user needs assessment

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.

On Thursday and Friday 14 and 15 January 2010 ATiT participated in the mid term project meeting of the European Commission Lifelong Learning Project SoRuraLL, which focuses on using information and communication technologies in rural parts of Europe, especially within the education and training domain.

Partners from Greece, Bulgaria, Spain, Belgium, Germany and Poland gathered in the excellent premises of Ellinogermaniki Agogiki to discuss the progress of development and pilots. The pilot activities are beginning now and will continue until July involving teachers in Greece, Spain and Ireland as well as learners in Germany and Bulgaria and citizens in Poland.

The LOGOFIND Project of the Department of Finance in the Philippines collaborates directly with the League of Municipalities of the Philippines (LMP) to set up and manage a distance learning service, the Distance Learning Network. The research and training arm of the LMP, the Mayors Development Centre, is charged with the effective management and operation of this DLN.
The aim of the network is firstly to maximise on previous investments in development of training materials by extending the reach of these training courses to more and other trainees within the LGUs (including their Technical and Administrative Staff), and secondly to further explore and develop new methods of training and learning, in order to evolve towards more effective, personalised, flexible and affordable learning, using innovative learning technologies and sound pedagogical approaches.
In this initial phase a small network of Distance Learning Sites is installed in hosting institutions across the Philippines (Mindanao, Visayas, Northern Luzon) in order to accommodate the courses. During the month of May 2008, Mathy Vanbuel worked with the LOGOFIND, the LMP and the World Bank Institute in order to further define the programme and to move this deployment forward.

Together with partners from 7 different European countries ATiT launches the Re.ViCA Lifelong Learning Project that will look at virtual campus experiences across Europe. This project, chaired by Europace, will conclude in September 2009 with the publication of the Virtual Campus Manual aimed at regional, national and European political decision makers, advisors, government and administration, education authorities, e-learning industry, research community and Virtual Campus management.