lifelong learning
Web2LLP - Calling all LLP project managers
Fill in the survey!
The aim of this short questionnaire is to gather information about the types of skills project managers and others involved in the communication and dissemination activities of Lifelong Learning Programme funded projects require in the area of web strategies and social media.
Help to find out the real needs of project coordinators and partners in respect to these topics by completing a short questionnaire (which takes about 5 minutes). Your replies will help to ensure that the resources and training provided is appropriate, relevant and fit-for-purpose. The results will be published here.
Read more about the Web2LLP project here.
Opening Education through Competency Based Assessment
This paper, originally published on the blog on Open Education 2030 of the Joint Research Centre, Institute for Prospective Technological Studies, suggests Competency Based Assessment may be the key to unleashing a wave of innovation.
Although Open Educational Resources and Practices, and other innovations contain huge potential to transform lifelong learning, there are unnecessary regulatory barriers, and Competency Based Assessment may be the key to removing these barriers and unleashing a wave of innovation.
There are two things you need to innovate. Competition and the freedom to innovate. There is no shortage of innovation in teaching and learning in the world today and Open Education Resources and Practices are among the most significant of these. Indeed, access to information is now so easy that the best of these practices can spread very rapidly. However, the surprisingly slow rate of change has shown that there are barriers, and one of those is the regulation of teaching and learning methods.
Competency Based Assessment has the potential to break through that particular barrier by giving both students and providers much more freedom to choose their preferred learning methods. This will lead to a huge increase in competition and innovation in higher education and in particular, lifelong learning within higher education, that will both improve standards and drive down costs. In such a scenario of massive disruption it would be unwise to try to predict what the outcome would look like in 2030, except to say that it would look quite different to what we have now. In this essay, I will argue that a small change like Competency Based Assessment could have huge implications for Lifelong Learning within Higher Education.
Game Based Learning MOOC. Promoting Entrepreneurship Education
Promoting entrepreneurship could help society overcome the crisis. At the same time, MOOCs could allow a large number of participants to enrol in entrepreneurship education.
This case study introduces the Introduction to Entrepreneurship MOOC, which takes advantage of Game Based Learning for developing entrepreneurship through an active based methodology in a MOOC open to anyone, anywhere.
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.
What is the Future of Digital Resources for Learning & Teaching?
Essen, April 2013 - To discuss this matter, the University of Duisburg-Essen invites educators and researchers to a European conference on May 16 and 17, 2013. Some main points of dialogue will include defining quality in learning and innovations in learning resources.
Recently Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have shaken up the blogosphere and media reports on higher education. These courses make use of open digital resources for learning and have attracted hundreds of thousands of online learners at no cost. A digital resource for learning can be a written text, pictures, slides, videos, a 3-D simulation or a website combining all of them into ready-made curricula including tools for (self-)assessment for educators or learners. More and more digital resources with open licenses facilitate educators and learners in editing, improving, and adapting to different learning situations inside or outside of the classroom and in turn share their own work with the online community. These open digital resources provide the foundation for a borderless exchange of teaching and learning methods in many different fields. But a potential conflict exists between open learning resources and the quality of those resources. Restrictions on the certification of the creators of such content or the access to learning materials through paywalls have to some degree defended the quality of those resources in the past. How can creators ensure that their digital resources meet an appropriate level of quality and how can users be certain that said resources are worth their time?
The LINQ conference will bring together current initiatives from all areas of education - schooling, adult learning, informal and on-the-job learning - to demonstrate their online resources and methods of quality development and thereby address this potential conflict. An example of such an initiative is VOA3R (Virtual Open Access Agriculture and Aquaculture Repository), a European research project consortium of a variety universities and research centres. This group is building a hub for resources in agriculture and aqua-science through a social network in which researchers can share, comment and rate content. Through the VOA3R platform advances are being made in the sharing, reciprocal reviewing, and rating of learning innovations in the aforementioned fields, thereby addressing the important aspect of learning quality which should accompany learning development. These advances have proven of great interest to the Global Headquarter of United Nations' organization Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) - LINQ conference host and supporter of the VOA3R project.
In Rome, discussions will deal with the following questions:
· How can the quality of resources be improved and what does “quality” actually mean for teachers, learners and institutions?
· Are teachers and educational institutions ready to make use of the wealth of resources and how do they find the “right” thing?
· Will the future of digital resources be determined by metadata, i.e. the data about data, feeding databases and search engines?
· What must be done to ensure that we can still access valuable resources in 15 years from now (think about your files from 1998)?
· Do more easy-to-find resources lead to better learning?
Especially but not exclusively for those who do not plan to travel to Rome in May, the University of Duisburg-Essen is inviting interested parties to exchange views on the future of digital resources on Facebook: www.facebook.com/LINQConference. Two conference fee waivers will be given away to Facebook-Followers.
Intergenerational Learning Circle for Community Service
eScouts foments intergenerational learning exchange between elderly and youth volunteers—elders benefit by learning digital skills, while youngsters obtain guidance to help navigate life’s challenges.
The "eScouts" project fits European guidelines with regards to Digital Divide reduction and LLP (Lifelong Learning Programme), and implements innovative ICT practices with a special focus on groups in risk of exclusion. The curriculum will be based on a blended learning environment inspired by Web 2.0 and teaching methods focused on end users.
The project includes three main phases:
-Training groups of young people to become teachers of ICT, and thereby reduce the default prohibitive nature of new technologies for the elderly.
-Training the elderly to become mentors for young people, providing them with support through life experiences and values, with a focus on employability.
-Training facilitators of intergenerational learning, to be key actors and mediators of the two groups.
LINQ Conference 2013: Deadline for Papers and Projects Approaching
Participants in the 2nd European Conference on "Learning Innovations and Quality" (LINQ 2013) are encouraged to submit their entries as soon as possible, before the March 4th, 2013 deadline. Paper or project templates are available on the LINQ website.
The extended submission period for scientific papers and research project descriptions to be presented at the 2nd European Conference on "Learning Innovations and Quality" (LINQ 2013) will come to an end on March 4th 2013. Submissions of papers related to the conference (max eight pages) must be sent by March 4th, 2013, using the official LINQ template. Submitters will be informed of their acceptance by the 20th of April 2013.
LINQ 2013, which will take place at the Global Headquarters of the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Rome, Italy, has already attracted submissions from throughout Europe, as well as Asia, America, and Africa.
The LINQ 2013 call for papers invites all experts and practitioners to contribute through the submission of high-quality papers related to the following topics:
- Innovations and future trends in Learning, Education and Training (LET)
- Quality improvement and learning outcome orientation in LET
- Harmonization of innovations and quality development in LET
- Digital resources, online repositories and metadata for online objects
- Web 2.0, Social Media and Online Communities for LET
- Open access, open educational resources and user-generated content
- Technology‐Enhanced Learning for schools, universities and lifelong learning
- Learning quality in vocational education and training and HR
- Implementation of learning innovations and quality improvements
- Knowledge, innovation and ideas management in LET contexts
- Standardisation of LET design, production and services
- Quality management, standards, and certification in LET
- Competence and skills development in lifelong learning
- Quality and standardization of learning assessment and evaluation
For the latest information on the conference and to submit any pre-conference feedback, please visit the LINQ Facebook page and follow the LINQ Twitter account.