What is the state-of-the-art of ICT in education policies in Africa? What are the challenges and constraints? A "Survey on ICT and education in Africa", initiated by the Information for Development Programme (infoDev), attempts to give an answer to such complex and broad issues.
Continue reading "Africa, the opening of a new ICT education policy era? " »
A quarter of European teenagers have poor literacy skills, the European Commission annual report on education systems has found. Slow but steady progress has been made in other key areas such as completion of secondary education, early school leavers, graduates in maths, science and technology and the participation of adults in lifelong learning activities.
Continue reading "As teen illiteracy grows are Personal Learning Environments the solution?" »
The European commission launched on 3 July 2008 its new communication "Improving Competences for the 21st Century: An Agenda for European Cooperation on Schools". It calls for a better a cooperation between European school systems in order to adequately train pupils for the 21st century knowledge-based society.
Continue reading "Commission agenda for 21st century school " »
The following message is sent on behalf of the iClass project in which EUN is a partner.
The registration fee is now €200,-. For Teachers, Students, and Members of a Ministry of Education the Registration fee is reduced to €100,-.
We cordially invite you to
iClass Symposium: "When Virtual Meets Virtue: From e-Learning to e-Education"
Sponsored by EDEN (European Distance and e-Learning Network)
Do you know the buzzword SRPL (Self-Regulated Personalized Learning)?
Do you think it is possible to solve school absenteeism through ICT?
Do you like connecting with leading researchers and developers in the field of combined innovative e-Learning and e-Education, who engage with these issues?
Do you love experimenting with the latest developments in these domains?
Then you should not miss this Symposium!
This Symposium is one of the concluding milestones of iClass, an innovative integrated project conducted under the auspices of the 6th Framework Program of the European Commission (Directorate General Information Society).
What is the Symposium about?
The symposium is aimed at:
Presenting the outline of iClass R&D process, and discussing and criticizing it.
Presenting the products resulting form iClass R&D process - the integrative "package" of educational vision, pedagogical model, methodologies and platform - and examining its relevance to various learning contexts in various European countries
Who should attend?
Researchers, scholars, policymakers, educators, school administrators and others who share the acknowledgement in the importance of the issues that this symposium is addressing
Why should you attend?
It's a unique opportunity to meet and discuss these issues with other interested researchers, thinkers and developers
It's a unique opportunity to contribute to the development and propagation of such systematic thinking on education, learning and TEL in their various contexts
You can experience the iClass system life in "avant premier"
You can test the application on site
You receive a training certificate at the end of the Symposium
Open Session – Call for Proposals
We invite those who are interested in the symposium's issues to present a paper in a special open session that will be held during the symposium. Selected papers from this session will be included in the special issue of E-Learning journal that will be dedicated to the symposium. For more information and submission guidelines see http://www.iclass.info/symposium/opensession.asp
Where?
Hotel Le Plaza Brussels, Boulevard Adolphe Max 118 – 126, 1000 Brussels, Belgium http://www.iclass.info/symposium/hotel.asp
When?
Monday, May 26, 2008, at 9:30 – Tuesday, May 27, 2008, at 16:00
For more information:
Symposium website: http://www.iclass.info/symposium
Registration: http://www.cerix.be/iClass
Games in school survey
Enquete sur les jeux video
Umfrage zu Spielen in Schulen
Adventure games, role plays, arcade, strategy games, simulations, driving games, puzzles, brain gym … We hear more and more about computer games and they are getting more and more sophisticated, but what is their place in school? Are they useful or dangerous? Opinions among teachers seem to be divided with some enthusiastic teachers using them effectively, some sceptical and some hostile. What is your opinion?
Following on from the successful eMAPPS.com project showing the potential of some types of game in schools, European Schoolnet is undertaking a major study for the Interactive Software Federation of Europe on the use of games in schools in Europe: video games, computer games, online games that run on consoles, computers, handhelds or mobile phones.
If you teach or work with teachers please spend a few minutes completing this questionnaire – whether or not you use computer games – to help us understand better the place of games in teaching and learning. Completing the questionnaire also gives you the opportunity to join a community of practice we are setting up for European teachers using games.
What's more, everyone who completes the survey by 30 June 2008 will be entered into our free prize draw with the chance to win a games product.
Take the online survey in these languages:
Games in school survey
Enquete sur les jeux video
Umfrage zu Spielen in Schulen
Or you may prefer to download the Word file for completion and return by email:
(EN)
Take a look at the Games in Schools blog
Find out more about ISFE's work in education here, and the the PEGI games rating system: PEGI online and PEGI.
