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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 MEDEA2020 partnership recently launched a community of practice focused on media-based education! This multilingual online community of practice (CoP) called Media & Learning Community, was created for practitioners interested in the use of media in education. As a community member you can connect with other community members, start and join discussions related to media and learning related topics, and promote your own initiatives and events, as well as find and share educational resources focused on media and learning.

If you speak French, German, Italian, Spanish and Polish, you can participate in language-specific discussions that are moderated by a native speaker and expert. To explore and join the community, see www.media-and-learning.eu/community

INgeBEELD is an initiative of the CANON Cultuurcel of the Flemish Ministry of Education and Training and offers a range of highly innovative materials and support resources to teachers and learners in schools aimed at raising levels of media literacy across the curriculum.

An open day held on November 9 provided an opportunity to teachers and others interested in exploring the use of digital media in class to highlight INgeBEELD4 - a rich resource of ideas and resources that aim to move beyond an interpretation of media literacy as simply the adoption of basic media skills. This study day highlighted the new Vlaanderen in Beeld (Flanders in images and pictures) portal which offers rich media resources including the resources becoming available from the archives of VRT, the national broadcaster and included an inspirational talk by Paul Bottleberghs of Ambrosia's Tafel, keynote speaker at the forthcoming Media & Learning conference.

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.

The MEDEA Awards team has been busy with redesigning the MEDEA website and producing a media gallery with best-practice showcases that, thanks to the MEDEA:EU project, includes recorded interviews with the 2009 award winners, finalists and participants in the Highly Commended category. These interviews are now available on the  MEDEA YouTube Channel.

Visit this channel to see excerpts from 2009 winners and interviews with the representatives of Know IT All for Primary Schools, Daisy and Drago, Traditions across Europe, Eyes on the Skies, Planet SciCast, INgeBEELD and Neu in Berlin. You can embed the interviews on your own website or blog and by logging in you can subscribe to our channel, rate the interviews and let us know what you think of them by adding your own comments!

WEBstroom, a Special Interest Group of the Dutch SURFfoundation that focuses on streaming media in higher education, organised a meeting in the Netherlands on 11 February 2010 about user generated content. Among other highly interesting and relevant presentations about best-practice examples, Nikki Cortoos presented the MEDEA Awards and included a selection of online showcases featuring user generated online video.

WEBstroom is a MEDEA National Contact Point in the Netherlands and has recently moved its discussion group to LinkedIn.

On 15 January 2010 EUscreen launched its website (www.euscreen.eu) where all public documentation produced within the EUscreen project will be made accessible, along with links to specific sites and documentation about EUscreen technological issues. An important role of the website is also to capture and publish the social dynamic of the EUscreen user community and to enable sharing data and expertise with the targeted user communities and with the public at large. The site also provides links and information about activities related to the eContentplus Programme as well as articles, fact-sheets, project descriptions and specific PowerPoint presentations related to project activities and results.

The latest newsletter from the Re.ViCa project team is now available from the project web site. Stories this month include an update on how the country reports are being evaluated and the current state of the wiki on Virtual Campuses as well as a description of how the work on refining the list of Critical Success Factors is progressing.

This month's newsletter also includes several announcements and links to recently published Virtual Learning resources. For more information about Re.ViCa, visit the project web site where you can also apply for a password to access the Virtual Campus wiki which will be launched publicly in June.

The Centre for Research and Innovation in Learning and Teaching in the National College of Ireland recently launched their new National E-Learning Laboratory (NELL).  This new facility for measuring User-Screen Interactions enables researchers to observe, record and analyse the behaviour of users interacting with e-learning resources. It will allow researchers to systematically explore and improve the use of learning and knowledge-based technologies. The laboratory consists of sophisticated hardware and software that can observe up to four participants simultaneously.It also has four analytical stations for researchers. User behaviour and screen interactions are investigated using combinations of video and audio recording, screen-capture, precision keyboard & mouse logging and eye tracking. For more information visit the NELL 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