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Upcoming events

March 13th, 2011 by Graham Attwell

Every day I receive emails notifying me about call for papers for different conferences and events. It is difficult to know what to support, let alone what events to attend. But here are two events which Pontydysgu is supporting over the next few months.
The first, Mobile Learning: Crossing boundaries in convergent environments’ takes place in Bremen in Germany on March 21 and 22. The conference is focused on the challenges of developing new pedagogic approaches and on the potential of mobile devices for learning in formal and informal contexts.
The conference, organised by a consortium including Pontydysgu has a great line up of speakers and workshops. It costs only 50 Euro including lunch and there are still places available. For more details and to register see the conference website.
The second is PLE2011 taking place at the University of Southampton. UK, from July 11th ¬ to 13th 2011. The PLE Conference is intended to produce a space for researchers and practitioners to exchange ideas, experience and research around the development and implementation of PLEs – including the design of environments and the sociological and educational issues that they raise. The deadline for proposals is March 26th, 2011. Full details from the conference website.
The final conference in this news round, courtesy of Sigi Jacob via Skype, is the German moodlemoot conference being held in Elmshorn from 14-15 April, 2011. Happy to see Steve wheeler is keynoting at this event. Full details from the moodlemoot website.

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Audio goodness from OEB2010

February 15th, 2011 by Graham Attwell

At last years Online Educa Berlin, we broadcast our by now traditional live radio shows. But having some great people working with us and a little time to spare, we also recorded a series of interviews to be later released as podcasts. And I am happy to say those podcasts are now published on our multi media page. These include interviews with Geoof Stead about mobile apps, Russell Stannard about his teacher training videos, Grainne Conole on Cloudworks, Sugata Mitra about self-organized learning and Sigi Jakob-Kühn onteacher and technology, plus many more.

Also check out the great vox pops interviews with conference participants.

Many thanks to Jenny Hughes, Klaus Rummler and Judith Seipold for the interviews and Dirk Stieglitz for post processing. You can listen to or download all the interviews on our multi media pages.

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Interested in Digital Storytelling and Web2.0 Tools?

December 21st, 2010 by Graham Attwell

Are you  interested about exploring ways to express opinions and being more engaged in politics using Web 2.0 tools?

On 10 – 16 April 2011, there is a seven day workshop being held in Chania, Crete, Greece sponsored by the EU Grundtvig programme.

The Workshop is being organised by the POLITICS project aiming at developing skills for using digital storytelling to develop a dialogue and involvement in politics, at local, national or international level.

The Workshop will examine issues as how Facebook, YouTube and blogs can be used for digital storytelling. The 7-day course will include  practical sessions and hands-on labs) on familiarizing with the use of social networking and Web 2.0 tools to participate in online collaborative educational activities and the development of stories based on political issues of interest.

A full description of the Workshop is now available here.

Applications for funding are eligible from all EU Member States (including Turkey, Croatia and FYROM but not Greece since it is the host country) and should be submitted by 27 January 2011. Selected application will receive a grant covering all travel, accommodation and expenses.

Guidelines about the application can be found here and for more information, please contact n [dot] marianos [at] agroknow [dot] gr

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Roli’s classroom

December 8th, 2010 by Graham Attwell

When we were teaching on the Taccle course in Blankenberge in Belgium, we were privileged to meet many talented people from all over Europe. One of these was Roland Straub from Romania. And we invited Roland to set up a blog on this web site. It has taken a few weeks to get a few technical glitches out of the system but we are delighted to welcome Roli’s Classroom to our growing list of guest blogs.

Roli is writing about social software tools and how they can be used for teaching and learning. I am sure many of you will find his work useful in your everyday practice. I asked Roland to say a few words about himself. He says “My name is Roland Straub and I’m a language trainer in Romania. I teach English and German to adults as well as to teenagers at a private school (Babel Center). I live in Timisoara but I come from the north west of Romania, namely Satu Mare. Teaching is a part of my life and sharing this knowledge and ability to teach is what I want to do. Teaching gives me the possibility to share ideas worth learning and also to learn new things from different people. Interactivity and cooperation are very important for me in the classroom. Students enjoy it too and because technology offers us countless ways of interaction I tend to take advantage of them and use them in my lessons.”

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Sounds of Bazaar – Live from Online Educa Berlin

November 29th, 2010 by Graham Attwell

This week we are broadcasting two LIVE internet radio programmes from the Online Educa Berlin conference. The programmes will feature interviews and talks with speakers and delegates including Grainne Conole, Steve Wheeler, Linda Casteneda, Larry Johnson, Jay Cross, Josie Fraser and many more. Topics will include Open Educational Resources, Mobile Learning, Digital Identities and Web 3.0.

