STELLAR’s general manager Fridolin Wild interviews Dr. Jillian Darwish is Executive Director at the Knowledge Works Foundation. She chairs the Institute for Creative Collaboration (ICC), which works to build the capacity of groups to think and learn in new ways that support innovation and the creation of a world of learning. ICC carries out its work in three ways – creating innovative regional and national partnerships and programs; developing knowledge and resources for the future of learning, and designing strategic learning experiences.
Doctoral Consortium at ECTEL 2010
June 15, 2010
The EC-TEL Doctoral Consortium brings together Ph.D. students working on topics related to Technology Enhanced Learning in order to support and inspire their ongoing research efforts. It will offer doctoral candidates and Ph.D. students the opportunity to present, discuss, and receive feedback on their research in an interdisciplinary and international atmosphere. The organisers of the consortium have therefore managed to secure the participation of prominent professors and researchers in the field of technology-enhanced learning who will actively participate and contribute to the discussions.
The event is embedded into the 5th European Conference on Technology-Enhanced Learning (EC-TEL 2010) and will be held on September 29, 2010, in beautiful Barcelona, Spain. Submissions are requested no later than July 18th. Click here for more details.
Media & Learning: Towards the Era of Digital Fluency Conference 25-26 November 2010 Brussels
April 12, 2010
The Media & Learning Brussels 2010 Conference is being organised in collaboration with the Flemish Ministry of Education and the European Commission Directorate-General for Education and Culture and will take place in the Flemish Ministry of Education Headquarters in Brussels to co-incide with the Belgian Presidency of the European Union.
The Media & Learning Brussels 2010 Conference will take place alongside the MEDEA Awards, an annual awards scheme which recognises and rewards excellence in the use of media in education and training. The conference will bring together practitioners and policy makers in a two day event which will highlight the latest developments, services and digital and media competences in education and training.
The conference agenda will focus on three key themes:
• Digital and media skills and competences
• Fostering the creation of media-based resources at all levels of education and training
• Use and re-use of existing media resources in education and training
Interested individuals, project teams, institutions and organisations are invited to submit proposals to give presentations, demonstrations and workshops at this conference, the closing date for submissions is 1 June 2010.
More information from the conference website at: http://www.media-and-learning.eu
JTEL Summer School 2010
February 17, 2010
The 6th Joint European Summer School on Technology Enhanced Learning, will take place from Monday, 7th June 2010 to Friday 11th June 2010 in Ohrid, Macedonia. Pre-summer school activities are organized all day on Sunday, June 6th.
The summer school aims to encourage participants to adopt a critical stance in thinking about the role of technologies in providing opportunities for learners and the potential of these opportunities in terms of learning. Work will centre on three research “Grand Challenges”:
- Connecting learners
- Orchestrating learning
- Contextualising learning environments.
The summer school provides a learning environment where participants get opportunities to: develop their research skills; increase their knowledge base; collaborate with others in their own and complementary research areas; engage in debate; have access to experts in the field; and discuss their own work. Participants will record ideas and develop thinking by contributing to a Grand Challenges wiki (http://www.stellarnet.eu/d/1/1/Home) where they will also find contributions from experts in the field.
The programme will include lectures from experts in the Grand Challenge areas and presentations exploring the Grand Challenges from both summer school participants and experts. Research projects within TEL are encouraged to represent their work as it relates to the Grand Challenges. The programme will also include practical and methodological workshops and opportunities for doctoral candidates to develop their own work. All participants will be expected to read and contribute to the Grand Challenges wiki. Students will have opportunities to present and discuss their doctoral work.
Applications should be submitted online before Friday 26th March. The online application form will be available from Friday 19th February.
This year the JTEL Summer School will benefit from special funding from the STELLAR Network of Excellence in Technology Enhanced Learning, the Austrian Science and Research Liaison Office, and the European Association of Technology Enhanced Learning.
For further details see: www.JTELSummerSchool.eu
STELLAR’s first evaluation report ready
January 20, 2010
The evaluation framework for the STELLAR Network of Excellence is based on the Logic Framework Approach (LFA) to programme evaluation. The LFA provides a very structured way to assess the effectiveness of certain intervention strategies and activities to achieve an intended change. Although coming mainly from developmental programme design and evaluation the LFA has been widely adopted and used for evaluating scientific programmes and technology deployment programmes, e.g. in the USA.
In the context of STELLAR the LFA has been adapted to the specifics of our context. Via various means of getting input and collecting feedback the project objectives of STELLAR have been slightly reformulated to express the indented change that STELLAR wants to achieve via its joint programme of activities. Apart from supporting the actors in STELLAR to perform according to the description of work as defined in the contract the evaluation framework also aligns the project performance to the overall project objectives and identifies indicators for their achievement.
In the future we will use the evaluation framework as a diagnostic instrument to continuously assess the status and the direction of the various activities within STELLAR and their contribution to the overall project objectives.
For monitoring the development of the STELLAR network, the involved actors, topics and disciplines, two additional methods are applied, namely Social Network Analysis and Ego-centric Network Analysis. First results give a rather heterogeneous picture of the network regarding TEL-related disciplines and topics as well as a strong involvement of all partners in the activities of the network. The reporting and data collection process for the monitoring activities still needs to be improved and coupled more closely with the management reporting process in the future.
Click here to get to the deliverable.
