to 20 and the course culminates with a public showcase of the videos produced by the different teams to an invited audience.

Find out more from this site which includes information about how you can apply for funding to take part.