Open Discovery Space
3rd Newsletter
Welcome to the 3rd issue of the Open Discovery Space Newsletter, bringing you up to speed with the cutting edge developments of Europe’s largest eLearning project.
The ODS Summer School is back!
The ODS Summer School 2014 will take place in Attica, Greece, from the 13th to the 18th of July. The event is a participatory learning course for primary and secondary school teachers, as well as school leaders across Europe. The aim of the event is to promote and support school innovation in order to create Open Learning Communities all over Europe. During the course, teachers and education leaders will be trained on how to become change actors and how to set up concrete action plans for schools. The programme will feature presentations of experiences, lectures, interviews, group-work, observations and some playful activities to stimulate out-of-the-box thinking and innovation.
If you are interested in participating in the ODS Summer School, we have GREAT NEWS: Your participation can be funded by the ERASMUS+ programme! For information on how to apply for the course, please click here. The deadline to apply is on March 17th! So make sure you don't miss the opportunity to attend this game-changing course!
If you're still not convinced, take a look below at the pictures from the previous edition of the ODS Summer School, in Crete.
ODS @ the European Schoolnet in Brussels.
Project partner UAH - University of Alcala - represented ODS at the final event of the Global Excursion project, which took place from the 14th to the 16th of February at the European Schoolnet premises in Brussels.
GLOBAL excursion is aiming at introducing e-infrastructures to educators and pupils and it provides scientists, policy makers, pupils and their teachers with activities, materials and tools that integrate e-infrastructures into school curricula. The main access point is the GLOBAL Virtual Science Hub – “ViSH”. The Hub contains a selection of e-Infrastructures, a collaborative content repository where scientists and teachers can exchange knowledge and establish collaborations. Additionally, the HUB runs a virtual excursion room, where pupils are able to experience real e-science applications in areas of high relevance for the future, such as nano and bio-technologies.
As a result of the discussions between UAH and The Polytechnic University of Madrid (partners of Global Excursion), Open Discovery Space is going to harvest and integrate ViSH to its repository, once the technical adaptation is completed this March.
UAH was invited to Brussels to present ODS in a workshop that was organized as part of the final event of Global Excursion. After introducing the audience to the ODS project and showcasing different marketing scenarios, the presentation focused on the technical aspects of the integration of ViSH into the ODS repository.
The event was a great opportunity to promote ODS to an audience of experts and neophytes and to create synergies with similar projects across Europe.
LINQ/EIF 2014
The international LINQ Conference will take place in conjunction with the 9th EFQUEL Innovation Forum (EIF) (more information here) to shape the 2014 Mega Event for quality and innovation in education and learning. LINQ and EIF 2014 will address one of the greatest challenges in today’s quality development for education and training: How to achieve quality for opening up education?
ODS will be one of the main guests of LINQ. For information on the programme and registration, please click here.
Wednesday, May 7, 2014, 11:00 AM
Iberostar Creta Mare Hotel, Lavris, Rethymno, Greece
RSVPs are enabled for this event.
Online change agents workshop
The change agent workshops are part of the ODS aim to modernise the school pedagogy in Europe. The role of the workshops is to identify the technical and pedagogical needs of teachers and to challenge them to act as Change Agents in their communities. The workshops aim at enabling teachers to get in touch with different forms of resistance to change and to develop and implement successful strategies towards modernization.
ODS partners have organized 20 change agent workshops across Europe so far, with over 500 participants. If you want to know more about the Change Agent Workshops or you are interested in participating in one, please don't hesitate to contact us at contact_ods@intrasoft-intl.com
Open Education Challenge 2014
If you are an innovative teacher. If you want to share your innovative practices and have a greater impact in schools all over Europe and beyond - Join the Open Education Challenge now! Organized by partner PAU, the Open Education Challenge is open to the ODS community and all its teachers who wish to have an impact on the European education!
You can now transform your ideas into a successful company and change the way people teach and learn. The 10 most promising projects will receive continuous mentoring from top European experts in education, entrepreneurship and technology, as well as up to 20.000 euros of seed funding!
Discover why the Open Education Challenge is made for you! Submissions are open until March 17th!
