ENIS conference 2003
Welcome
This page has a report of the 2003 ENIS conference in Fortezza del Mare, Liguria, Italy.
The second annual conference of the European Network of Innovative Schools was held from Monday 27th to Wednesday 29th October, 2003 at the Fortezza del Mare on the island of Palmaria in Liguria. If you would like to see the official conference Web site or some pictures from the conference, please click on the links below.
If you would like to open or download the report as a document, click on the links below:
Click on the links below for more pictures:
Idea Labs
One object of the conference was to show the presentations entitled Idea Labs - these are ideas that may lead to projects, in which the ENIS network may provide partners. The idea labs may use existing technologies and build on already successful innovation, but are also partly idealized or Blue Skies proposals.
The four Idea Labs are Edurobot, AimATLAS, e-Xcalibur and the xteaching Manifesto.
Back to top
Edurobot
The EduRobot Project is funded by the European Commission (DG Education and Culture) in the framework of the Socrates Minerva Program. The project, operational from October 2003 to September 2005, aims to create a network of schools, teachers, research institutions and scientists coordinated by the School of Robotics, in order to undertake activities in the following sectors: robotics, telecommunications and distance training, experimenting with the work method adopted by the scientific community.
Back to top
AimATLAS
This project will promote education for a sustainable future by encouraging international collaboration and research institutions working closely with schools. The project aims to create teaching modules, workshops and e-learning courses for teachers and students, distributing scientific reports, creating a database of open learning objects, and creating a global schools network in the developed and the developing word. Specifically, it is aimed at 7 to 8 year olds, using multimedia learning resources. A pilot project has already begun in Italian schools, looking at biotechnology and sustainable development. There is an associated project in nanotechnology, based in Israel.
Back to top
e-Xcalibur (Play2Learn)
This project involves the creation of virtual reality simulations, using artifacts from art galleries and science museums as the originals. These will be located in an environment with navigation tools where social behaviour in role-play allows the participant to make choices and discover information.
Back to top
xteaching Manifesto
The xteaching manifesto promotes the idea of developing open learning materials and reflecting on the methods of teaching and learning. It does this through the use of XML to create taxonomical descriptions of subjects, and reduce these to elements each with associated qualities (described by tags).
Xteaching will lead to common formal methods for structuring and describing subjects, and to shared or consensual explanations. Yet teachers can use these with different individual approaches arising from their personality types and learning styles.
Back to top
Workshops
A second aim of the conference was to present workshops for technologies that have been developed to the point of production and distribution, but which may not yet be widely known or used in schools in all parts of Europe. Unlike the Idea Labs, most of these workshops presented tools or services that are available freely as open source developments.
Concept maps
This is software for building concept maps, and attaching notes and multimedia resources to them. It builds on a constructivist theory of learning: knowledge is constructed from concepts and the relationship between them (=propositions). An Italian project has introduced concept mapping with 6000 schoolchildren in one region, and plans to extend it nationwide. The concept maps developed by the children in the project are available on the site. (An attempt was made to get EU funding together with a number of European partners, but the proposal has so far been unsuccessful.) The software is free to end users and can be downloaded from the site.
Back to top
Open Source
This presentation brought together a range of open source applications, available from the URLs shown here:
- portale.campusone.unige.it - this is a learning content management system and portal.
- www.claroline.net - Claroline is an open source course management system, allowing teachers to create and administer online courses.
- www.colloquia.net - Colloquia is a software system that supports group working and group learning. It is a peer-to-peer learning management and groupware system built on a Java base.
- www.reload.ac.uk - Reload is an authoring tool based on emerging interoperability standards.
Back to top
LearnLinc
This is an application for distance learning. The virtual classroom software includes sound, video, whiteboard tools, sharing of files and websites and interaction by students in real time. The client program is available as freeware, but there is a charge to the software owners for individual user licences (the charge is for use of the server that hosts the lessons).
Back to top
Clic
Clic is a freeware authoring application with templates, allowing teachers to create multimedia activities for their students in an easy way. It is an open source application, freely distributed on the Internet. Users of Clic have made a network of websites with freely usable material. It is flexible, easily adaptable and translatable. Types of activities include puzzles, associations (identifying relations between elements), text activities (fill the gap, dictations, putting elements in the right order), memory games, scrambled letters, crosswords etc. Activities can be grouped into sequences (packages), which in their turn can be linked by logical criteria (one package completed with a certain percentage of correct answers leads to the next package etc.). Sounds, film clips, animations etc. can be integrated into the activities. Applications are created through filling in simple forms/dialogue boxes. An administrative tool shows each student's progress.
