Consultancy

On 12 October 2011, ATiT attended the eCulture Forum 2011 in Yverdon-les-Bains, Switzerland, where the RURALeNTER project, in which we are partner which has been building capacity through ICT in rural areas for 2 years now,  received much attention and was included in the programme with a presentation called "Socio-digital inclusion in Europe". Project partners of "RUeNTER", presented their activities such as the research of citizens' ICT needs in rural areas in Austria, Greece, Romania, Spain and Switzerland and the blended learning trainings on the topic of public services and ICT services (with localised content), and the online portal where the training resources are freely accessible to those interested.

The RUeNTER project is funded by the European Commission under the Lifelong Learning Programme and a final partner meeting was also held on 13 October in the modern building of the School of Business and Engineering (HEIG-VD, St Roche) in Yverdon-les-Bains. As ATiT is the leader of the Quality Assurance and Evaluation workpackage, we presented the progress in our evaluation work, which followed a methodology including 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.

You can visit the project website and the training portal. If you would like to receive the project's final online newsletter, please send us an e-mail with your details.

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.

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.

A new research project to investigate Virtual School and College Provision called VISCED has just been launched with the support of the European Commission's Lifelong Learning Programme.
Partners in the VISCED project including ATiT are making an inventory of innovative ICT-enhanced learning initiatives and major ‘e-mature’ secondary and post-secondary education providers for the 14-21 age group in Europe.  This includes a systematic review at international and national levels as well as a study into operational examples of fully virtual schools and colleges. The outputs of this work will be analysed and compared to identify relevant parameters and success factors for classifying and comparing these initiatives. This initiative is open to researchers and policy-makers, all outputs will be published on the VISCED wiki.

During a one week visit to the Philippines, Mathy Vanbuel assisted the Local Government Academy (LGA) of the Philippines in their process of evolution towards the implementation of learning, knowledge brokering/connection, knowledge exchange, and innovation technologies in their capacity building strategy. The visit consisted of a three day intensive training workshop on e-moderation, content conversion and videoconferencing, which took place at the LGA Training Centre in Los Banos. A visit to the LGA Resource Centre in Region 7 in Cebu concluded this week.

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.