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

Just a few days, and the Annual Conference will start. With an excellent programme and impressive panel of keynote speakers, in picturesque setting, we have all makings of a successful event.

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

• Master Distancia S.A., Spain
• University of Urbino, Italy
• The Pennsylvania State University

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

3. EURODL website - New design

The European Journal of Open, Distance and E-Learning - EURODL launched its re-designed website recently. The refereed online journal on distance and e-learning publishes the accounts of research, development and teaching in its most inclusive definition, exploring the potential of electronic publishing. The journal website has been further developed over the past months and plans to go beyond its current version in the summer of 2009 exploring the world of Web 2.0 to boost the online publishing activity of academics and distinguished experts.

The following new article has been published in EURODL recently:

4. Professor Trindade passed away

We announce with deep regrets that Professor Armando Rocha Trindade, Founding Rector of the Universidade Aberta, Portugal, former EDEN Vice-President passed away on 28 May.

Professor Trindade was member of the first EDEN Executive Committee in the early nineties. He also served as President of ICDE - the International Council for Distance Education. His great policy and international experience has been an invaluable support for the European collaboration in distance learning and for the development of EDEN in its initial years.

EDEN will keep his memory with great respect in the European professional community.

5. President blog on the EDEN web

New blog entry has been uploaded by EDEN President about the policy to support Scholarship, a policy and associated practices and resources to support not only that is understood by the terms research, but also the wider range of practices that have the activity of enquiry at their heart.

6. EDEN 7th Open Classroom Conference, Porto

The european school 2.0

EDEN is pleased to announce its 7th Open Classroom Conference, to take place in Porto, Portugal, 15-17 October 2009, organised in collaboration with Universidade Aberta and Universidade do Porto.

The conference, subtitled "Incubating Creativity and the Capacity for Innovation: Open Content, Social Networking Tools and Creative Learning for All" will be enriching the European dialogue around the 21st Century School, while contributing to the European Education policies and the objectives of the European Year for Creativity and Innovation 2009. It will offer the opportunity to European schools and teachers to present and reflect upon their innovative experiences, in such a way to enhance cross-country Good Practice on introducing and managing Innovation in the school systems, to the benefit of the quality in education.

For more details and the Call for Contributions, please visit the conference website.

7. Learnovation Open Forum - Follow up

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

The event was specifically aimed at contributing to the European policy cooperation for the following decade with the participation of Learnovation associated Networks, institutional representatives, thought leaders on the theme of innovation. The Forum resulted in the launch of the "10 imperatives for changes" to make European Education and lifelong learning a lever for innovation. The Press Release with the 10 imperatives is already published.

8. Launching online community and offline workshop for best practice in higher education by the use of ICT

The HEXTLEARN project has now launched its LinkedIn group to boost networking and exchange of experiences on the net. The LinkdIn group is called 'Hextlearn', and is open to every interested professional on the field. If you already have a profile on LinkedIn, you are invited to join the group. In case you do not have a Profile yet, go to www.linkedin.com , establish your profile and then search and join the Hextlearn group.

The next face-to-face workshop of the project discusses "The Role of Higher Education Institutions as Innovators in Lifelong Learning" at the upcoming EDEN 2009 ANNUAL CONFERENCE, in Gdansk, Poland. The workshop aims at being a meeting point for all the decision makers and practitioners interested on the quality in the use of ICT for teaching and learning in the Higher Education Institutions. Presentations on e-learning territories and best practices, a common framework for the evaluation of ICT in Higher Education Institutions will be accompanied by an interactive session with participants on "Shaping the new specialised communities in the use of ICT for teaching and learning in Higher Education".

9. EDEN contributions at conferences

The Secretary General was invited as a keynote speaker at the national seminar on "Quality Assurance of Distance Learning", in Egypt organised in Cairo by the European Commission, for university leaders. The title of the keynote speech was "Learning Innovation - Change of Content and Practice". He was also invited to attend the European e-Strategies meeting in Prague.

10. Skills for Europe's future

The publication of the European Commission on "Skills for Europe's future: anticipating occupational skill needs" are now available online. You may donwload it from this link.

11. News from an EDEN partner

OBHE - Observatory's 2009 Global forum on Cross-Border Higher Education will take place in October 2009 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The Forum is intended to spur ideas and strategies for best practices in cross-border higher education. For details, please visit the website.

12. New book from Routledge

"Traveller, Nomadic and Migrant Education" presents international accounts of approaches to educating mobile communities such as circus and fairground people, herders, hunters, Roma and Travellers. The chapters focus on three key dimensions of educational change: the client group moving from school to school; those schools having their demographics changed and seeking to change the mobile learners; and these learners contributing to fundamental change to the nature of schooling.

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EDEN Members are kindly encouraged to send relevant brief news for the next issue of the Newsflash.

Please, be kindly reminded that the archive of previous Newsflash issues can be found at the EDEN NAP Members’area, further you have free electronic access to the latest EDEN conference proceedings at the Downloads page.