Last week, on Wednesday 14 September, I've been in Oeiras, Lisbon to attend the pre-conference CONCEDE at the EFQUEL Innovation Forum 2011 that took place at INA.
Palácio Marqueses de Pombal | INA
Once again, it was wonderful to participate in a conference in such a beautiful environment as the Palácio Marqueses de Pombal!
"CERTIFY THE FUTURE...? Accreditation, Certification nd Internationalisation" was the aim of the Pre-conference programme and Side Events CONCEDE User Generated Conference.
Different discussions, presentations and workshops have been followed by a good number of researchers, practitioners, who shared in open interesting debates their thoughts and experiences focused on the principles for certification and internationalisation on open learning.
My academic aim of interests are focused on b-learning practices, open education practices, mobile learning, social media networks contexts and certification quality.
Last year, I led a workshop with Sébatien Reinders and Rolf Reinhard: the ENGAGE workshop 3 Games in the school - a serious matter to consider for excellent classrooms...?! An interested group of educators and producers joined us during all day.
My presentation and theme discussion was "Creative learning in the digital age" (OER, GBL, Mobile Learning) in Secondary Education. And Sébastien Reinders' presentation "Serious Games on learning". Rolf Reinhardt was the ENGAGE moderator.
There, I shared some thoughts about changing face of teaching and learning considering the different generations that we have in the classroom, in our days.
I addressed some guidelines about assessment and quality for open learning used in the classroom: the observation of learners, their interaction in different contexts or situations where personalised learning and informal learning are linked.
I addressed some guidelines about assessment and quality for open learning used in the classroom: the observation of learners, their interaction in different contexts or situations where personalised learning and informal learning are linked.
The objective of the assessment is to analyse this "new learning generation" in the classroom and outside classroom, to understand their expectations and attitudes facing the "new ways of learning", using open learning.
Graphic visualisation
I was focused on some sessions: "The good, the blog and the wiki" by Steve Wheeler, Plymouth University. He wrote a post Fire and brimstone in his own blog, "Excelllent Virtual Schools and User-Generated Content" by Sally Reynolds (ATiT) & Paul Bacsich (Sero) that I missed, "Using Youtube in the Classroom, Issues and Oportunities", by Nick Pearce, Durham University, (nothing new) and "Do we need a Quality Label for UGC (user generated contents)? What elements and criteria would it need to contain?" by José Lagarto, Universidade Católica Portuguesa.
"User-generated content (UGC) poses a number of challenges to the current understanding of education and its institutions, very much due to its success. The concept of “authority” should be rethought. The “ivory tower” of higher education should be opened to the wider world. Knowledge management becomes even more fundamental than in the past."
EIF2011
It would be so interesting to stay for the EFQUEL Innovation Forum, Day one and Day two, September 15-16! Unfortunally, I could not stay to participate in the interesting and useful EIF 2011 workshops.
I would like to listen some fantastic speakers such as Yves Punie, for example. Yves Punie one of the keynote speakers closed off Day one "by a thought provoking keynote that address the challenges and opportunities for certification and assessment in future learning scenarios."
I would like to listen some fantastic speakers such as Yves Punie, for example. Yves Punie one of the keynote speakers closed off Day one "by a thought provoking keynote that address the challenges and opportunities for certification and assessment in future learning scenarios."
The conference was recorded live streaming by Rolf Reinhardt and back home, I could listen one of my favourite speakers, Yves Punie, senior scientist in the Information Society Unit, leading the IPTS research and policy activieson ICT for Learning and Skilling.
His keynote: The future of learning in Europe: challenges and opportunities for assessment and certification".
Video streaming by Ustream
First time I listened Yves Punie was at eLearning Lisboa 2007 Conference. After that, I met him a couple of times in some other events, and he is always very friendly.
I really admire his particular vision about Education. He can be provocative in the sense of stricted academia, but he is very 'avant garde' on his thoughts concerning how we must face learning environment in different way for different new learners in the 21th Century.
There was other well known keynote speakers that we can watch on EFQUEL UStream-tv here.
I can not wait for the interesting graphic panels that will give us a complete vision of "EFQUEL Innovation Forum 2011".
There was other well known keynote speakers that we can watch on EFQUEL UStream-tv here.
I can not wait for the interesting graphic panels that will give us a complete vision of "EFQUEL Innovation Forum 2011".
Some conclusions:
School time have more impact if "millennium learners" (CERI) can relate it to the real-world. By providing relevant and current contexts, education moves from being purely academic, to where children and youth can make a connection between formal and informal learning and their own lives and interests.
Open learning environments, social networks, collaborative learning, blogs, wikis, virtual worlds, videos, mobile learning, 3D environments, are some of the potencial "interactive and collaborative learning web" that educators can use to improve learning results.
It is obiquitous that open learning can be an efficient way of helping to bridge the gap between formal learning and informal learning or non formal learning.
For the certification process is indispensable to include the observation of learners, their interaction in different contexts or situations in open learning environments.
Without this feedback, in real environments, such as the classroom or online observation, where personalised learning and informal learning are linked, the process will be incomplete or mystified.
During the sessions of Day pre-one, all the educators and producers spoke about certification quality on learning, but only a few mentioned the role of learners in the certification process.
During the sessions of Day pre-one, all the educators and producers spoke about certification quality on learning, but only a few mentioned the role of learners in the certification process.
Finally, events as EFQ2011 are very important to improve the dialogue between academics and practitioners on open discussions about open learning and quality certification.
My sincere congratulations to EFQUEL board and team.
My sincere congratulations to EFQUEL board and team.
As Steve Wheeler wrote on his last post Grand Residence (Palácio Marquês de Pombal):
"Open and public forms of discourse need to be encouraged, not disparaged by ill-informed assumptions. This kind of debate that is the essence of what Efquel stands for."
G-Souto
19.09.2011
Copyright © 2011G-Souto'sBlog, gsouto-digitalteacher.blogspot.com®
EIF2011 day one and something more by G-Souto is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
