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People from 13 organisations in 12 countries got together in Dublin this week for the launch of a new project in science teaching. SAILS (Strategies for Assessment of Inquiry Learning in Science) is all about putting in place assessment strategies to support inquiry based science education in Europe at second level (students aged 12-18) and is a key development in the enhancement of innovative STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) teaching.

Speaking at the launch of the SAILS project, Minister for Education Ruairi Quinn, spoke about the importance of innovation in this area and praised Dublin City University for taking this initiative. SAILS is a 4 year support action funded under FP7, ATiT are partners in this project with responsibility for dissemination. Initial information about SAILS is available from the project website.

The European Policy Network on School Leadership brings together ministries of education, associations, capacity building organisations and experts who are actively engaged in advancing leadership in European schools.

This network is being supported by the European Commission for a 4 year period and will provide mechanisms to share knowledge and experience in school leadership initiatives as well as providing opportunities for identifying further research opportunities in this field.

The network is being led by FORTH in Greece and the kick-off meeting for this network involving more than 30 partners took place in Heraklion, Crete on 6-8 September.

ATiT are a partner in this network and will be responsible for putting in place portal services for the network providing collaboration and communication services to its members.

The MEDEA Awards were well represented at the 20th annual EDEN conference, held this week in Dublin which attracted about 450 people from all over the world. Philip Penny from IADT, Deborah Arnold from Videoscop and Sally Reynolds from ATiT shared information about the awards, the Media & Learning conference and the other activities associated with the awards including the community of practice and the resources database with participants during a conference session on Monday afternoon and also via the IADT stand which was open to participants throughout the conference.

Media & Learning News readers will be pleased to know that the June issue of the monthly newsletter is out now. In it you will read about how interest in media and digital resources is growing as a US Study on media and learning has been published and questions are raised in our featured article on What's the point of media education? The MEDEA2020 partnership also reports on the First MEDEA workshop on animation and an introduction to the Italian National Film School - Animation Department is also included in this issue, along with tips on interesting sites, tutorials, guides and much more in the new section Top resources which promotes some of the latest resources in the Media & Learning Community Resources Database, and plenty of other news items, notifications and announcements related to the use of media in education and training. You can download this month's issue here and next month's publications will again be available in English, French, German, Italian, Polish and Spanish.

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.

The fourth Media & Learning News of this year was published today, including a feature article about the award-winning "Et si c’était toi?" shortfilm tackling student bullying, an insight into the legal re-use of audiovisual media and the Tools of the Trade series is continued with part 4 of DIY 3D Video. Furthermore, readers will find out a tip on how to expand the use of your materials in other languages by subtitling, news about a equity competition with a visual/audio-visual category and plenty of other news items, notifications and announcements related to the use of media in education and training. The following issue in May will be published in 6 languages again. Visit the current newsletter here.

The popular Media & Learning News was published for the first time in March in 6 languages, French, Polish, Italian, Spanish, German and English. The newsletter includes an article from Catalonian Television about education as a communication challenge, a feature article on MEDEA Awards' winner Pocket Anatomy which visualises the complexities of the human body and a continuation of the DIY series on 3D Video.

It also includes news about new MEDEA National Contact Points in Germany and Cyprus and plenty of other news items, notifications and announcements related to the use of media in education and training.  

5 further multilingual editions are planned for 2011. You can access the newsletter here.

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 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.

On behalf of the ESHRE Special Interest Group Reproductive Surgery, ATiT produced a 3 hour long live interactive satellite TV broadcast of surgical interventions on Tuesday 29 June 2010. This session was coordinated and moderated by Professor Stephan Gordts from LIFE Leuven. The programme connected three operation theatres in the Hospital  Maternité Schiltigheim, IRCAD Strasbourg, with an audience of about 1000 participants of the ESHRE conference in one of the large auditoriums of the Fiera di Roma. Amongst the operating surgeons were Prof. Dr. Arnaud Wattiez abd Dr. Joseph Nassif (IRCAD  Strasbourg), Dr. Sara Brucker (Uni-Frauenklinik Tübingen), Dr. Rudi Campo, (LIFE Leuven), Dr. Antoine Watrelot (Part-Dieu Lyon), Dr. Guardin and Dr. Hummel (IRCAD Strasbourg).

More than 6 cameras, 2 SNG links and 2 satellite channels were used to capture and transmit the images of the gynaecological interventions in the best possible quality. Operating surgeons answered questions from the audience while demonstrating innovative surgical techniques and procedures. Amongst the cases were Deep endometriosis, Vaginoplasty Rokitansky, Hysteroscopic septum, Endometriotic cysts, Laparoscopic myomectomy, Transvaginal ovarian drilling and finally Tubal anastomosis.

The programme, sponsored by Karl Storz lasted for more than three hours and was received very well by about a thousand viewers. The viewers in the auditorium were impressed with the scientific quality of the programme as well as with the technical and organisational quality of the live transmissions.