education

The October issue of the Media in Education Newsletter highlights the launch of the new Greek ministerial video web site for schools, the new JISC Digital Media Newsletter and the way Swedish schools are using media resources.

This month's newsletter contains a feature on the winner of the MEDEA Special Award in 2008 as well as a profile of CSP in Italy, a very active MEDEA national contact point. The October edition reports on the numbers of entries to the 2009 MEDEA Awards and gives information about other awards in this sector.

If you have relevant information or news you would like to share in this newsletter, contact the editors.

Entries to the annual MEDEA Awards have been arriving daily to the MEDEA Secretariat in recent weeks and more than 250 were received by the competition deadline of 30th September. The highest number of entries have been submitted by French organisations with organisations in Italy, UK and Germany also submitting a significant number. Judging will begin in mid-October and the organisers hope to have a list of finalists available at the beginning of November.

This newsletter is aimed at people actively engaged in promoting excellence in the use of media in education and is linked to the annual MEDEA Awards. Each month it  includes news about the MEDEA competition and other events, projects, initiatives and developments related to how media can best be used in education.

This month it includes an interview with Sergio Lopez Figueroa (Creative Director of Big Bang Lab) about his collaborative interdisciplinary creative learning project with British secondary school pupils called "Unseen Voices". The output of this project includes a film created by students entirely by re-using archive film footage and photography and editing digitised clips on the history of the second World War, the Holocaust and Kindertransport (youth refugees in 1939). 

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

The MEDEA channel has been launched on YouTube where you can see interviews with previous entrants including several 2008 winners as well as samples of entries from 2008.

Interviews cover topics like how the specific example of educational multimedia was made, how it was used and the equipment and skills required. Subscribe to the channel to be kept up-to-date with new additions.

The closing date for 2009 entries is 30 September 2009, find out more about this competition from the MEDEA web site.

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

All roads lead to Berlin on Wednesday 28th November for the annual Online Educa Berlin conference. With a packed agenda including several new elements, OEB07 looks set to break all previous records in terms of quality and participation. Poised to attract more than 2000 participants from 92 countries, its a good opportunity for us in ATiT to get togeher with old friends as well as meeting new people. Looking forward to seeing you there!

infoDev and the Commonwealth of Learning (COL) have released a really useful second set of draft country reports from the on-going Survey of ICT and Education in Africa, a comprehensive study surveying the current landscape of ICT in education initiatives in Africa.