medea

The ALT (Association for Learning Technology) conference took place this year from 7-9 September in Nottingham, UK and attracted over 500 people to what is probably one of Europe's leading academic conferences on educational techology attracting more and more participants and members from non-UK organisations.

ALT this year offered a terrific mix of provocative presentations, really stimulating discussions and workshop sessions and a rich mix of networking opportunities. Despite the general atmosphere of doom and gloom in the UK Higher Education sector, ALT-C was awash with new initiatives, innovative developments and a great sense that education technology held the key to many of the challenges facing universities.

Sally Reynolds was there to highlight the MEDEA Awards and the Media & Learning Brussels 2010 conference as well as to promote the Media in Education Newsletter. She was also there to explore opportunities for collaboration particularly in relation to the use of media in teaching and learning. Interest in the use of video is high within the ALT community where a new Video in Teaching & Learning special interest group was launched this year. This year the ALT conference also included the Epigeum video awards, now into its third year.

This month's newsletter includes news about a new multimedia game called Poverty Is Not a Game (PING) raising awareness during this European year for combating poverty and social exclusion and reflections on how university library services in the US are embracing multimedia in an effort to expand their service offer to media-savvy students. You can also read a review of pocket video cameras like FlipCams and how they can be used for teaching and learning, learn more about MEDEA's new national contact point in Romania, and read about an ambitious plan to use video to help build peace and minimise ethnically-framed violence in the next round of elections in Kenya and plenty of other news items, notifications and announcements related to the use of media in education and training.

This month's newsletter includes a feature article on the educational outreach programme of the San Francisco Film Society which will be celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2011. It also includes a description of the programme for the Media and Learning conference in November 2010 which combines a variety of presentations, discussions and online activities. The tools and services section contains an article about developments in camera technologies which are making high quality video recording far more affordable for educational video producers. The newsletter also contains a reminder about the grant deadline for taking part in an educational video production workshop for teachers and trainers in Leuven, Belgium in February 2011 - the closing date for grant applications is 15 September. Other articles include news about a new WEBTV service in Italy launched by CSP and an introduction to MEDEA's new national contact point in Bulgaria, Zinev Art Technologies Ltd. (ZAT).

The closing date for the MEDEA awards is coming up soon and so we invite all producers of media resources to submit their entries by 31 July. Entry to the MEDEA Awards is free!

This year there are two main MEDEA Awards, the MEDEA Overall Award and the European Collaboration Award. The European Collaboration Award recognizes excellent media-based productions and projects that come about as a result of European cross-border collaboration. This year the organisers are making a distinction between professional and non-professional producers, awarding the best entry in each category.

You can submit your entry in French, English or German and once your entry is completed, you can then follow its progress online. Find out more from the MEDEA Awards website.

This month's issue highlights a forum on Video and Active Citizenship, a new special interest group on video in higher education, a teachers' resource on the topic of cyberbullying and a report on the level of interest in educational video during the Global Learn conference Conference in Malaysia.

Readers will also notice a new feature about tools of the trade, now launching with an insight into Adobe's new eLearning Suite. In our feature article on past winners, finalists and Highly Commended now we now explore the multimedia literacy project INgeBEELD, a MEDEA 2009 Finalist.

You can read the entire newsletter for more interesting articles on relevant organisations, events and competitions such as the Erasmus EuroMedia Awards and the ALT/Epigeum Award.

Almost 400 people attended the EDEN annual conference held in the beautiful city of Valencia from 9 - 12 June. The theme of the conference this year was 'Media Inspirations for Learning' and so a presentation of the MEDEA Awards given by Sally Reynolds from ATiT turned out to be a popular choice for lots of participants.

This presentation provided a snapshot of how the MEDEA awards scheme has been growing since its launch in 2007 and a description of the types of entries it receives.  It was also a timely reminder that the closing date for receipt of entries this year is 31 July.

EDEN also provided a good opportunity to promote the Media and Learning conference being held in Brussels on 25 - 26 November in collaboration with the Flemish Ministry of Education, where themes related to to how best to utilise the impact of media will be the main focus of discussion.

This month's newsletter includes an introduction to EuroCreator, which is offering video resources to European teachers. It also gives an insight into an innovative special interest group on educational podcasting and tells the story behind the MEDEA 2009 Finalist, Studiecoach, produced by the Dutch Open University. 

Readers of the May issue can read about KlasCement, offering video resources to Dutch-speaking teachers, learn about several calls for related competitions such as the EUROPRIX Multimedia Awards and the JAPAN PRIZE and find out more about what is happening in the field of media and education through the articles and announcements about recent developments and publications contained in the May edition.

Read the newsletter on the Media in Education website.

The April edition of the Media in Education Newsletter is now available and includes a report about EdReNe's recently held strategic seminar on repositories of learning resources.

It also includes an article about Planet SciCast, an online video-sharing repository which was one of the finalists in the MEDEA Awards 2009, articles about two different IPR-related websites and an introduction to the MEDEA National Contact Point in Malta which is the Centre for Literacy at the University of Malta. 

The April edition also includes information about the call for submissions to the Media and Learning conference being held 25/26 November in Brussels.

This edition is available on a dedicated newsletter website where you will also find issues of this monthly newsletter dating back to September 2009 as well as information about how you can sign up to receive the newsletter every month.

ATiT has also recently launched a website dedicated to the MEDEA:EU project which supports the organisation of the MEDEA Awards and which is partially funded under the European Commission' s Lifelong Learning Programme.

This conference, entitled Media & Learning: towards the era of digital fluency is being organised as a collaboration between the Flemish Ministry of Education and the European Commission Directorate-General for Education and Culture and will take place in the Flemish Ministry of Education Headquarters in Brussels to co-incide with the Belgian Presidency of the European Union.

Organised by ATiT in Brussels, 25-26 November, this conference will bring together practitioners and policy makers in a two day event which will highlight the latest developments, services and digital and media competences in education and training. This event will incorporate the annual MEDEA Awards and interested individuals, project teams, institutions and organisations are invited to submit proposals to give presentations, demonstrations and workshops at this conference, the closing date for submissions is 1 June 2010. Visit the conference website for more information.