Well, last day was full of surprises! A great speed dating session brought to our attention matters of creativity in regard to sustainability and economic efficiency while designing an online course (Keith Hampson) and the role of the educator in the formation of today’s society (Alan Bruce) as the refugee crisis reaches an unprecedented reality. Seamus O Tuama, head of adult learning at the University College Cork in Ireland (and a great companion throughout the Conference) spoke of Cork and how it has embraced the initiative to become a life long learning community. Events such as the life long learning Festival every March along with free access to University lectures and group sessions promote the idea of inter community practices that in turn promote collaboration and open up to great potential in terms of economic growth. Once again, it is not about setting the rules, what it is about is nurturing a milieu where good ideas can come into being.

Last and not least, I would like to thank the two ladies with whom I collaborated at the last workshop organized by OU and Tom Olney, Katherine (Canada) and Delphine (Belgium) on a quest to identify who the online learners really are. I am always impressed by the persistence of the English people to control the unexpected. I am however for personalized learning, meaning that whatever the analytics tell me, customizing a course deprives the students of their right to design it for themselves, so, even if I get to know who the learners are, I´d rather ignore it and let them be.

I have some time left to enjoy this city that has changed so much since my last visit in the late 80’s. I will return on issues raised by the discussions in the conference with more details in the future. #eden16

(Image is mine and is taken from the museum of applied arts)

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Great debate going on right now whether we should focus in the short term more on MOOCs than OER. Paul Bacsich is for and Stavros Xanthopoulos is against. Audience is (luckily) voting against the motion so far (12-25). Last vote will take place in just a few minutes. #eden16

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Third day of the conference and Yves Punie highlighted the need for a common understanding in regard to organizing MOOCs as the lack of transparency and common technology creates issues for participants. Melissa Highton described the University of Edinburgh mission to promote open licensing emphasizing the distinction of ‘free’ use and ‘free to do what we choose’ use. Danny Arati talked about the 9 instructional events by Gagne and his ‘Domains of Learning’ and how modern technology has revolutionized our transactions and learning. He also used Bate’s gardening metaphor in regard to how we should use this technology in education. Finally, Susan Aldridge from Drexel University described the dominant trends of her school as in the use of holograms and augmented reality to enhance learning. Special mention for the AURASMA application, free tool for augmented reality. #eden16

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Summarizing second day at Eden16: Interesting workshop at session B4 with Francesc Santanach from UOC, Tom Coppeto of Boston College and Jeff Merriman of MIT discussing applications that integrate the architecture of e-learning as in countable units. API must remain stable in order for everything else to be able to change. Workshop was based on trying to figure out all possible processes needed for both students and teachers, in order to make the imprint of a possible app for a flipped classroom.
C2 Session (ours) was great too! Thank you all for being there and for your kind words! Thank you Mr Xanthopoulos for your support!

Greeks! Presiding Session, Sofiklis,Presenting, Olga, and 2 sitting, Kostas and me! #eden16pic.twitter.com/EXqVrNGzdK

— Stavros Xanthopoylos (@SPXFGVOnline) June 15, 2016

#eden16

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Second day for the Eden Conference here in Budapest. Tony Bates was the first keynote speaker (you might have noticed that a lot of my recent posts come from his new book ‘Teaching in a Digital Age’). Bates argued on how important content, skills and culture are in learning and how teaching is about creating learning environments that favor students to be responsible learners (in his words: teaching as gardening, you pick the spot, you pour the water but the plant will grow alone) Point is, Bates argues, that teachers have to come up with their own set of principles and make their own analogies about how they view the process of teaching.
Back to the cloud: teachers as nodes to an ongoing flow of information between members of a learning community facilitating the making of thinking threads. #eden16

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EDEN-Annual-Conference-2016-Budapest-Detailed-Programme