Consultancy

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.

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RURALeNTER is an initiative which will review the types of ICT services available in rural communities in Greece, Austria, Romania and Spain with a view to finding out just how much rural citizens know about the value such services can have.

It will also develop and deliver a generic training curriculum in these countries focusing on how to prepare rural adults to use and exploit ICT services, by means of blended learning models.

This initiative is partially supported under the Lifelong Learning Programme and will create a set of policy recommendations to policy makers and regional authorities about the ways in which rural citizens can take advantage of ICT services.  ATiT staff are involved in the evauation of this initiative. Find out more from the RURALeNTER website.

The Government of Japan and the World Bank are equal partners in the ‘Tokyo Development Learning Center (TDLC) Project', founded in 2004 with as its main objectives: (i) to establish TDLC as an important part of Global Development Learning Network (GDLN) in the East Asia and Pacific (EAP) region; (ii) to provide access to Japanese knowledge and expertise in development, to Asia and internationally; and (iii) to contribute to the development and sustainability of GDLN in EAP by taking a leadership role in programs, operations, or technology.

The current phase of the Project ends in June 2010. In order to document the major achievements, outcomes and impact of the TDLC Project, to ensure the accountability of the Project to its stakeholders, and to provide a sound basis for the future of TDLC, an external and independent assessment is put in place, which focuses on key features and functions of TDLC. The assessment tries to answer to what degree TDLC Project has achieved its current goals, to what extent it has operated effectively and efficiently, and what its impact has been until today. Mathy Vanbuel, ATiT is based in Tokyo for most of April to participate in the assessment.

Mathy Vanbuel gave a presentation about the pedagogical framework and the approach to teacher coaching being undertaken by the EduTubePlus partners at the recent BaKaFORUM held 30 Jan – 1 Feb in Karlsruhe.

This annual event brings together educational broadcasters and others interested in educational and societal TV and Media and provided a good opportunity to find out more about what educational broadcasters around the world are up to.

The forum was made up of a mix of screenings and workshops and included many excellent examples of educational video material as well as documentaries on a several highly emotive topics like the racist attacks on migrant communities in South Africa in 2008 and people trafficking in the Ukraine.

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.