Back to top
Clic is a collaborative effort - several organisations take part in the development and translation of the tool. The tool is available in a number of different languages, including English, French and German. A number of websites in different languages offer download of activities etc. The main website has a search tool for locating and downloading activities sorted by language, topic and level. You need the Clic application downloaded to your computer to run the activities. Also available: Mailing lists / newsletter, discussion forum, user manuals.
Next step: JClic project - this will have new features (animations and films integrated, not just attached to the activities etc.), new file formats supported, multi-platform (incl. mac, linux etc). It is based on XML documents (unlike previous version). It uses JPG, PNG, animated GIFs, flash movies, skins, shapers, customised event sounds etc. There will be the JClic application, the JClic player, the JClic author, the JClic report (administrative tool that tracks student progress for the teacher through a web browser).
Back to top
Net-CH projects
These come from the Swiss ENIS network. The projects - the International Space Station and Diversity in the Local Community - are based on a socio-constructivist approach and seek to:
- experiment with collaborative learning;
- offer stable relationships, creating an integrated community of teachers, experts, researchers;
- use a collaborative multilingual platform;
- generate content;
- use a flexible semi-structured script;
- experience and validate (in the Valnet network).
Back to top
The International Space Station
This project, aimed at secondary schools, has opportunities to apply physics in real contexts. In 2006 the ISS will be the largest structure in space built by man. It's a real international project with significant contributions from USA, Russia and Europe in particular.
Diversity in the local community
This project looks at the richness of such diversity, and its attendant difficulties and solutions.
The main Web sites for Swiss ENIS activities are:
These sites are also helpful for the International Space Station project
Switzerland is also organizing a virtual rally for Netd@ys at:
Back to top
ENIS Coordinators' meeting
The agenda for this short meeting was:
Setting up an ENIS network |
ENIS database |
Developing international criteria |
Involvement in EUN activities |
Next meeting
Setting up an ENIS network - practical steps
Germany, Lithuania, Ireland, Greece, France, UK are about to set up ENIS networks. Valnet has inspired several countries to establish ENIS networks. What kind of support is needed and wanted?
- A model of activities and processes one could use.
- Official recognition.
- Schools picked by authorities, or through open call.
- Schools selected for a fixed period of time.
The proposed general criteria (see below for more on this) are:
- Innovation.
- Dedication to collaboration and international work.
We can use the ENIS community to share criteria developed in the various countries. There are some very general criteria available on the EUN ENIS website. Marta (Hungary) suggested that we use the community also for other information about how ENIS is run in various countries - an ENIS INSIGHT, giving the whole picture.
Back to top
Ulf Lundin reports that there are plans to integrate the INSIGHT database with the ENIS database, to link policy information with practice information - schools working with Internet safety will be directly linked from that section of the INSIGHT base. Also there are plans to increase accessibility of information by integrating the EUN site with national ENIS sites (currently the UK does not have one, and nor do some other countries), so the European information is available nationally and streamed to the EUN site.
Another suggestion is to have a "mentor" system where an established ENIS country cooperates with one that is starting up. This might also lead to clusters, perhaps where transport and/or geography (or other cultural reasons?) promotes this.
Having specific projects is usually helpful - this gives the schools a concrete idea of what ENIS involves and what kind of things they may do.
Ulf reported that the European Commission's Twinning Action fits ENIS very well in terms of exchange of experiences and innovative action. The European Schoolnet is competing to be responsible for the twinning platform. This will be discussed in more depth at the next meeting in a couple of months.
ENIS activities may be connected to creating a research network, and developing national high-speed networks (broadband). ENIS national coordinators should contact Anne if interested.
ENIS database
Anne requests that we please make sure all the schools are in the database.
It's important that the schools put in information in the template, to give easily accessible and uniform information. Good if they can put in images as well. Please report any technical problems or error messages to Anne, who will pass it on to the developer. As regards schools' and teachers' e-mail addresses, one has taken care to make the system as spam-proof as possible. Spammers cannot use the system to generate continuous e-mail lists, for instance.
Criteria
If anyone would like to be part of a committee to develop European criteria for ENIS, please contact Anne.
Involvement in EUN projects
Celebrate is the biggest EUN project at the moment. As a pilot, it is going on in schools, testing pedagogical models and environments for Learning Objects. Close to 400 schools involved. Portal is being developed, brokerage system for learning objects and so on.
The aim is to set up a permanent network of schools to work and exchange experiences in this area. If more countries would like to be involved in this, please contact Anne. (No funding at this moment).
The EUN have been invited on a couple of occasions to be validation partners in various projects, but have declined because there was no funding for schools taking part. Ulf maintains that schools should be paid for their work, through the Valnet project, and ask us to take the same stand (otherwise projects will start picking at the countries individually).
Next meeting
This is likely to take place in late February to early March of 2004.
Back to top
|
