awards

BBC’s highly engaging project School Report which gives 11-14 year-old students in the UK the chance to make their own news reports for a real audience was a popular overall winner of this year’s MEDEA Awards. The MEDEA Awards were announced during the Media & Learning Conference which took place 25-26 November in the Flemish Ministry of Education and Training headquarters in Brussels and which included workshops led by this year's finalists as well as previous winners and finalists. 

BBC School Report was also the winner of the Professional Production Award sponsored by AVID. The winner of the User-Generated Content Award sponsored by SMART was Et si c'était toi?, submitted by the Lycée Technique du Centre in Luxembourg and represented by Laurence Streitz. This 4-minute film was produced by 17 to 18-year old students of the secondary school Lycée Technique du Centre in Luxembourg and deals with bullying and domestic violence. The Adobe-sponsored European Collaboration Award went to Evolution of Life, a website created by LMU Munich in Germany and CNDP (Centre National de Documentation Pédagogique) in France and represented by Yannick Mahé, offering original teaching materials about the evolution of life. A special prize was given to Pocket Anatomy, submitted by eMedia Interactive in Ireland and represented by Mark Campbell. Pocket Anatomy is a fully searchable interactive atlas of the human anatomy designed to run on a mobile device.

Over 220 people from 31 countries are taking part this week in the Media & Learning conference organised in collaboration with the Flemish Ministry of Education and Training. This conference combines presentations, discussions, demonstrations and workshops and includes the MEDEA Awards Ceremony where the winners of this year's MEDEA competition will be announced.

Online discussions have already started and are open to the public and you can follow many of the presentation sessions live online from 09.30 on Thursday 25 November until 17.00 on Friday 26 November. Conference themes include the role media can play in supporting learning at all levels, media literacy and the use of media-based learning resources.

People who have registered are already using the online conference community to extend their network and to manage their participation in this event and its related community of practice.

9 finalists for the annual MEDEA Awards were announced by the MEDEA Secretariat on 4 October and are (in alphabetical order): BBC News School Report by BBC (UK), Bla Bla Bla e-democracy e minori by Civil Life Lab (Italy), Et si c'était toi by Lycée Technique du Centre (Luxembourg), Evolution of life by CNDP (France), Level 7 by Careersbox (UK), Monkey Labs by Die Keure/Larian Studios (Belgium), Pocket Anatomy by eMedia Interactive (Ireland), Theorem of Fire by Nafta Films (Estonia) and The Classroom by Cornerhouse (UK). 

The overall winner will be announced during the MEDEA Awards Ceremony which takes place on Thursday 25 November during the Media & Learning Conference in Brussels.This year the competition attracted 140 entries from 31 countries and for the first time, those entering could chose between submitting their entry as a production made by a professional company or semi-professional production unit or as one made by teachers, students, learners, parents, professors, individual or organisational representatives in primary education, secondary education, higher education, adult education, vocational education and/or training. This means that this year as well as the overall MEDEA Prize, there will also be a prize for the highest scoring entry in each of these two categories. There will also be a special prize, the European Collaboration Prize which is supported by the European Commission’s Lifelong Learning Programme. Prizes are sponsored by Adobe, Smart and AVID.

The finalists were chosen by a jury made up of 74 education and media experts from 26 countries who evaluated the MEDEA entries during August and September. All finalists will attend the Awards Ceremony on Thursday, 25 November which is a highlight of the Media & Learning conference and presentations by each of the finalists will be included in the conference programme.  

The closing date for the MEDEA awards is coming up soon and so we invite all producers of media resources to submit their entries by 31 July. Entry to the MEDEA Awards is free!

This year there are two main MEDEA Awards, the MEDEA Overall Award and the European Collaboration Award. The European Collaboration Award recognizes excellent media-based productions and projects that come about as a result of European cross-border collaboration. This year the organisers are making a distinction between professional and non-professional producers, awarding the best entry in each category.

You can submit your entry in French, English or German and once your entry is completed, you can then follow its progress online. Find out more from the MEDEA Awards website.

The latest edition of the Media in Education Newsletter is available for download. This newsletter is aimed at anyone interested in developments, best practices, news and resources related to the use of media in education and is linked to the MEDEA Awards.

Highlights in this month’s newsletter include:
- a description of BaKaFORUM 2010, Europe's annual meeting of educational broadcasters
- a feature article on the winner of the MEDEA Special Jury Award 2009: Eyes on the Skies from Germany
- a profile of the Masaryk University Language Centre, MEDEA national contact point in the Czech Republic
- information about various festivals related to the use of media aimed at the education and training sector
- a selection of interesting websites and tools related to the use of media in education

The MEDEA Awards 2010 have been launched with the publication of a brand new website which features samples and stories from winning entries in 2008 and 2009.

Online submissions are welcome up to the closing date for receipt of entries which is 31 July 2010. This European awards scheme recognises, rewards and encourages excellent use of media in education and attracts entries from all education and training sectors. Last year more than 250 entries were submitted and they included cartoons, videos, media repositories and animations.

The latest edition of the Media in Education Newsletter is available for download. This newsletter is aimed at anyone interested in developments, best practices, news and resources related to the use of media in education and is linked to the MEDEA Awards.

Highlights in this month’s newsletter include:

• feature on the winner of the MEDEA Award for Creativity and Innovation 2009: Daisy and Drago from Turkey
• up-dates on related EU-funded projects such as EUscreen, EdReNe and DIVIS
• profile of the Estonian e-Learning Development Centre, a National Contact Point of MEDEA
• information about various awards schemes related to the use of media aimed at the education and training sector

The December edition of the MiE newsletter is now available and includes the complete listing of the MEDEA 2009 Award Winners as well as information about all the finalists and those entries that were Highly Commended.

It also contains a detailed report from the MEDEA Awards Ceremony held in Berlin on December 4th as well as information about new publications related to the creation of user-generated content and audio-visual services in the education domain.

As always the newsletter contains news and information about the use of media in education including announcements related to several national awards schemes aimed at the education and training sector. For more information visit the MEDEA web site.

The overall winner of the MEDEA Awards 2009 was announced by Maruja Gutierrez-Diaz, Advisor to the Director of the Lifelong Learning Programme, European Commission on 4 December during a well attended reception in Berlin.

It is Know IT All for Primary by Childnet International (UK), which was represented at the prize-giving ceremony by Lucinda Fell, Policy and Communications Manager, who graciously accepted the bronze MEDEA statuette as well as hardware and software sponsored by Avid and Adobe. In addition to the overall winner, the MEDEA Award for Creativity and Innovation 2009 was won by Daisy and Drago by Terakki Foundation Schools (Turkey) represented at the awards by Özge Karaoğlu.

Traditions Across Europe by Istituto Comprensivo “Don Bosco” (Italy), represented at the awards by Gina Mango won the MEDEA European Collaboration Award 2009 and a special jury prize was given to Eyes on the Skies by European Southern Observatory (ESO) (Germany) in recognition for what the judges described as “a superb example of the value high quality video imagery can bring to an educational production”. For more information visit the MEDEA web site

This month's edition of the Media in Education (MiE) newsletter has been published and contains an update on the MEDEA Awards 2010 as well as information about the 8 finalists selected.

MiE also contains news about an Irish film festival for schools, the much-awaited launch of the WatchKnow educational video service, the launch of a survey into the use of video in education and lots more to bring you up to date with what is happening in the educational media field.