The COIL Bridge Construction Project

Yesterday before the opening reception I bumped into Jon Rubin from New York(he is actually in the blogger team!!!) who told me about the SUNY (State University of New York) Center for Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) and the projects he is running there.

In his workshop here at the EDEN conference he will present the recent COIL Center initiative where they link students at SUNY with peers abroad through team-taught online courses which foreground the cross-cultural perspectives of the collaborating participant students. He showed me some video footage from one of the collaborative projects.

Have a look here ...

http://coilcenter.purchase.edu/

and here for the cross culutral video

http://webuser.hs-furtwangen.de/~ccwebs/#

Jolly good fellow?

Well, I picked up my EDEN Fellow award last night. They warned me it was coming. A crowd of over a hundred colleagues was present. The cameras were there to capture the moment. President Alan Tait beamed as he shook my hand and presented my certificate, so I smiled serenely and acknowledged the ripple of applause. (Pictured left taken by Tom Wambeke). On the certificate it reads:

“The Executive Committee of the European Distance and Elearning Network acknowledges the contribution of Steve Wheeler to the professional development of open, distance and e-learning in Europe and the valued commitment and support to the evolution and progress of EDEN by awarding him the title of EDEN Fellow”.

Wow. What the.... who....? Do they have the right person? I’m supposed to be an ambassador for the organisation now, but am I the right man for the job?

I’m not telling them my room number. They may be back to retrieve it later on when they find out they have made a mistake.

You see, I found out from Grainne Conole last night that there is another Steve Wheeler she has been corresponding with these last few months. He’s doing a course with the OU and she asked me how I was getting on with it. She thought I was him. Maybe I am. But I don’t think so. It’s all so confusing, and I haven’t even started on the famous Portuguese port yet. This is all a dream and I am going to wake up in a minute, I swear. Seriously, I will keep the award and put it up on my wall at home. I feel honoured that EDEN should reward me this way. I’m not good at being conventional and towing the party line. I’m considered a bit if a heretic in most circles. But for EDEN at least, I will endeavour to be a jolly good Fellow.

Follow my main blog 'Learning with 'E's'. Posted by Steve Wheeler.

EDEN Celebrates New Fellows

During the welcoming reception on Wednesday EDEN's president Alan Tate awarded EDEN Senior Fellow title to:

• Torstein Rekkedal, NKI Distance Education, and
• Walter Kugemann, FIM New Learning, University of Erlangen-Nurnberg
  

in recognition to their contribution to the development of open, distance and e-learning in Europe and for their valued commitment and support to the evolution and progress of EDEN. In addition the following NAP members were awarded EDEN Fellow title in recognition of their demonstrated professional excellence in professional practice in the field of distance and e-learning:

• Costas Tsolakidis, University of Aegan
• Alfredo Soeiro, University of Porto
• Ulf-Daniel Ehlers, University of Duisburg
• Sally Reynolds, ATIT
• Montse Guitert, Universidade Oberta de Catalunya
• Steve Wheeler, University of Plymouth
• Adriana Gnudi, University of Pergamo

Welcoming and Receiving

Well, well, well, it started. The Annual Conference is always the best place to meet with the bright minds of the field. What a pleasure to see the light in the eyes when I greet someone I haven't seen for a while.

Everyone is enthusiastic, the Registration Area is buzzing with people arriving, hugging, smiling. And the most used phrase (I counted 134 today): "How are you doing?". How are we doing... These are some of the photos showing how:

PBS Featuring Antonio Teixeira

If you happen to see this man during the EDEN Conference, most probably he is speaking to his mobile. Antonio's phone bill has been increasing as a result of the conference that you and I are attending. As you may have noticed the conference is organized in collaboration with Universidade Aberta. During the past months Antonio has spent hundreds of hours coordinating the efforts of our hosts in Lisbon. When Antonio is not busy with organizing the EDEN2008 Conference he is exercising his duties as a Pro Rector at Universidade Aberta.

