European Schoolnet stakeholders and partners meet in Rome at EMINENT conference
European Schoolnet’s annual conference, EMINENT (Expert Meeting in Education Networking), took place in Rome on 4-5 December 2008, offering two days of debates, plenaries and workshops. 240 participants from all over Europe and beyond representing Ministries of Education, industry, teachers and researchers attended the event. The conference was opened by Giovanni Biondi, Chair of the European Schoolnet Steering Committee and Marc Durando, Executive Director of European Schoolnet.
The conference consisted of four plenary sessions with key speakers including:
Two parallel workshop sessions gave participants the opportunity to break into groups to discuss topics of interest, such as ‘ICT policy and practice’, ‘Electronic games and new ways of learning’ and ‘Building – and using – the European Learning Resource Exchange’.
On the second day, workshops were organised linked to European Schoolnet’s newly created working groups: ‘Digital learning resources’, ‘Interactive whiteboards’, ‘Digital skills’ and ‘Linking national and regional portals’. The workshops proved to be a highlight of the conference as they fostered exchange of ideas and practice examples. They met one of the key objectives of the conference: to build bridges between practitioners, industry suppliers and policy makers.
Another highlight of the conference was the eLearning Awards Ceremony on 4 December. Eight winners were awarded prizes for their schools. A total of €40,000 in cash prizes and equipment worth a similar amount was given to winners. The ceremony was followed by a gala dinner in Palazzo Ferrajoli in the centre of Rome, generously hosted by the Agenzia Nazionale per lo Sviluppo dell’Autonomia Scolastica. Sponsors of the eLearning Awards this year were Young Digital Planet, Interwrite Learning, Intel, Promethean, SMART, Cisco, Microsoft and O2 Telefonica.
A blog and a podcast were available for participants at the conference. The EMINENT 2008 blog contains useful information about the event including speakers’ biographies and presentations (http://eminent.eun.org/blog). The EMINENT 2008 Podcasts feature interviews with speakers, participants and eLearning Awards winners. Apple supported the podcasts by providing financial and technical support (http://blog.eun.org/eminent/podcast).
The conference was organised in cooperation with Agenzia Nazionale per lo Sviluppo dell’Autonomia Scolastica (ANSAS, ex-Indire).
The report can be downloaded here
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