Science 2.0 mash-ups
The network has published its latest deliverable d6.3 on the ‘First iteration of STELLAR mash-ups’. It contains a vision, a collection of requirements, an architectural framework, and a first set of implemented mash-ups of general available web 2.0 and social software tools applied to TEL and TEL data sources within this framework. These initial mash-ups will be the basis for further refinement.
The deliverable is structured into the following parts. First, a vision is sketched, summarising the current debate about Science 2.0 and mash-ups to support it. This vision is informed by the ‘Science 2.0 for TEL’ and ‘Mash-Up PLE’ workshops we have held at the 4th European Conference on Technology-Enhanced Learning. Within this chapter, requirements are elaborated using scenarios and use-cases. Second, an architectural framework is elaborated within which the mash-up developments move. A process accompanies this framework to allow for maturing those ideas and concepts into end-user ready widgets that have proven valuable in exploratory research. Third, a collection of initial building blocks for STELLAR’s Science 2.0 mash-ups is listed along two lines: infrastructure components (data sources and services) and use-case sized web applications – what we call Science 2.0 widgets. Finally, a conclusion rounds up the picture.
Click here, to get to the deliverable.
Call for the local organisation of the next Alpine Rendez-Vous 2009
December 17, 2009
After a great Alpine Rendez-Vous in Garmisch-Partenkirchen we are now looking for a team that takes over the local organisation for the next Rendez-Vous 2011.
More information are available in the Call that can be downloaded at the following link: http://www.stellarnet.eu/programme/wp3/rendez-vous/.
Mobile Alps
December 11, 2009
Participants at our ‘Education in the wild’ workshop last week at the STELLAR Alpine Rendez-Vous in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, explored their creative side, during its ‘Future Technology Workshop’ session. Here, we asked them to envisage current and future, activities and technologies, through a series of structured activities that took them through ‘imagineering’, modelling their ideas with craft materials and even creating adverts for potential customers.
The other parts of the workshop asked presenters to share examples of good practice and also invited contributions to a debate that asked the question ‘does location-based contextual mobile learning lead to shallower learning?’
It was a thoroughly enjoyable event that brought together researchers from across the EU and North America to discuss critical issues surrounding location-based mobile learning. A full report from the workshop will be available in Spring 2010.
First call for applicants for the Doctoral Mobility Programme
December 10, 2009
Are you a doctoral candidate with an interest in Technology Enhanced Learning? If so, do you know that there is an exchange programme in place? You may be able to get funding to visit another research institute!
What is STELLAR?
The STELLAR Network of Excellence, supported by the European Commission, is about strengthening networks and building research capacity in Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL).
What is the Doctoral Mobility Programme?
The mobility programme aims to foster dialogue and collaboration between doctoral and researchers within the field of Technology Enhance Learning. The programme includes a two-month visit to a host site to conduct research which is clearly linked to the STELLAR Grand Challenges and the associated research questions.
Funding
A Scholarship of up to €1,000 will be granted to 10 top-ranked applicants to support travel and accommodation expenses. In addition, one Excellence Award of €800 will be given based on evaluation of the merit of the participant’s work.
Procedure and Time tables
Visit the following STELLAR web page for more details and application forms: http://www.stellarnet.eu/instruments/doctoral_consortium/mobility_programme
Publication of 1st call: 08/12/2009
Deadline for submission of applications: 15/01/2010
An evaluation stage, including possible interview with hosts, will take place during January. Acceptance will be announced by the beginning of February.
JTEL winter school 2010
November 26, 2009
The fourth time in a row, CELSTEC organizes the JTEL Winter School in Innsbruck. The JTEL Winter School is part of the “Doctoral School” activities within the “Building next generation research capacity” theme of the Stellar Network of Excellence.
The JTEL Winter School brings interdisciplinary doctoral researchers together in order to provide intense research training and to foster cross-domain collaboration. The event will engage participants in high-level courses and workshops with leading scientists. These workshops and lectures focus on theoretical, methodological, educational, and technological issues of relevance to TEL research, providing space for interaction, group work, and informal discussions. Doctoral students will also be expected to present their own research for constructive feedback from other participants of the Winter School.
The purpose of the STELLAR Doctoral School is both to induct TEL doctoral students into the STELLAR research community and provide research training for doctoral students, particularly within the early and mid stages of their doctoral research. The STELLAR Doctoral School will engage doctoral students in high-level courses, workshops with leading scientists and as an integrated part of the research teams from all the participating research units, they will be exposed to a very rich learning environment. The workshops and lectures organized during the doctoral school will focus on theoretical, methodological and technological issues of relevance to TEL research (for example activity theory, embodied cognition, individual, social & organisational learning processes, and the work of TEN Competence).
Doctoral students will also be expected to present their own research for constructive feedback from other participants in the Doctoral School. Workshops will also be offered on: writing research papers; communicating TEL research to policy makers, industry and practitioners. The workshops constitute a useful platform to enable the community to engage in the scientific work being carried out in WP1, 2 and 3. Another important goal of the Doctoral School is to recruit participants from beyond STELLAR core partners as a means of offering doctoral training to the worldwide TEL community. This would establish the Doctoral School as a cornerstone for sustaining the STELLAR initiative.
Interested doctoral students are invited to submit their application until 14 December 2009.
More information on the JTEL Winter School can be found at
http://www.teleurope.eu/pg/groups/43
Some impressions from last year are available here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrYcL2nTwUo