On 17-20 June 2018, the 27th Annual Conference “Exploring the Micro, Meso and Macro – Navigating between Dimensions in the Digital Learning Landscape” was held by the European Distance and E-Learning Network (EDEN) at the University of Genoa in Genoa, Italy.
The conference was aimed to respond to contemporary needs by exploring how the digital education community can help, sharing experience, learning more about didactic design through peer learning and scholar observation exploiting the socio-cultural specifics related to the granularity of learning. The event programme included plenaries, parallel sessions with paper presentations, workshops, trainings, moderated poster and demo sessions and the synergy strand, ensuring digital interactivity and cooperation on the social web.
Within the framework of the conference, UNESCO IITE organized the workshop “Mother-language OER for access and quality of education: pros and cons for non-English-speaking communities” that was moderated by Svetlana Knyazeva, Chief of the Unit of Digital Pedagogy and Learning Materials at UNESCO IITE.
The workshop deliberated on how to make Open Educational Resources more relevant and responsive to cultural and linguistic diversity to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and lifelong learning. The speakers of the workshop argued that the body of existing non-English-language OER is inadequate to the scope of potential demand from the growing amounts of students and learners from non-English-speaking background. This is valid not only for smaller or minority languages but also for top used languages, e.g. French, German, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, etc. At the workshop, the following presentations were delivered:
- UNESCO IITE project on OER in non-English-speaking countries.
Ms. Svetlana Knyazeva, Chief of the Unit of Digital Pedagogy and Learning Materials, UNESCO IITE
- Languages, Education and ICT: General Framework.
Ms. Tatiana Murovana, Programme Specialist, UNESCO IITE
- Cross-cultural development of OER: from ideas and needs to collaboration.
Mr. Jan Pawlowski, Professor, Ruhr West University of Applied Sciences, Germany
- The culture of OER use by Portuguese teachers: from policies to training.
Ms. Lina Morgado, Director of Master in E-Learning Pedagogy, Universidade Aberta, Portugal
- Addressing the challenge of developing Open Educational Resources for French-speaking learners and communities.
Mr. Jacques Dang, Technology Director, Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales (HEC), France
- Current Status and Challenges for OER in Norway.
Mr. Robert Gray, Associate Professor, University of Bergen, Norway
Svetlana Knyazeva also took part in the panel discussion “EU policy initiatives in the area of E&T and contribution to shaping policies”.
Upon the decision of the EDEN Executive Committee, Svetlana Knyazeva was awarded the title of EDEN Fellow in recognition of her contribution to the promotion of open education.
Established in 1991 as an international educational association and not-for-profit organisation, the European Distance and E-Learning Network (EDEN) acts to share knowledge and improve understanding amongst professionals in distance and e-learning and to promote policy and practice across Europe and beyond. With more than 200 institutional members and over 1,200 members in the Network of Academics and Professionals (NAP), EDEN assists a wide range of institutions, networks and individuals to become involved in professional information and networking activities. It does so through the organisation of acknowledged European conferences, its publications and information services, and by taking an active role in a wide range of important EU projects.
More information about the 27th EDEN Annual Conference is available at the official website.
