Although I'm not physically present at EDEN this year, it's nice to follow on this blog what is happening, even if it is like looking through a keyhole. I particulalry like the video clips people are posting, which provides a little more immediacy and social presence.
It would be even better though, if there was a live Twitter stream coming from the event. This kind of back-channel, I think, provides an even more immediate medium to participate remotely.
Workshop: "Media Zoo Tour: innovation to practice symposium" by Gilly Salmon, Palitha Edirisingha, Sandra Romenska, Matthew Wheeler, university of Leicester, UK Participants will have the opportunity to take part in a discussion and a range of creative activitites, based on the research and practice of the beyond distance research alliance at the university of leicester UK, addressing two tf the EDEN09 questions: How to empower innovation within the huge diversity of different learning situations and settings? How to use existing and emerging technologies to create new value for learning Using an innovative presentation format the Beyond Distance team will offer the participants transferrable ideas for successful integration of learning technologies into teaching practices in higher education, using examples from their own innovation to practice experience.
The workshop lead by Gilly, Matthew, Ming and Ricardo was based on group discussion or better yet, on exchanging personal experiences in new technologies for learning. I had the pleasure of being part of a dynamic and very experienced group, so we exchanged quite a lot of ideas and build upon each others experiences. The format of the group was build around a given framework of the Beyond Distance Research Alliance team, a framework they put forward to the ministry to get funded (the framework was build in 2005 and has recently been adjusted to fit the latest developments in eLearning - look for the 4 piece structure in the movie). To get everyone in an open frame of mind, the opening question was: who is which animal (at this point in time) related to learning (I felt I was a Bonobo monkey for instance: very peaceful and loving, creative, playful and always interested in using new gadgets, our group also had a fish, a mother goose, a bird and a dog for different reasons and ... this approach started us all thinking. So, getting back to the 4 pieces, each of them was zoomed into by means of a pecha kucha kind off ppt (with music), after each part a question was launched to the group. After discussing this question for 5 minutes, one of the groups chaired there conclusions to the given questions with the other groups.
Feel free to look at the movie to get some more impressions :
The subject which is aspecially interesting to me. Podcast. The team from Leicester University talked about how they use podcast in their teaching practise. Nice one. They have proposed three types of podcast: presentation and assessment, feedback and transition ones. What was really interesting - they use podcast as an addition to the on-line or blended courses for delivering: current news, planning and feedback and humor. It makes the course more human - but is it (the) role of a tutor in a modern education? Are we limited to be a human factor only, an addition to the perfect course? Lots of thigs to think about...
"The use of a peer-assessment and a reflection report to measure collaborating learning efoorts an interdisciplinary project for students of the faculty of teacher training, the faculty of social work and welfare studies, and athe faculty of health care" by Kristof Uvijn, Hogeschool Gent, Belgium. A nice person with glasses, a black shirt. Problems: would they use it to promote the learning process, or only for evaluation purposes? They have a midterm evaluation to get the students more at ease with the technology. they used it at 150 students from 10 different courses (teacher, logopedist, nurses, ergotherapists, ...) The students are not face-to-face, but only see themselves 5 times throughout the year. The students are all in their last year before finishing, so the better students.
Want to hear/see more, look at this vodcast (just uploaded the movie, so it might not be accessible yet, depending on the youtube upload capacity, but you can see it later for sure):
"Online Learning: variations in Groups of parcitipants and tools" by Miri Shonfeld, Ilana Ronen, Kibbutzim College of Educatin Technology and Art, Israël (ah, art already in the title!) (this presentation wanted to go immediately into the wiki, but the connection did not allow it) Students with learner dissabilities (Inge, try to get her contact details to be able to see it) Blended learning with the classic face-to-face meetings at beginning and end an two virtual field trips.
The question for the students: construct a science teaching unit. They use a synchronous teaching platform similar to Elluminate and also asynchronous possibilities. The course resulted in learning outcomes that were amazingly better results for disabled students. So an analysis was made: students with disabilities participate more in an online course than in a f2f-course. These students also evaluated the course much more highly than the others. The final grades were also higher than the others (the others included the 'excellent students'.
why: because disabled students had to learn on their own anyway, they were better at time management (they do not have to wait for pick-ups, or other time consuming actions). online courses allow them more flexibility which is motivating for them.
I attended the A1 session. The best presentation (my opinion) was the one given by the Ladies from Politecnico di Milano. They talked about two projects: MathsOnLine and PerformingGalileo. Great tips on how to motivate students to learn, lots of ideas. Games+Cooperation+Competition=Involvement Sounds familiar? But they did it. Ans have shown us how.
Last year at EDEN in Lisbon (yes, yes I know I keep banging on about it) I was made a fellow of EDEN. This was news that made me world famous in my village. I still have the certificate, and it keeps pride of place. This morning I heard that my dear friend Anna Grabowska was also made a fellow of EDEN. This is well deserved, and about time too! (Now she will be just as insufferable as me). Together, we will be a force to be reckoned with, we will sweep all before us, and no-one better mess with either of us. OK?
Seriously though, together, Anna and I have a big job to do in the coming years and our EDEN Fellowships will stand us in good stead within the academic community. You see, I am chair of the International Federation of Information Processing (IFIP - a UNESCO Sponsored organisation) Working Group 3.6 on Distance Education and Anna is one of my two illustrious Vice-Chairs (the other is Peter Surdiukov, USA). Together, we will be steering this group over the next 3 years, as we seek to shape distance education and e-learning practices and influence policy in many countries around the globe. You think that's difficult? Just try getting an EDEN Fellowship then!
Although I'm not physically present at EDEN this year, it's nice to follow on this blog what is happening, even if it is like looking through a keyhole. I particulalry like the video clips people are posting, which provides a little more immediacy and social presence. 
