Monthly Archives: June 2012

27 June

IX International Seminar - Call for Demos OPEN

Education Worldwide

IX Seminar Logo

The UNESCO Chair in e-Learning at UOC is pleased to host its ninth annual International Seminar. It will take place on November 26-27, 2012 in Barcelona, at the MediaTIC Building.

The theme of this year is: Transformative Changes in Education: System-wide Approach, as outlined in Presentation.

Despite multiple crises making current conditions of teacher work ever more difficult, educational landscape shows tha there are lots of experiments and creative search for innovation going on in classrooms. Sometimes they even go aheard of research, thus marking its future directions more clear. We encourage you to showcase your innovative project or experiment in educational practice, even if it is in process of development yet. This could be a good opportunity to make an informative and relevant case out of it, to share your results, successfull practice, but also your doubts.

Do not shy away if your project has not worked out as expected. We fully subscribe  to the idea  that we might learn more from a failure than from success; the main thing is to understand: Why? What would be a better solution?

Accepted projects will have 20 minutes to demonstrate the case and then will be followed by 20 minutes of discussion with other speakers and participants.

We expect the presentations to be very specific, practical, rather than theoretical or analytical.

In particular, the seminar organizers are keen to receive proposals that:

  • Are based on or supported by research (or not!)
  • Demonstrate an experimental or alternative approach to coursework, curriculum, assessment, etc (see topics of the Seminar)
  • Are related to issues of social inclusion and development
  • Stimulate and provoke a good discussion

Topics may be proposed from the full range of creative practice on different levels of education. Organizers would ask to identify a central idea or theme that have a direct relevance wihtin the Seminar´s scope.

Submission deadline: Proposals should be sent by email to   catedraunesco [ at ] uoc.edu  by July 25.

Submissions will be reviewed by a panel of faculty peers.

Notification of acceptance and additional information will be provided before the end of September.

26 June

ACE 2012 (Advances in Computer Entertainment Conference)

Misc.

ACE2012

ACE (the Advances in Computer Entertainment Conference) is a forum for dissemination of cutting-edge research results in the area of entertainment computing. Interactive entertainment is one of the most vibrant areas of interest in modern society and is amongst the fastest growing industries in the world. ACE 2012 will bring together leading researchers and practitioners from academia and industry to present their innovative work and discuss all aspects and challenges of interactive entertainment technology, in an exciting emerging world environment of Nepal.

Call for Entertainment Kids Workshops

Entertainment can empower children and youths in developing countries and communities with creative thinking and new media technologies. We hope to nurture and inspire young children to create new value propositions that will benefit their individual selves, communities and countries. We want to view young children in developing countries as creative innovators and ambassadors of new technologies, rather than passive end-users consumers.

ACE 2012 will bring together leading researchers and practitioners from academia and industry. This year we want the conference to not only offer a venue for the presentation of work and the sharing of ideas but to also offer a venue for the conduction of research and the emergence of new thoughts and novel concepts. To this end we are introducing activity style workshops as part of ACE 2012.

In these 60-minute workshops researchers and industry practitioners will have a chance to engage with a group of local young children with the aim of exploring concepts such as creativity, experience and “cool”, ways of creating entertainment media and ways of expanding children’s understanding of entertainment computing and its potential.

15 June

Readings for the IX International Seminar

Education Worldwide

IX Seminar Logo

 

Here we will share some interesting readings related to the topic of the IX International Seminar. Some of the readings will be suggestions of the keynote speakers and demo presenters of the seminar. We encourage you to propose any interesting reading you might find or know. We will update the list often.

13 June

A value of the human evolution, not just economy

Misc.

Human Economy
Picture by Tom Toles. © The Washington Post

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12 June

Criticisms of MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses)

Education Worldwide, Learning Technologies

Via | EdTechDev

MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) have become a recent trend in open online education. Some people could be tempted to start talking of them as a new hype. Instead of that, we present a more constructive approach, a EdTechDev post that shows us a sampling of some of the criticisms of MOOCs.

What’s the “problem” with MOOCs? In case the quotes didn’t clue you in, this post doesn’t argue against massive open online courses (MOOCs) such as the ones offered by Udacity, Coursera, and edX.  I think they are very worthy ventures and will serve to progress our system of higher education. I do however agree with some criticisms of these courses, and that there is room for much more progress.  I propose an alternative model for such massive open online learning experiences, or MOOLEs, that focuses on solving “problems,” but first, here’s a sampling of some of the criticisms of MOOCs.

Read the full Article at EdTechDev >>