Events Newsflash June 2010
Learning Forum London — ePortfolio 2010, Internet of Subjects Forum, SE@M 2010 Call for proposals, ASPECT Webinars
 | Events Newsflash June 2010 |
| Community ePortfolios for all?Learning Forum London 5-7 July 2010 programmeInternet of Subjects Forum London, 5 July 2010Partner EventsASPECT Webinars 8 June 2010: conformance testing (part of Making Sense of Learning Technology Standards) AAEEBL Boston (USA) 19 – 22 July 2010World of Learning, Birmingham (UK) 28-29 September 2010SE@M 2010, Barcelona (Spain) 27-28 September, call for papers |
| Community ePortfolios for all? |
| While many efforts have been devoted to the practice and research on the individual ePortfolio, the idea of a community ePortfolio, that is the ePortfolio of a learning community*, has hardly been explored until now. Conscious of this gap, it is always with great pleasure and interest that we welcome a communication addressing the question of the community ePortfolio. This year, delegates to the London ePortfolio conference (5-7 July) will have the pleasure to listen to Darren Cambridge, a regular presenter and keynote speaker at EIfEL's ePorfolio conferences since 2003, who will present an "ePortfolio City in Augusta, Arkansas." According to Darren "The Augusta Community Portfolio (ACP) is a digital portfolio that represents and cultivates the literate activities of the residents of Augusta, Arkansas, USA, a small, rural, and economically depressed town. Sponsored by the University of Arkansas; it builds on two years of print-based community literacy work. The work has yielded significant results: The number of graduating high school seniors in Augusta going on to attend university has risen from 3 to 23." (extract from the abstract). If we believe that the ePortfolio is the tool of excellence for deep learning, then it would make sense to explore further the technologies that can support the learning of learning communities and learning territories. Some of the elements that seem to emerge (and need to be discussed further) from current reflexions on community ePortfolios are:
While the use of social computing should contribute to the interconnection between individual and community ePortfolios, we are still far from it: most ePortfolios, even those claiming to use social networking features, are still in the realm of the individualistic ePortfolio. This is not due to technology, but to the fact that the very idea of a learning community, learning organisation or learning territory tend to remains in the realm of concepts than to move into real life! Most schools, universities, firms and administrations are still far away from being learning organisations. And the social fragmentation of our communities does not contribute to the development of healthy learning communities. Placing the ePortfolio at the heart of the learning community would transform the current vision of those looking at the ePortfolio as a means to link individual competencies with the needs of today's job market. While this has certainly some practical validity, one could also imagine ePortfolio owners not just as job seekers but as job transformers, not simply trying to match the needs of a system that already presents so many signs of obsolescence, but to invent our future. It is time to explore more systematically the benefits of the community and learning organisation ePortfolio to create the learning society of the 21st century. We look forward to seeing you in London 5-7 July at the Savoy Place. The EIfEL Team * A learning community is a group of people who share common values and beliefs, are actively engaged in learning together from each other (Wikipedia). |
| Learning Forum London 2010 —ePortfolio for all!London 5-7 July |
| Join us at the 8th international ePortfolio conference and learn from over 60 presentations related to ePortfolio with a strong representation of the healthcare sector and presenters from Japan, China, Australia, USA, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, France, Netherlands and more. The conference will present a number of interesting ePortfolio initiatives supported by the European Commission. Among them EIPIL-PAN and CODA. The EIPIL-PAN initiative (European Initiative for the Promotion of Informal Learning) explores the use of the ePortfolio for the recognition, validation and accreditation of informal learning in the workplace. While most learning in the workplace occurs informally through working with other employees, clients, customers and suppliers, much of this learning goes unrecognised by the employer and individuals themselves. With the ePortfolio, evidence of learning is systematically collected and aligned against occupational standards, to provide a basis for informal and formal recognition of learning, within the employer's organisation and beyond. The CODA. initiative (Career Opportunities with Disadvantage Awareness) explores the use of the ePortfolio to address the issue of men and women with learning disabilities: they experience lower than average access to vocational training and entry into employment. Major contributing factors are low expectations and a lack of understanding among agencies and employers of the skills and competencies that an adult with a learning disability can offer. This is exacerbated by poor access to appropriate training and preparation for employment, and significantly, the opportunity to showcase an individual’s key competencies. The project explores the benefits of the ePortfolio to display the abilities and achievements of learning disabled adults to support them into training and work. Snapshot of Tuesday 6 July presentations:
For a complete view of the actual programme: www.epforum.eu/programme
If you would like to submit a contribution, this is still possible. All information for submitting is accessible at: http://www.epforum.eu/conference/call/. There is also room for exhibiting. |
Internet of Subjects London —Personal data is ours! | |