ODS @ the International Cheese Festival
On September 20th 2013 in Bra (Italy), ODS partner UNISG - the University of Gastronomic Sciences - organised the open lecture 'Granaries of memory: Open Discovery Space - Recover the knowledge of Cheese and Cheese making'. The session was held as one of the key events hosted by the International Cheese Festival - organized by Slow Food International (www.cheese.slowfood.com).
During the event, UNISG presented the main aims and features of ODS and the educational resource 'Granaries of Memory', to an audience of teachers, policy-makers and people interested in the new developments in education. The lecture was a great opportunity to present the Project and make the audience interact with and experience the digital resources.
ODS paper @ ICERI
'Barriers Against OER and Possible Solutions: Teachers’ Perspectives and Recommendations' was presented by project partner UBT during the 6th International Conference of Education, Research and Innovation – ICERI 2013. The event was held on November 18th-20th 2013 in Seville, Spain. The paper discusses the Open Discovery Space portal, analysing the barriers against the use, production and reuse of Open Educational Resources and addressing possible solutions.
The presentation gathered 40 attendees from all around the world and aroused enthusiasm and very positive feedback. For access to the full paper, please follow this link.
EDEN 2014
EDEN is back!
The European Distance and E-Learning Network will be organising their annual conference this year in Zagreb, on the topic 'E-Learning at work and the Workplace: From Education to Employment and Meaningful Work with ICTs'.
ODS will be one of the main guests of the event. For information on the programme and registration, please click here.
Tuesday, Jun 10, 2014, 12:00 PM
Ulica Josipa Marohnića 3, 10000, Zagreb, Croatia
RSVPs are enabled for this event.
Practice Reflection Workshops
The ODS Practice Reflection Workshops consist mainly of training activities, taking place at local, national and international levels. Participants are selected among those involved in ODS training activities, but include other stakeholders as well, such as representatives of museums and science centres, teacher trainers, etc.. They are change actors that can influence the adoption of Resource Based Learning in the educational system.
Up to date, ODS partners have organized approximately 15 practice reflection workshops across Europe, with over 400 participants. If you're interested in participating in the next Change Agent Workshops, please don't hesitate to contact us at contact_ods@intrasoft-intl.com
ODS keynote speech @ AeLC
The 2013 Austrian eLearning Conference (AeLC) was held in Vienna on the 6th and 7th of November. The theme of the conference was 'E-Learning and Knowledge Management in Companies and Other Organisations'.
Partner Uni-Due held a keynote speech and delivered a presentation about the future of E-Learning, entitled 'The Future of E-Learning: Open Learning and Beyond'. ODS was highlighted as the core European project for Open Learning. For more information, please click here (German website only).
ODS @ ICT 2013
ICT2013, held in Vilnius between the 5th and the 8th of November, brought together Europe’s best & brightests in ICT research, web start-ups and digital strategists to chart a path for Europe’s ICT research policy. This important event saw the launch of the new pluri-annual programme for supporting Research and Development in Europe: Horizon 2020.
ODS stood out at the event as the European flagship initiative in e-Learning.
ODS in Pontevedra
The first workshop included a brief course for teachers on the functionalities and aims of the ODS portal. The teachers were then asked to use the portal during their classes for a period of 6 weeks and to share their questions and feedback on the content and services during a second workshop.
The teachers evaluated the ODS portal as a valuable instrument, whose benefits are twofold:
1. it provides access to high-quality educational resources that enable them to better prepare their lectures,
2. it improves the learning skills of students by enabling them to access resources through ICT.
A final survey-based evaluation will be carried out in mid 2014. The results will be made available on the ODS website, so stay tuned for updates!
ODS in France
The ESPE (french for Higher Schools for the Teaching Profession and Education) will organise on April 9th 2014 the second day-training course on the theme 'The use of Digital Technologies for Traineeships'.
The event will be organised in collaboration with EVEIL-3D, Inspectors of the National Education and the Academic Delegation for Educational Digital technology, and will feature an ODS presentation.
Registration is free and open until March 16th and all teachers, from Primary School to University are invited to attend.
Wednesday, Apr 9, 2014, 08:45 AM
1 Rue Froehlich, Sélestat, France
RSVPs are enabled for this event.
About Open Discovery Space
Website: www.opendiscoveryspace.eu
Phone: +352 44 10 12 21 86
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/opendiscoveryspace.eu
Twitter: @ods_eu