workshop

A group of teachers from the Italian School, Fondazione Maddalena di Canossa in Bergamo, took part in a two day workshop on the 'Creation and Adaptation of Video Resources for Use in the Classroom' on 1-2 July. This workshop was organised as part of the preparation work for the forthcoming pilot testing of the EduTubePlus platform which begins in September which will involve these Italian teachers as well as teachers in 8 other European countries.

This workshop was organised by Armando Persico and Iolanda Riseri from FMC. Despite the glorious sunshine, the teachers worked hard to create their first educational video clips on the topics of mathematics and organ music which will hopefully be the first of many made by them.

The workshop was given by Anneleen Cosemans and Helena Bijnens on behalf of ATiT.

ENAIP (the Italian National Agency of Vocational Training) organised a week-long workshop in Brussels from 15 to 19 February on managing e-learning projects. Sally Reynolds was a tutor on this course and was responsible for sessions on developing e-learning proposals and e-learning methodologies, tools and services.

The idea behind this course was to provide participants with information on European policies related to e-learning, new methodologies in technology supported learning and good practices on proposal preparation. Particiants came from Italy, Poland and Turkey.

Held in London from 11-13 January right before the BETT show, the 2010 Forum attracted over 1000 leaders from 100 countries including 75 ministers of education. Opened by Prime Minister Gordon Browne, the very high level of political support this event received indicates the importance the United Kingdom places on exporting its know-how and expertise in the technology enhanced learning field.

The Forum provided an interesting mix of highly interactive and engaging sessions along with several thought-provoking key-note presentations including the excellent closing plenary presentation given by Charles Leadbeater. Another highlight was the highly engaging “Be Very Afraid” event organised by Stephen Heppell which provided an excellent showcase of what is possible in schools and universities with students showing and talking about the extraordinary things they are doing with new technologies in their learning.

ATiT staff took part in this prestigious event and were part of the team leading an innovation exchange session entitled "Critical Success Scheme for Step-Change in E-Learning". Materials from this session are available on the popular Re.ViCa Virtual Campus wiki.

Despite the bad weather conditions in northern Europe, ATiT staff are planning to take part in the Learning and Technology World Forum 2010 being held in London 11-13 January.

This will include leading an innovation exchange session entitled "Critical Success Scheme for Step-Change in E-Learning" on Tuesday 12th. This session will be highly interactive and will provide an opportunity to further test the validity of the Critical and Key Success factors for e-learning that were developed during the Re.ViCa project. Participants will also receive a copy of the recently published handbook, "Reviewing the Virtual Campus Phenomenon: The Rise of Large-scale e-Learning Initiatives Worldwide" which provides a wealth of background on the Virtual Campus phenomenon as well as a snapshot of the current status of Virtual Campuses worldwide.

The first 2 day training course for teachers in the EduTubePlus project will take place on 17/18 September in the International School of Budapest supported by project partners SZÁMALK Education and Information Technology Ltd. and ATiT. This hands-on workshop is aimed at teachers and others interested in the use of video for teaching purposes and will cover the creation and adaptation of video resources for use in the classroom

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.

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 is a proud founding member of the MEDEA Awards 2008, which just announced its last Call for Participation in a press release.

The MEDEA Awards 2008 is entering its final weeks for accepting submissions as the closing date for submissions is 30th September 2008. The MEDEA Secretariat, which is organised by ATiT, has already received submissions from 15 countries and the number is growing. This is the final chance for those among Europe’s educational and creative professional producers, amateurs, supporting staff, students and teachers to submit an educational project in which media (moving images, sound, media-rich applications, virtual simulations …) plays a vital role.

Five finalists will be invited to Berlin for the Awards Ceremony on Thursday 4th December 2008, where they will have the chance to win the first MEDEA Award. Prizes for 2008 will include the award itself and hardware to the value of 6,000 Euro.

You can download the press release (PDF) and visit the web site for more information:

http://www.medea-awards.com

Two members of our Organising Committee, Clive Young (University of St Andrews, United Kingdom) and Helle Meldgaard (The Danish IT Centre for Education and Research (UNI-C), Denmark) gave an engaging and excellent presentation about the MEDEA Awards 2008 at the DIVERSE 2008 Conference.

In this presentation Clive and Helle look at the trends in video and multimedia and how we can use new technologies and media for education.

They also refer to the MEDEA press release (23th May 2008) in which the Prize Sponsorship was announced. Five finalists will be invited to the Award Ceremony that will take place on 4 December in Berlin and will have the chance to win the first MEDEA Award. Prizes for 2008 will include the award itself and hardware to the value of 6,000 Euro.

The recorded presentation can be viewed online thanks to Collegerama, where a list of all presentations is available.