Creativity
State of World Population 2011: People and Possibilities in a World of 7 Billion
With planning and the right investments in people now—to empower them to make choices that are not only good for themselves, but also for our global commons—our world of 7 billion can have thriving sustainable cities, productive labour forces that fuel economies, and youth populations that contribute to the well-being of their societies. Young people hold the key to the future, with the potential to transform the global political landscape and to propel economies through their creativity and capacities for innovation. But the opportunity to realize youth’s great potential must be seized now.
The power of education to transform lives - access, investment and development
The International Council for Open and Distance Education (ICDE) held its 24th biennial world conference in collaboration with The Open University (Universitas Terbuka), Indonesia from 2-5 October 2011. The conference, which looked at new approaches to learning, took place on the island of Bali and was attended by over 600 delegates representing 49 countries.
The importance of creative solutions for education
In opening the conference, the Minister of National Education of the Republic of Indonesia Muhammad Nuh praised Universitas Terbuka for its work in overcoming challenges in the provision of access to education: “We have to be creative – open and distance learning has to be used as widely as possible to narrow social gaps”.
A personal story about educational opportunity
Hal Plotkin, Senior Policy Advisor in the Office of the Under Secretary of Education, United States Department of Education drew on his own life story to highlight the opportunity that distance education can bring to underprivileged sections of society. On the verge of losing the family home, 17-year-old Plotkin left high school to work as a waiter until a newspaper article about school dropouts provoked him to write a reply, the beginning of a career as a writer and journalist. His formal education came through the US community college system which has no requirements for previous formal education: “Only 5% have real opportunities to enter higher education and among the other 95% could be geniuses capable of finding the cure for diabetes and solutions to the world’s economic challenges – open education is the only tool to unlock talent and capacity and to extend economic growth”.
Investments in access to education
Plotkin reported on massive investments in open education being made by the Obama administration in the United States through the federal Online Skills Laboratory, an initiative to build open resources for learning. The Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training Grant Program (TAACCCT) will invest $2 billion over the next four years in initiatives including free to access materials.
Keynote speaker Duk Hoon Kwak of the Korea Educational Broadcasting System (EBS), a public television network dedicated to lifelong public education noted similar investments planned in Korea for 2012-2015. All Korean students will be provided with digital textbooks by the end of this period.
Access challenges in developing countries
Onno W Purbo an IT evangelist from Indonesia spoke of how 6 million children enter school annually, but only 600,000 graduate from higher education. While learning materials are ever more freely available, the predominance of English language creates barriers, though Google translate is widely used. Students and teachers use USB memory drives to overcome the problems of slow internet connection, while kitchen utensils are used to extend the range of Wi-Fi hotspots.
From a Brazilian perspective, Stavros Xanthopoylos spoke of the challenges to creating and distributing free educational content when quality education is only available through private universities and colleges: “the value chain is based on profit and this goes against what they are about”.
Academic perspectives
Lawrence Lessig, lawyer, activist and founder of Creative Commons, an initiative to provide certificates for the licensing of scientific and educational materials spoke passionately about the injustices of commercial scientific publishing which restricts access to knowledge to the most privileged: “copyright is 18th century rules in a 21st century world”.
Respected academics working with open educational resources including Gráinne Conole from the University of Leicester, UK, and Rory McGreal from Athabasca University, Canada spoke on the role of technology in learning. McGreal advised colleagues to create educational materials for mobile devices first: “a third of the world’s population can only access the Internet from mobile devices”.
Conference website: www.ut.ac.id/icde2011
For information about the International Council for Open and Distance Education (ICDE): www.icde.org/en/about
Contact: Gard Titlestad, Secretary General, ICDE, Mobile: +47 48 10 80 96, titlestad@icde.org
Video Education booklet - Principles and Practice of Viducate
Video education combines an investigative and critical understanding of the world with the development of relevant production skills. It can operate and develop successfully at all levels of the curriculum. Video education is based upon recognition of the crucial role which video imagery (both with and without sound) plays in constructing and mediating knowledge and understanding in the contemporary world.
First results from the UNESCO Chair in e-Learning on Teacher Training: Reconsidering teachers’ roles
During two days there had been a variety of discussions about issues in teacher training: reconsidering teachers’ roles in the VIII International Seminar in Barcelona last week. Presentations of keynote speakers and demo presenters were followed by rich debates.
Today is the first working “after” day, and we are tiding up all the information created during the seminar. What we share today is just a tip of the iceberg, still it may be of interest of the participants, those who were lucky enough to be with us face-to-face but also those following it through live streaming and twitter.
Firstly, a few words about some stats of the seminar. We had 86 attendees from 20 different countries. During the seminar, almost 1500 tweets were generated; we will analyze them in more detail. Tweets were promoted and curated by César Córcoles, who took care of the @UOCunescochair Twitter account during the seminar. Ismael Peña was in charge of live blogging, doing an excellent work summarizing each of the talks in real time:
ICTlogy By Ismael-Peña López ( www.ictlogy.net )
Keynotes:
- Steve Wheeler: Learning and Teaching in the Digital Age
- Douglas Thomas: Cultivating the imagination for a world of constant change
- Yehuda Elkana & Hannes Klöpper: Higher Education Curricula, Technology and the Changing Role of the Teacher in the 21st Century
- Edem Adubra: Enhancing the status and professionalism of teachers in the digital age
- Ferran Ruiz Tarragó: The Usual Suspects? Teachers, Their Challenges and Development
Demos:
- Signe Sutherland & David Pitcher: New Learning Team: Time for Creativity and Collaboration in Teacher Education
- Peter Baptist: Towards New Teaching of Mathematics – What Do We Learn from SINUS?
