training

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.

A week-long course entitled ‘Using Video to Support Lifelong Learning’ is being organised in the Leuven Institute for Ireland in Europe in Belgium from 14 February 2011. This course will provide participants with the basics of video capture and editing as well as training on how to publish video materials online.

Aimed at enthusiastic newcomers, this course will also address issues to do with video as a learning tool and how best to use video at all levels of teaching and learning.  One of the goals of the course will be for participants to create their own educational video resource during the week-long workshop.

Held in London from 11-13 January right before the BETT show, the 2010 Forum attracted over 1000 leaders from 100 countries including 75 ministers of education. Opened by Prime Minister Gordon Browne, the very high level of political support this event received indicates the importance the United Kingdom places on exporting its know-how and expertise in the technology enhanced learning field.

The Forum provided an interesting mix of highly interactive and engaging sessions along with several thought-provoking key-note presentations including the excellent closing plenary presentation given by Charles Leadbeater. Another highlight was the highly engaging “Be Very Afraid” event organised by Stephen Heppell which provided an excellent showcase of what is possible in schools and universities with students showing and talking about the extraordinary things they are doing with new technologies in their learning.

ATiT staff took part in this prestigious event and were part of the team leading an innovation exchange session entitled "Critical Success Scheme for Step-Change in E-Learning". Materials from this session are available on the popular Re.ViCa Virtual Campus wiki.

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 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

ATiT provided its first training for Google Calendar aimed at small businesses on 8 April. Google Calendar is part of Google Apps Professional edition, a package of Google's communication and collaboration tools including Google Mail, Google Calendar, Google Documents and Google Sites and is a really useful tool for helping small companies and organisations manage and track their appointments and activities.

ATiT now offers a face-to-face customised training module including a manual and a handy "CheatSheet" on Google (Apps Pro.) Calendar which offers many features that SMEs, organisations and networks can benefit from. These include commonly known calendar features like the ability to share your calendar with your colleagues or viewing the availability of a colleague or guest when scheduling a meeting, to more advanced functions such as the availability of resources, online AND offline access to the calendar and the ability to synchronise with other calendar applications or smartphones.

A half day module for up to 20 people in either Dutch or English including the manual and cheatsheets costs 450 Euros. If you would like to find out more, do contact us.

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.

The VENUS Handbook entitled 'Creating New Opportunities for Universities' has just been published. This handbook is based on the experience of the partners in the VENUS project who organised Virtual Seminars on a broad range of European subjects and a Summer School on the Use of Social Software in Business and Higher Education.

The handbook contains practical advice about how universities can set up these kinds of services and opportunities and provides plenty of guidelines, checklists and tips. With summaries available in French and German, this handbook guides the reader through the different steps involved in this process, from choosing a pedagocial approach, selecting a suitable topic to preparing speakers and supporting participants.

Edited by Sally Reynolds, Kamakshi Rajagopal and Bieke Schreurs, more information is available from the VENUS site http://www.venus-seminars.net/

The final VENUS Training Workshop on how to organise virtual seminars and summer schools via videoconferencing takes place on Monday 11th February. This workshop highlights in very practical ways how you can bring intercultural dialogue into your classroom, create new instructional design models and find ways to put in place a highly innovative Faculty of Extension, for more information see http://www.venus-seminars.net