The eMapps.com [http://www.emapps.info]final project conference took place 12 February 2008 in Prague. The aim of the conference was to share the results of the project, which started in 2004, with policy makers, academia, teachers and other interested stakeholders. 67 participants from 17 countries including 11 policy makers attended.
eMapps.com is demonstrating how game activities based on mobile technologies provide new and enriching experiences for children in the school curriculum and beyond. The work concentrates on Europe’s New Member States and school children in the age group 9-12.
Project findings show that new ways of learning integrating mobile devices and games in formal education are worthwhile and lead to learning. Contributions to the conference came from university experts, policy makers and project partners. They looked at what we currently know about games in education from a research point of view, how game based learning is used as a driver for education in Slovakia and the impact of emapps.com on learning and policy making. Furthermore, the emapps.com platform was presented and two schools from Hungary and the Czech Republic illustrated their games. Finally, issues for further mainstreaming emapps.com activities were addressed.
Jan Figel’, a long time supporter of eTwinning (this is the 4th time he attends an eTwinning event), opened the eTwinning conference in Bucarest. Commissionaire Figel' is in charge of education, training, culture and youth in the European Commission.
Later today the eTwinning awards are going to be handed out to reward teachers hard work throughout the year, and to bring interesting and innovative projects up to the limelight.
More about the event:
Blog: http://blog.eun.org/etwinningconference2008/
The Serious Games Round Table brought together in Brussels on 6 March representatives from the game industry, ministries of education, experts around the topic of games in teaching and learning. The theme is still rather new and the uptake of using games in learning still faces many challenges and misconceptions. This roundtable is therefore timely especially as a major games in education project is coming to a close (emapps.com) and EUN is starting work with the Interactive Software Federation of Europe (ISFE). During the event examples were given to fuel discussions on the benefits of using games in learning and how to bring about a change of attitude at the level of policy making and curriculum development.
Round table discussion – some key points
1: There are many myths about games that have to be dispelled amongst teachers. This could be done through an EUN overview of the topic, video clips of examples of practice and clear curriculum links
2: Industry won't produce the pedagogical arguments and ideas; it has to be education. The games industry 'doesn't know how to sell games to education'.
3: Games develop soft skills that are hard to assess and often not assessed at all.
4: Games have value in cross-cultural work and can overcome age differences
5: There is a need for a games in schools incubator to experiment, explore and pilot new ideas
6: Games should feature in initial teacher education programmes
7: Licensing issues make games adoption in schools difficult, why is an institutional licence not possible? No exceptions are alowed to the EC software directive unlike other products. Can supppliers vary contracts in the case of educational use?
8: Primary schools can use off the shelf games products.
9: All games need to have challenge, reward, mastership – they need to be motivating. Teachers should discriminate between games as child-minding and educationally valuable uses. They should be prepared to justify that learning can come through fun.
10: Children and young people can learn through:
• A game within a gaming context
• A game being used as a tool in a broader learning activity
• Making a game
11: The primary audience for such games are the “new millennial learners� who
• Learn in different ways from earlier generations
• Are highly motivated by (instant) feedback and reward
• Are adept at using the technology
12: How to raise awaress in ministries of education and then how to reach classrooms? There is enough research showing the benefits. One way could be to set up communities of practice linking together the hotspots of innovation. Another is to establish a games category for the EUN Elearning Awards in December 2008.
Conclusions
1: Research must continue
2: Consideration needs to be given as to how we can move this motivational technology into the classroom in more effective ways
3: We need to evaluate the impact and consider how to build on what is already being done
4: Next steps could include the collation of teacher stories and case studies
5: Teacher trainers are a crucial target group
6: The traditional curriculum does not cater for new and emerging technologies and the issues that they bring. The key competences agenda could be a vehicle for promoting greater uptake of games, particularly in how they support trnasversal skills that are difficult to teach, eg democracy, lifelong learning, digital literacy, interpersonal and intercultural learning, citizenship and entrepreneurship.
7: We need to link pools of enthusiasm across national boundaries and exploit the visibility of other pioneers within this area.
The eMapps.com project, funded under the European Commission’s 6th Framework programme has produced some significant breakthroughs related to innovative ways of learning, computer games and mobile learning in schools. They are of particular relevance to countries in the expanded Europe.
Continue reading "eMapps Recommendations to Policy-Makers by Anja Balanskat and Roger Blamire" »
PIM - Practical IT and media skills is a Swedish Internet resource which purpose is to enhance teachers skills when it comes to using Information Technology in schools. PIM is produced by The Swedish National Agency for School Improvement.