People behind the scenes (PBS) introduces individuals who contributed to the making of EDEN2008

EDEN2008 Top13 Participating Countries (Morning June 11)

Country	Registered
Portugal	83 participants
Sweden	61 participants
United Kingdom	43 participants
Norway	40 participants
Spain	26 participants
Finland	22 participants
Belgium	21 participants
Germany	21 participants
Hungary	21 participants
France	20 participants
Italy	19 participants
Estonia	17 participants
Canada	13 participants

EDEN2008 will begin today

Belém Cultural Center facilities will soon be flocking with enthusiastic distance and e-learning practitioners, researchers and policy makers from all over the world. On Wednesday morning the number of registered delegates had reached 529, representing 42 nationalities. Today you will be able to meet most of them at the welcoming reception which will begin at 18.30 at the Belém Cultural Center. Make sure you don’t miss this unique opportunity to network with old and new colleagues and meet with the brand new EDEN fellows to be announced during the event.

Belém Cultural Center is easily reached with tram no. 15.

EdReNe- Educational Repositories Network, 9 -11 June 2008, Lisbon, Portugal

The Workshop venue

10/06/2008
Participants were working at the current repository issues and developments.
The subjects were as follows:

• Repository strategies on general level
• Engaging users
• Standars and interoperability
• Right issues

We started from questionnaire filling in and according to questionnaires analysis people were divided into several groups and worked at two specific subjects in order to prepare final presentation.

There were several presentations delivered:

• pindeln (the spider) – a developing brokerage service, Christina Szekely, MSU, and Fredrik Paulsson, IML
• Share and reuse, example of a web 2.0 repository: klascement.net, Hans de Four, Belgium
• Digital Learnng Resources - what are teachers looking for?, Wim de Boer, SLO
• Drivers and blockers to teachers accessing, repurposing and sharing digital resources, Will Ellis, Becta

There were also introduction of new associated members:

• Tallinn University, Centre for Educational Tecnology, Estonia, Maart Laanpere / Martin Sillaots
• Glow - lighting up learning. Digitally linking Scotland's 800.000 educators and pupils, Andy Pendry, Learning and Teaching Scotland
• APS it-diensten, Netherlands, Dolf Gagestein
• Centre de technologie de l'éducation (CTE), Luxembourg, Daniel Weiler
• Ontwikkelcentrum, The Netherlands, Marco Meurink

Getting there

The taxi driver who got me from Airport to my hotel must have been either a Hollywood stunt driver, or a getaway man for the mob. He would have put Lewis Hamilton to shame. He didn’t say a word, but his actions spoke volumes. Time is money, they said. He drove like a demon through the streets of Lisbon, weaving a breakneck speed through the traffic, trying to make me part company with my British Airways packed lunch. He didn’t succeed, but I almost left him a small deposit to show my appreciation.

I have been warned about drivers in Lisbon, but nothing can really prepare you for the experience. The number of narrow escapes and near misses he crammed into the 10 minute journey from A to B must be a world record. He avoided collision with a large bus by millimetres and the sudden drops into the tunnels were reminiscent of the clear air turbulence I hate so much when I’m flying.

He got me safely to my hotel and I proffered a 50 Euro note for a 6 Euro taxi bill. He looked at me as if I had just informed him that Portugal had no hope in the football championships and that Christiano Ronaldo couldn’t take a penalty to save his life. I had nothing smaller. I thought quickly. Gesturing toward the hotel lobby, I got out and rushed in. I gabbled in fluent Portugese (a bare faced lie) to concierge that I needed some change to pay the taxi driver and smaller notes were pressed into my hand. The demon driver was paid off and disappeared in a cloud of dust to inflict his particular type of torture on his next victim.

I was glad to get to my hotel room, I can tell you. I have turned grey over night. My wife will not know me when I return home this week. My children will shrink away in horror, because I have aged significantly from the experience. However, Lisbon is a city to die for (and I nearly did). At night it is positively breathtaking and during the day it is totally captivating. The choice of the venue for this year’s EDEN conference has been inspired.

Congratulations to the EDEN executive for your decision. I’m looking forward to the experience. I’m not so sure about the taxi ride back to the airport though...

Follow my main blog Learning with E's. Posted by Steve Wheeler

Cross Cultural Online Collaboration

I am very much looking forward to learning about the experience of other participants who are exploring online cross cultural learning environments. I am visiting Lisbon from SUNY and hope to develop a dialogue and possible educational links with other institutions who are developing multi-cultural and networked courses and who are researching best practices in this area.

Jon