ONLINE educa is the world’s largest online learning-based event, which gathers experts in the field together to discuss current questions affecting the field. According to Brandon Hall, the focus in instruction is on relevant technical operational modes, real-time learning connected with work, and the utilization of web tools (e.g. blogs and wikis). InGilly Salmon‘s experience, teachers adopt new tools in use if they do not merely represent an end in themselves but in actual fact really improve quality and save time. Open content production is supported by, among others, Vijay Kumar(Massachusetts Institute of Technology); Over two million have already visited MIT’s pioneering Open Coursewareenvironment.
In teaching, video conferencing is a good tool. Kristi Jauregi Ondarra and David Sanz Pardo (Utrecht University) have enthusiastically applied it, successfully getting Spanish and Dutch students to work up text in pairs on the web. Operational modes for video in online-based materials have also also been studied by Helle Meldgaard ja Clive Young; in the presentation A Top 10 of Video Use in Higher Education, they assigned final place to the most prevalent method of application, i.e. “talking heads”.
Wim Veen‘s (Delft University of Technology) adventurous experiential multimedia presentation about the media culture of the new generation is an impressive demonstration of the fact that youth literacy is not deteriorating but is rather becoming more versatile: incoming messages from many sources can be successfully received and dealt with simultaneously. Learning has switched more and more outside the classroom, and “school is about meeting friends, not just learning”.
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| Wim Veen’s presentation – including groups of rappers – was dazzling. Kristi Jauregi Ondarra also sparked admiration not only through her inspiring performance but with her highly workable concept of language-teaching as well. One again, Tampere was superbly represented, with TAMK University of Applied Sciences’ network specialists Marianna Leikomaa, Sanna Sintonen and Claudia Hallikainen. | |||