- Hanna Teräs: Using Authentic Learning and Social Media for Developing 21st Century Pedagogical Skills in Teacher Education
- Ichiya Nakamura & Janak Bhimani: Enhancing the creativity of children through the use of digital video technology
- Jordi Blanch i Hughet, Jordi Moral i Ajado & Diego Haro Nieto: IOC: an Experience in Changing Roles of Teachers and Students
- Teresa Guash & Guillermo Bautista: Training new teachers for Secondary Education: trying out changes and improvements
Closing:
Last, but not least, the seminar also generated some beautiful noise around it. Currently now we can highlight the following, but we expect this list to grow with all your post-seminar activity:
Learning with e’s By Steve Wheeler ( http://steve-wheeler.blogspot.com/ )
Grow or Pay By Hanna Teräs ( www.hannateras.com )
School Networking By Sigi Jakob ( www.school-networking.de )
In the following days we will be posting additional resources related to the seminar, such as speakers’ presentations, video recordings, your comments, etc. Therefore, don’t forget to subscribe to our blog in order to keep up to date. And, of course, if you have any idea, comment or request, do not hesitate to contact us through commenting this very same entry or our email catedraunesco[at]uoc.edu
Art Skills for Teachers Launched
Simple yet highly effective art and craft techniques that non specialist teachers can feel confident at trying in the classroom
The Art Skills for Teachers resource is a website that has been created by the Ben Uri Gallery to support the teaching of art and design. It is targeted at the non specialist. It aims to offer simple, yet highly effective, ideas and techniques that both teachers, children can feel confident at trying both at school and at home.
The ideas and techniques can be used to create artworks in response to the Ben Uri Teaching Resources produced by the London Grid for Learning, A Sense of Place, Relationships and Movement – however their application can occur across many and varied contexts in the primary and secondary classroom.
A video case study filmed at Richard Cobden school In Camden shows the impact of using the Ben Uri Art resources and explains how the resources can be used in a range of Key Stages.
- The resource features an image viewer that is designed to allow teachers to move an image around freely on an interactive whiteboard display.
- All the resources are available for .pdf download.
- All pages in the online book interface have unique web addresses so that links from other resources (such as the London MLE) can be created.
- Visit http://www.lgfl.net/learningresources/curriculum/artanddesign/BenUri/Pages/default.aspx for more information.
eLearning Papers 27 Call for papers!
eLearning Papers. Připravované 27. vydání věnované tématu „Navrhování výuky“ se ptá, jak mohou učitelé rozvíjet nové přístupy při navrhování vzdělávacích aktivit, které zohlední komplexní, technologiemi podporované učební kontexty. Uzávěrka pro předložení příspěvků: 21. říjen 2011. Publikace se předpokládá v prosinci 2011. Hostující editorka: Gráinne Conoleová, Leicesterská univerzita, ředitelka „Beyond Distance Research Alliance“.
MFG Innovation Agency for ICT and Media Annual Report 2010/2011
In its sixteenth year, MFG Innovation Agency for ICT and Media has produced an annual report that strikes out in new directions in terms of both content and creative execution. The projects showcased in the report illustrate how Baden-Württemberg can make use of the opportunities and potential offered by the digital world and further enhance its position as a leading locationfor media and creativity.
How can the public be supported in their use of new media? Who will provide ways of improving personal media literacy? What is the effect of changing information and communication behaviour on businesses and research institutions? And how can SMEs and young talent reap the benefits of social networks? MFG addresses these and other questions within the context of regional, national and international projects. In doing so, it works closely with universities, businesses, partner institutions and talented young people.
MFG Innovation Agency Annual Report Published
The latest annual report from MFG Innovation Agency for ICT and Media is now available hot off the press. As a learning organisation, MFG teamed up with one of its designers to construct physical creative boxes and photographed them for the annual report, thus connecting the analogue and digital worlds. Making the boxes involved gluing, cutting, painting and even sewing
A video of the creative process can be viewed here. A total of 20 individual works were produced, representing MFG Innovation Agency’s creative partners and projects.
Among those featured is IT graduate Tobias Domhan from Stuttgart, who was able to spend six months working at the Demola creative laboratory in Finland thanks to MFG’s talent funding programme. While there, he developed an educational computer game in which all the action is controlled using a real guitar. Tobias Domhan’s creative box (p. 22) therefore contains an actual guitar head decorated with musical notes and characters from the guitar game.
MFG Innovation Agency also undertakes forward-looking projects in a European context. As part of the Web 2.0 further education project SVEA, MFG worked with Coleg Sir Gâr from Wales and other partners to develop a collaborative online platform and a programme of exercises to instruct trainers and seminar leaders in the use of social media tools. The digitalized blackboard and Twitter bird in Dave Howells’ creative box (p. 24) symbolise the new opportunities offered by blogs, social bookmarks and instant messaging in the vocational education and training sector.
The bilingual annual report can be requested free of charge via innovation@mfg.de or browsed online at http://bit.ly/mRYvAt