innovation
Book about Personalized Learning Environments - "Entornos personales de aprendizaje: claves para el ecosistema educativo en red"
Linda Castañeda and Jordi Adell are the editors of "Entornos personales de aprendizaje: claves para el ecosistema educativo en red", a book about personalized learning environments (PLE) published under a Creative Commons licence.
The book (only available in Spanish) aims to give the reader an introduction to the concept of PLE ecosystem and the pedagogical ideas underpinning it. It also shares some relevant experiences that exemplify how it can be used in all levels of education and how research is approached from different PLEs perspectives.
The publication includes texts of experienced educators and researchers, such as Jesús Salinas, Oskar Casquero, Ricardo Torres Kompen, Cristina Costa, Ismael Peña-López, Lola Urbano, J. Daniel García, Fernando Trujillo Sáez, David Álvarez, Juan Sánchez, Francisco Fernández, Victoria Marín, Carlos Santos, Luis Pedro, Ana Isabel Vázquez-Martínez, Mª Paz Prendes, Alec Couros, Gráinne Conole and Graham Attwell.
17th May. Events in Spain to celebrate Internet Day 2013
The World Information Society Day, also known as Internet Day, is observed every year on 17 May since 2006. The main objective of the day is to raise global awareness of the possibilities offered by new technologies and promote widespread Internet access, reducing the digital gap.
This year, the day will be celebrated throughout Spain with conferences, training sessions, competitions, online games and many other activities.
Universities will invite middle and high school students to virtually visit their premises and ask questions about their academic future.
The main event of the day will be held in the Spanish Senate in Madrid, where a high level panel debate will discuss about sustainable creativity and several awards will be handed.
All activities will be promoted and commented in Twitter with the hashtag #DiadeInternet
TEL-Map project survey about technology supported, innovative learning practices
The TEL-Map European project, funded by the European Commission, has launched a survey about technology supported, innovative learning practices.
TEL-Map is a Coordination and Support Action focussing on roadmapping activities for innovative forms of learning. A roadmap can be understood as a ‘strategic lens’, through which future developments in a domain or an organisation are analysed for the purpose of channelling available resources wisely.
The aim of this new survey is to collect the views of teaching professionals to inform future roadmapping activities by probing certain statements with regards to their likelihood, desirability and – when it comes to policy measures – their feasibility.
There is no need to be an expert in all areas addressed to answer the survey, as the objective of TEL-Map is to get feedback from people with as diverse backgrounds as possible.
Question blocks have been created for each of the following innovative practices:
- Gamification: using game mechanics and elements of game design in non-game contexts in order to motivate learning. Controversial issues evolve around 'hunting for points as a distraction of learning', neglect of demographic particularities, availability of gamification strategies.
- Free Massive Open Online Course: bringing existing courses to an extended audience by driving technological and economical innovation. Controversial issues evolve around funding models, accreditation, high attrition rates and possible ways of highly automated learner support.
- Flipped classroom: inverting classroom situations so that the lecture part is moved from school to home and the exercise part takes place at school. Controversial issues evolve around managing differences between learners being more or less successful doing their homework, which requires fundamentally new types of in-class activities.
- Seamless Learning (Ubiquitous Learning): obliterating borders between different technologies and learning formats such as formal and informal learning or individual and social learning. Controversial issues evolve around the ownership of learning tools and data generated by learners' activities, or the potentially invasive character of learning technologies to the detriment of a balanced life style.
Cloud Computing and the Power to Choose
“Cloud Computing and the Power to Choose” is an article published by the magazine Educause Review in June 2010. Written by Rob Bristow, Ted Dodds, Richard Northam, and Leo Plugge, it provides insight into the chances and risks in cloud computing and cloud services for higher education and research.
With many in higher education today eyeing the potential of the cloud, the question now according to the authors of the paper is not so much "Is cloud computing a good idea?" The key question to answer is: "What can we do with the cloud?"
Colleges and universities around the world are discussing, planning for, and using cloud computing and cloud services. The rate of adoption varies from country to country, but the need for awareness and preparation is universal.
This article examines cloud issues (both opportunities and risks) by looking at examples from four countries: Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom.
The Industry and Policy Context for Digital Games for Empowerment and Inclusion
“The Industry and Policy Context for Digital Games for Empowerment and Inclusion: Market Analysis, Future Prospects and Key Challenges in Videogames, Serious Games and Gamification” is a report published by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) in 2013 aiming to help policy makers and other stakeholders in their decisions about the potential contribution to economic and social goals of the creative, cultural and technological industries that develop digital games and gamification.
The effective use of Digital Games for Empowerment & Inclusion (DGEI) of people and communities at risk of exclusion will be shaped by, and may influence the development of a range of sectors that supply products, services, technology and research. The principal industries that would appear to be implicated are the videogames industry, and an emerging “serious games” industry.
The videogames industry is an ecosystem of developers, publishers and other service providers drawn from the interactive media, software and broader ICT industry that services the mainstream leisure market in games, The “serious games” industry is a rather fragmented and growing network of firms, users, research and policy makers from a variety of sectors.
These actors are trying to develop knowledge, products, services and a market for the use of digital games and products inspired by digital games for a range of non-leisure applications.