The programmes go out on Thursday 2 and Friday 3 December from 11.am to 11.40 am Central European Time.

To tune in to the programmes just go to http://radio.jiscemerge.org.uk:80/Emerge.m3u and the stream will open in an MP3 player of your choice.

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Is the Learning Management System Dead?

November 26th, 2010 by Graham Attwell

The ‘VLE is dead’ debate just won’t go away. After last years packed session at Alt-C in Manchester, the debate rolled on to a popular session at Wolverhampton. And now Online Educa Berlin has picked up the issue – albeit in the name of  Learning Management Systems. Most organisations, says Online Educa on their web site, see Learning Management Systems as crucial for e-learning. However, they go on to ask,does LMS support learning or inhibit it? Has learning moved beyond the LMS? Is the LMS dead? Taking part in the debate are:

Larry Johnson, The New Media Consortium, USA

Roger Larsen, Pearson Platforms, Norway

Graham Attwell, Pontydysgu, UK

Inge de Waard, Institute of Tropical Medicine, Belgium

Richard Horton, Blackboard International, UK

The debate will take place on Friday 2 December from 11.45 – 13.30 at Online Educa Berlin.

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Sounds of the Bazaar at Online Educa Berlin

November 2nd, 2010 by Graham Attwell

Will you be at the Online Educa Berlin Conference? On the second and third of December we will be presenting our radio programme, Sounds of the Bazaar, LIVE from the conference. The programmes will go out from 11am to 11.40 CET. As ever Dirk Stieglitz will be producing with able help from Klaus Rummler. Graham Attwell, Jenny Hughes, Eileen Luebcke and Judith Seipold will be presenting the programmes. Would you like to come on the programme to talk about your work and projects? Or just to chat about your feelings about the conference or that ate of the world and learning?

If so we would be very grateful if you could send a short email to graham10 [at] mac [dot] com

Look forward to seeing you in Berlin.

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Live internet radio from Blankenburge

October 21st, 2010 by Graham Attwell

Sounds of the Bazaar LIVE Internet radio is broadcasting today, Thursday 23 October, form Blankenburge in Belgium. The programme is being produced by students on a European funded course on using social software in the classroom. The programme, which is going to be fabulous, will be broadcast at 1600 Central European time, 1500 UK. To listen live to the programme go to http://radio.jiscemerge.org.uk:80/Emerge.m3u
The stream will open up in your favourite MP3 player.

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Radio Days

October 5th, 2010 by Graham Attwell

Our autumn live radio programme schedule is coming together.

Sound of the Bazaar will broadcast next week on Thursday 14 October, live from the Network of Trainers in Europe Conference in Kostelec in the Czech Republic. The conference is on the theme of  ‘Crossing Boundaries: The multiple roles of trainers and teachers in vocational education and training.’ Sounds of the Bazaar will go out at 1700 Central European Time, 1600 UK. We are excited about the format which will take the form of a panel session. The programme will be presented by Eileen Luebcke.

The following week, on Thursday 21 October, we will be broadcasting a special programme live from Blankenberge on the Belgium coast. This programme will form part of a training course for teachers on the use of social software and Web 12.0 being run through the European Taccle project.  The programme will be live on air from 1600 to 1640 Central European Time, 1500 -1540 in the UK.

And from December 1-3, we return to our traditional pre Christmas shows at the Online Educa Berlin Conference. Details of times to follow. We are also working on organising one or two more shows in our autumn schedule and will post details here when confirmed.

To listen to the shows just go to http://radio.jiscemerge.org.uk:80/Emerge.m3u and the stream will open up in your favourite MP3 player.

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Congratulations Cris!

September 10th, 2010 by Graham Attwell

Congratulations to our good friend and colleague (and Pontydysgu blogger) Cristina Costa on winning the ALT Learning Technologist of the Year award. The judges said: “Cristina has developed a set of resources, activities and events that help staff and students to learn to make effective use of social media. She models in her own activities the behaviours that she wishes to encourage. She combines her own research with her overall role to considerable effect.”

Congratulations also to Dave White and the Technology Assisted Lifelong Learning (TALL) team from the Department for Continuing Education at Oxford University who won the team award, presented at the annual dinner at the ALTC conference in Nottingham this week.

Posted in News | 1 Comment »

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    The gap between poor students and their more affluent peers attending university has widened to its largest point for 12 years, according to data published by the Department for Education (DfE).

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    From Raconteur. A recent report by global learning consultancy Kineo examined the learning intentions of 8,000 employees across 13 different industries. It found a huge gap between the quality of training offered and the needs of employees. Of those surveyed, 85 per cent said they , with only 16 per cent of employees finding the learning programmes offered by their employers effective.

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