EDEN conference
- will take place in Valencia from 09.-12.06.2010
Agency and the European Commission workshop
In the context of this year's EDEN conference, in Valencia, the Agency and the European Commission are organising a workshop entitled ICT and Digital media for key competences.
Methopedia and the Comble project belonging to the three presented projects within the workshop.
Workshop description
The economic downturn has provoked a renewed emphasis on the importance of education and training for ensuring that everyone is equipped for the needs of the 21st Century. Young and old alike need the key skills and competences to take advantage of the knowledge society and of the opportunities that technology now offers to learn, collaborate and work online. New media, social technologies and online communities offer exciting opportunities for people to develop key transversal soft-skills such as working in teams, learning to learn and intercultural dialogue, as well as the all important digital competence that is needed to make effective, critical use of technology for creativity and innovation. This workshop will explore how European Union policy is encouraging the development of new skills for new jobs and personal well being in a digital age. It will include practical examples of EU funded projects that are using digital media-rich environments to develop key competences. You will note that the workshop is specifically focusing on digital competence and other key competences for a digital world.
Methopedia background
Within the last years, many ICT tools have been developed based on the idea of collaboration and social online learning. But also modern ICT tools can be used in a very traditional way in education as a 1 to n communication, e.g. distributing content via a learning platform or in a blog, using PowerPoint slides in a Second Life meeting or lecturing with a video conference system. In our research we interviewed stakeholders of ICT based learning in universities, further education institutions and businesses. We found out, that instructors often lack pedagogical competence. We documented the results in the Blended Learning Readiness wiki: http://blr.comble-project.eu
Training and education will be innovative and foster digital competence if it focuses on both: ICT and methodological competences. With the wiki based community Methopedia (www.methopedia.eu) we support the improvement of educator’s/trainer’s competences for interactive, elaborated and collaborative learning. Methopedia is available in four languages and contains about 100 different learning activities and an interactive seminar planer. We created it together with educators in Europe and it grows. Furthermore, we conducted numerous workshops with educators in Europe for collaborative learning based on Methopedia.
Methopedia offers many possibilities to arrange active trainings and, most importantly, they are easy to use. In our workshops and conference presentations we have gotten very good feedback. We therefore think, that it will be very interesting for the workshop participants to learn about and experience a different way of learning and teaching. The participants will get new inspirations for arranging learning online and f2f: group work, tandem learning, open spaces, web quests, video casts or group puzzle etc. Within the Comble project we - as the team partners - learnt from each other about the different learning approaches in our cultures. Therefore we know that European educators will benefit if they share learning activities and approaches. Depending on the time frame of the workshop, we will not just present Methopedia and our research outcomes, but we will create an interactive learning event in order to get a personal experience about the exciting opportunities of f2f and online collaboration.