Authored by James Stewart and Gianluca Misuraca, from the Institute for Prospective Technological Studies (IPTS), the report provides a summary of the state of play of these industries, their trajectories and the challenges they face. It also analyses the contribution these actors could make to exploiting digital games for empowerment and social inclusion.
Finally, it explores existing policy towards activities in these industries and markets, and draws conclusions as to the future policy relevance of engaging with them to support innovation and uptake of effective digital game-based approaches to empowerment and social inclusion.
Intelligent Tutoring Interface for Technology Enhanced Learning
INTUITEL is a project that promotes e-learning systems with a strong emphasis on guidance and feedback for learners. INTUITEL-enabled management systems provide automated, personalised learning support.
The objective of INTUITEL is to enhance e-learning content and Learning Management Systems (LMS) with features that so far have been provided only by human tutors. It creates an integrated learning environment that can reconfigure and adapt itself to the needs of any learner.
The INTUITEL Project has brought together members of the ICT industry and the commercial e-learning sector, as well as university e-learning expert practitioners to test and evaluate INTUITEL under realistic conditions.
For more information on the project, click here.
Conference Programme for Learning Innovations and Quality: The Future of Digital Resources Available
LINQ event hosts from the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany have published the final conference programme for LINQ 2013. The conference in Rome will be supported by a variety of prominent figures vital to the fields of technology-enhanced learning, open educational resources, and vocational education in Europe and worldwide. Furthermore, their presence will further the highlight of LINQ 2013: the launch of ICORE, the International Council for Open Research and Education (www.icore-online.org). Registration for LINQ 2013 is still open for all interested parties until May 8th, but seats are limited and should be reserved as quick as possible.
On May 16th, Learning experts and pioneers such as Dr. Tony Bates of Tony Bates Associates, Dr. Ignasi Labastida, director of the OCW Consortium and Creative Commons, and António Silva Mendes, Director of Education and Vocational Training at the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Education and Culture will take part as keynote speakers at LINQ 2013. They will join the already confirmed Prof. Dr. Rory McGreal and Prof. Dr. Fred Mulder, both UNESCO chairs for Open Educational Resources (OER), as well as Christian-Friedrich Lettmayr, Director of the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (CEDEFOP). Together these esteemed speakers will establish the greater context of international learning innovations for LINQ 2013.
Complementing the established experts, selected researchers from over 150 submissions will also present new and innovative research papers and projects. Four parallel sessions, divided into three parts each, will provide the structure for presentations. The 1st Parallel Session will consist of invited European speakers as well as two workshops respectively on the co-hosting VOA3R project and the innovative ODS project. The 2nd Parallel Session will consist of the selected papers from the LINQ 2013 call. These papers in turn fit into three thematic sections: “Digital Resources & Online Repositories”, “TEL for Schools, Universities, & Lifelong Learning”, and “Innovations & Future Trends in LET”. In addition, the 3rd and 4th Parallel Sessions will be dedicated to the presentations of selected European and international projects, thematically divided into “Quality Management: Evaluation, Standards & Certification”, “Open Access & Open Educational Resources: Policies, Tools and Content”, and “New Knowledge Networks – Ideas & Innovation for LLL” on the one hand, and “VET, New Skills & Quality”, “Teachers in Focus: Competence & Skill Development”, and “Innovation in TEL” on the other. The final conference programme is available on the LINQ 2013 conference website at www.learning-innovations.eu/2013/programme.
Registration for LINQ 2013 is still available for all interested groups until May 8th – only a few seats remain, so please register as soon as possible to ensure your chance to participate. Further information on registration is available at the conference website at www.learning-innovations.eu/registration. For the latest updates on LINQ and related initiatives, follow @LINQ_Conference on Twitter and like www.facebook.com/LINQConference on Facebook.
Negotiations continue to achieve an agreement before the summer about the Erasmus for All programme
On 15 February 2013, the EU's education ministers discussed Erasmus for All, the reformed student exchange programme, and the contribution of education to creating jobs and growth.
Erasmus for All is a proposal for an integrated programme in the areas of education, training, youth and sport for 2014-2020. It brings together in a single programme activities previously covered by a number of separate programmes (including the Lifelong Learning Programme, Erasmus Mundus and Youth in Action) and also includes activities in a new area of European competence: sport.
The new programme aims to continue focussing on three types of key actions, namely:
• the learning mobility of individuals;
• cooperation on innovation and good practices; and
• support for policy reform.
There are also a number of innovative proposals, such as the Erasmus Master's degree student loan guarantee scheme - aiming to promote mobility and access to affordable finance for students taking their Master's degree in another member state -, knowledge alliances and sector skill alliances.
The programme also aims to support the EU's efforts to overcome one of the most difficult economic periods in its history, notably by aligning itself very closely with the Europe 2020 strategy for growth and jobs, in which education and training play an essential part.
The negotiations between the Council, the European Parliament and the Commission started on 19 February 2013. The Irish Presidency hopes to achieve an agreement before the summer, which would enable important preparatory work by the Commission to be completed in time for the programme to begin, as proposed, on 1 January 2014.