EDEN Network of Academics and Professionals (NAP)

Dear EDEN Member,

1. EDEN Annual Conference, 10-13 June, Gdansk, Poland

INNOVATION IN LEARNING COMMUNITIES
What did you invent for tomorrow?

IN THE EUROPEAN YEAR OF

The detailed programme will be available on the web, soon. We invite you to check the impressive list of keynote speakers, as well as the registration information.

• Reengineering Innovative Distance Learning Partnerships: New Strategies for New Challenges for New Markets
  Don Olcott Jr., The Observatory on Borderless Higher Education
• New Methods and Approaches to the Design and Evaluation of OERs
  Grainne Conole, The Open University
• Media Zoo Tour: Innovation to Practice Symposium
  Gilly Salmon, University of Leicester
• Creative Technology Enhanced Learning in Later Life
  Sonia Hetzner, Institute for Learning Innovation (FIM NewLearning)
• Closing Competency Gaps with Focus on Business Performance
  Nils Faltin, ims-information multimedia communication AG
• Designing for Tomorrow's E-learning; Interactive Examples from a Centre for Excellence
  Dawn Leeder, University of Cambridge
• Quality Assurance Network for Adult Learning Centres in a Modern Community
  Sven-Olof Larsson, Municipality of Söderhamn
• Innovation in Learning or Learning for Innovation?
  Claudio Dondi, Scienter, Italy 

EDEN welcomes the following new institutional members having joined the Association since February 2009

• Eurouniversity, Estonia
• Ministry of Education and Science - Biotechnology Centre, Giorgia
• University of Greenwich, United Kingdom
• CVO Antwerpen-Zuid, Belgium
• die Berater, Austria

You can check their profile at the "Welcoming New Members" link on the EDEN web.

3. New articles in EURODL

The newly published articles in the European Journal of Open, Distance and E-Learning are:

4. President blog on the EDEN web

New blog entry of EDEN President about the latest meeting of the Executive Committee, held in Porto, the hosting city of EDEN's upcoming Open Classroom Conference in October 2009.

5. Learnovation Open Forum

The Forum titled "Removing the barriers to creativity and innovation?" will be organised in the frame of the Learnovation Roundtable activities and in collaboration with the European Commission, on the 27th of May in Brussels.

The aim is to gather around the conference all the people that had been expressing interesting and promising ideas on how to remove barriers to creativity and innovation in education and training systems: grass-roots innovators identified by the Learnovation associated Networks, institutional representatives, thought leaders on the theme of innovation. The forum is specifically aimed at contributing to the European policy cooperation for the following decade. Online registration is possible here.

6. Knowledge System on Lifelong Learning

The European Commission has developed the KSLLL (Knowledge System on Lifelong Learning) website, in order to enhance the visibility of the outputs of the Education and Training 2010 work programme. The site offers the possibility to find easily accessible and up-to-date information on mutual learning in the fiels of education and training for the development of lifelong learning in Europe. The KSLLL contains the following categories of information:

• Education and Training 2010 work programme - brief introduction
• Peer learning clusters and other groups - whose outputs may be found on the KSLLL
• Peer learning activities - which have taken place including summaries, conclusions and participants
• Compendia of good practice - developed by the peer learning clusters or other groups
• Country information - developed as part of the Education and Training 2010 process as well as links to Eurydice country sheets.

7. News from EDEN Members and partners

Istituto per le Tecnologie Didattiche (ITD), one of the research institutes of the Italian National Research Council, devoted to the study of educational innovation brought about through the use of Information and Communication Technologies now opened two calls for book chapters in their newest publications.

Universitat Oberta de Catalunya - invites to share with all EDEN members information about the new edition of Postgraduate programmes deemed to be useful for the community. The programmes are about Master, postgraduates and specialization courses, ECTSc based, all taught on-line.
Particularly, the Education & ICT programme can match the interest and needs of e-learning professionals.

The Open University of Israel - Chais Research Center for the Integration of Technology held its 4th annual research conference on 18 February 2009. This is the biggest research conference of educational technolgies held in Israel, with 500 researchers, lecture and poster sessions, symposia, workshops and keynote lectures.

Selected reserachers, whose studies were presented in the conference, seek for initiating research collaboration ventures with EDEN members. The research projects for which collaboration is offered are listed on this page. If you are interested in any of the topics, you are invited to join the Chais-EDEN collaboration directly.

The University of the Agean - is organising a Summer School in September 2009. The course on "Multigrade Teaching: New Educational Methodologies for the "Standard" and Multigrade Schools" aims to offer possibility for participants to become acquainted with aspects of multigrade education. Attendees will become familiar with practices and methodologies that are used in multigrade teaching and are very useful in everyday class forming the new contemporary educational paradigm. In addition, they will be trained to use the framework from the Rural Wings CAP site to implement its applications.

European Learning Industry Group - ELIG has delivered an important posisition paper, DECOM Declaration, for industry thought leadership and policy action. Following its launch and the press release, an action plan is being defined around the DECOM Declaration which will ensure its main recommendations will be pursued with key policy makers.

ATiT - draws the attention to the MEDEA Awards aim of which is to encourage innovation and good practice in the use of media (audio, video, graphics and animation) in education. The purpose of the awards is to recognise and promote excellence in the production and pedagogical design of media-rich learning resources at all levels of education, and to highlight good practice in the use of media and video in the classroom.

The MEDEA Organising Committee has announced the start of a new MEDEA Awards year. The call for participation is officially open, details about this year competition can be read in the Newsletter.

Academic Cooperation Association - ACA has published the Handbook of International Associations in Higher Education for which EDEN provided its own profile.

The aim of the publication is to increase visibility of all listed associations world-wide and to encourage networking. Read more and order here.

European Universities Association - EUA has published its Prague Declaration that contains a series of targeted messages to Europe's politicians with proposals from universities to help combat the current economic and financial crisis. Based on the outcomes of the recent EUA Prague Convention - the Decleration also sets out a long-term agenda for European universities in the next decade identifying '10 paths to success'.

European Assocation of Distance Learning, EADL is organising its annual conference, hosted by NADE in Oslo, 13-15 May 2009. The conference main theme "Drinking from the digital well" covers many creative and innovative developments in Distance Learning and Distance Education and intends to give participants a lot of new useful ideas.

8. Interesting readings

The Brussels Declaration by artists and cultural professionals and entrepreneurs.

A Strategy for ICT R&D and Innovation in Europe: Raising the Game