A high number of female students are not pursuing further studies or careers in the information and communications technology (ICT) sector, despite having good basic computing skills, according to a study and white paper by European Schoolnet, commissioned by Cisco. The study can be downloaded from www.eun.org/whitepaper.
ELearning Africa, the annual most comprehensive event dedicated to ICT for development, education and training of the African continent, has kicked off today 27 May 2009 in Dakar, Senegal. In particular, among key issues and main initiatives in the field of e-learning in Africa, this 4th edition will bring into focus one-to-one vs. shared computing, sustainability of open source solutions, OER, mobile learning, pedagogical integration of ICT, and ICT4E policies.
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Children all over Europe are invited to leave as many ‘green footprints’ as they can to join the 8th symbolic journey around the world for contributing to global climate protection. How? It is very easy: making daily journeys environment-friendly by moving on foot, by bike, roller-skates, bus, train, etc. The more green footprints will be collected, the more will be handed over to the participants of the 15th UN Climate Conference which will be held in Copenhagen on 7-18 December 2009.
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An online survey has been recently launched by the European Commission in order to find out what young people think about EU space activities. Günter Verheugen, Vice President in charge among others of European Space Research and Industry, invites kids aged 6 to 14 living in Europe to take part in the survey by 1 June 2009. The Space questionnaire is available online in 21 languages at http://surveys.publications.europa.eu/formserver/space.
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Latin America is strenghtening its presence in the educational portals panorama: in March it has welcomed two newcomers, PerúEduca and Educ@tico, the national educational portals respectively of Peru and Costa Rica. Both are part of the Red Latinoamérica de Portales de Educativos (RELPE, Latinamerican Network of Educational Portals).
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To what extent can ICT contribute to support assessment in today’s context and what can policy do for ensuring transition from traditional to e-assessment and its effective implementation? A new report by the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission, “The Transition to Computer-Based Assessment. New Approaches to Skills Assessment and Implications for Large-scale Testing”, provides an insight into this complex issue. Although there is a strong need of further research in the field, the conclusions show that the complexity of computer-based testing related issues to take into account increases with the use of computer technology. But still, it would be a wrong consequence to stop further activities because of the complexity of the challenges, as the potential benefits far outweigh the problems.
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How and to what extent the take up of very popular Web 2.0 applications such as blogs, wikis, social networks or content sharing sites has been taken into account and become daily practice in education? The study “Review of Learning 2.0 Practices: Study on the Impact of Web 2.0 Innovations on Education and Training in Europe”, authored by Christine Redecker, explores the ways in which “social computing” has entered teaching and learning activities across Europe. The report, which is part of a collaboration project between the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) and its Directorate General for Education and Culture (DG EAC), highlights how the take up of Web 2.0 tools at school, although still slow and in an experimental phase, is laying the basis for “innovative lands for learning” or “iLands”.
The Horizon Report: 2009 K-12 Edition, giving an insight into new trends in the use of technology in education, was presented yesterday 11 March 2009 in Austin at the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN) annual conference. The 2009 report, a collaboration between the New Media Consortium and CoSN, is part of a series produced by the New Media Consortium’s Horizon Project, an ongoing research project seeking to identify and describe emerging technologies likely to have an worldwide impact on education.
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The European Commission has set new guidelines for a renewed framework for policy cooperation in the education and training sector until 2020. Coming to an end, the previous Education and Training 2010 work programme backed by the Education Council in 2001/2002, the Commission’s communication on 16 December 2008 takes stock of it and looks ahead.
Teachers and students, stay tuned and mark 1 March 2009 on your calendars! The final countdown to the official launch of the pan-European platform www.eurocreator.eu has started! As of launch-day, the EuroCreator website invites students and educators to upload media pieces to express their creativity and share it with peers all around Europe. Media pieces can be uploaded and shared on any device (Ipod, PSP, mobile, laptop...) and posted anywhere you like (Facebook, Bebo, school websites, etc.). European Commissioner for Education, Training Culture and Youth Ján Figel’ will certify your participation in the EuroCreator project.
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