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 group of teachers from the Italian School, Fondazione Maddalena di Canossa in Bergamo, took part in a two day workshop on the 'Creation and Adaptation of Video Resources for Use in the Classroom' on 1-2 July. This workshop was organised as part of the preparation work for the forthcoming pilot testing of the EduTubePlus platform which begins in September which will involve these Italian teachers as well as teachers in 8 other European countries.

This workshop was organised by Armando Persico and Iolanda Riseri from FMC. Despite the glorious sunshine, the teachers worked hard to create their first educational video clips on the topics of mathematics and organ music which will hopefully be the first of many made by them.

The workshop was given by Anneleen Cosemans and Helena Bijnens on behalf of ATiT.

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.

The EdReNe thematic network held their 4th strategic seminar on repositories of learning resources in Barcelona from 24-26 March. EdReNe brings together people responsible for European webbased repositories with content owners and other stakeholders within education. This seminar explored EdReNe’s overall themes: which repository strategies work, how do we engage users and producers, which are the relevant standards to ensure interoperability, and how do members address the complex handling of intellectual property rights.

It also provided an opportunity to launch the next stage of EdReNe's life as an independent network and about 80 people attended including many of the associated members of which ATiT is one. For more information about the interesting work EdReNe is doing including their recently published series of synthesis reports, visit the EdReNe website.

ENAIP (the Italian National Agency of Vocational Training) organised a week-long workshop in Brussels from 15 to 19 February on managing e-learning projects. Sally Reynolds was a tutor on this course and was responsible for sessions on developing e-learning proposals and e-learning methodologies, tools and services.

The idea behind this course was to provide participants with information on European policies related to e-learning, new methodologies in technology supported learning and good practices on proposal preparation. Particiants came from Italy, Poland and Turkey.

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.