| Monday 5 July, the Learning Forum London welcomes the Internet of Subjects Foundation. During one day, an open space conference will provide participants with an opportunity to discuss the issues related to making the Internet a place where individuals, not just objects and organisations, can fully exist, develop through the establishment of trustworthy relationships. Graham Sadd will close the day with a keynote address on Personal Information Management Systems. Graham is Founder and Chairman of PAOGA Ltd. (www.paoga.com) providing Personal Information Management Services (PIMS), ‘Your digital safe deposit box to securely store your valuable information, identity & documents’, and the Personal Information Exchange (PIE) managing the ‘rules of engagement’ between organisations and individuals. VRM (Vendor Relationship Management), the reciprocal to CRM, allows 2-way conversations and data exchanges between buyers and sellers. Graham was involved in raising the initial VC investment, floatation on AIM and subsequent move to LSE involving an international offering of £130m taking the business into the FTSE 250 with a market cap of £2bn. Infobank was rebranded Izodia Plc. and Graham stood down in April 2001. Prior to Infobank Graham had over 20 years experience founding and managing a number of businesses in the communications and publishing industries spanning graphic design, advertising, marketing, international book publishing (acquired by Time-Life Books International), early electronic publishing (NAPLPS), software development (Personal Presentation System for Olivetti and DataBase Publisher for IBM and Ventura) and international software publishing (acquired by Ventura Software Inc. a division of Xerox Corp.) where Graham was Managing Director and VP EMEA. Throughout his working life Graham (http://blog.grahamsadd.com) has been exploiting technology to automate repetitive tasks on the principle that People Are Our Greatest Asset. More on the event: www.conftool.net/lfl2010/ This is an open space conference, so participants are welcome to submit any contribution and organise their own sessions. In order to contribute, participants are invited to submit an abstract via the conference management tool: When submitting, please use The Internet of Subjects as track as well as topic. There are many conferences on the Internet of Objects, this is the only one dedicated entirely to the Internet of Subjects. The conference is sponsored by the TAS3 partnership |
| Partner events |
| ASPECT Webinars: making sense of learning technology standardsA series of webinars is proposed by the ASPECT partnership to promote the adoption of learning technology standards by publishers, authors, educational institutions. Although technical, these workshops are accessible to non-technical people as the objective is to understand the benefits of standards. All webinars run at 12 am CET (11 am GMT), on the second and 4th Tuesday of each month. Duration is 1 hour, and participants can join 30 minutes in advance on the Elluminate Live! platform. Next webinars:
NB: links are active 30 minutes before the start of the webinar. The complete programme of the webinars is accessible at: http://www.learningstandards.eu/webinars AAEEBL, Boston July 19 – 22, 2010The worldwide Association for Authentic, Experiential and EvidenceBased Learning (www.aaeebl.org) is holding the first major international conference focused on electronic portfolios (ePortfolios) to be held in the United States. The conference is in Boston on July 19 – 22, 2010, at the Seaport Hotel and Seaport World Trade Center, a world‐class conference venue. This conference is unique and notable for a number of reasons. The Conference – ePortfolios and the Emergent Learning Ecology – brings together an astounding number of the world’s ePortfolio leaders in this rapidly‐ expanding electronic portfolio sector in education and in business. Speakers from Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Netherlands, Finland, Australia and Europe are on the program. All major ePortfolio projects and initiatives around the world will be represented at the conference and EIfEL and the IoS will be represented by Serge Ravet. The President of the University of Massachusetts System, Jack Wilson, will welcome the conferees. About 600 are expected. “We’ve been working on this conference for 18 months. I’ve traveled to Australia to create an AAEEBL chapter there and will be traveling to London for the EIfEL conference there in early July. So, now, we’ve got people coming from Australia and Europe and speaking at our conference about what’s going on in other parts of the world,” said Dr. Trent Batson, Executive Director of AAEEBL. Deadline for early‐bird discount is June 18; register at https://center.uoregon.edu/conferences/1105events/AAEEBL/2010/registration/ Home site for the conference: http://www.aaeebl.org/page/AAEEBL+Annual+Conference (link to hotel reservations is at this site as well). |
World of Learning, Birmingham (UK) 28-29 September 2010Now in its 18th year, the World of Learning Conference & Exhibition will once again attract thousands of learning and development professionals to the NEC in Birmingham on Tuesday 28 and Wednesday 29 September 2010. The premier event for business learning, the World of Learning will feature an exhibition with more than 100 local and international exhibitors, and a major conference that boasts first-class speakers from all over the world. The exhibition will include companies from all sectors of the learning and development industry, from e-learning and HR and learning management solutions, to social media and instructor-led training. Major organisations exhibiting include Blue Beetle, e2train, Thales Training & Consultancy, Centre for High Performance Development, Kaplan IT Learning, Impact International, Huthwaite International, etc.venues, Results Driven Group, LearningGuide Solutions and Assima (DACG). To exhibit or to pre-register visit www.learnevents.com or call +44 (0)20 8394 5171 | |
 | SE@M 2010 27-28 September, BarcelonaCall for Papers (deadline 15 June)SE@M 2010, the 4th international workshop on Search and Exchange of e-le@rning Materials, Barcelona, 27-28 September 2010, aims at bringing together researchers and professionals working with learning resources —publishers of learning resources and technologies, managers of learning infrastructures and learning resource repositories, learning professionals and practitioners. The workshop is organised in coordination with EC-TEL 2010. The call for papers is accessible at: http://www.learningstandards.eu/seam2010/ Important dates:
TOPICS OF INTEREST (see details in the call for papers)
Participation is 60€ Workshop venue: Hotel Catalonia Plaza, Barcelona, the same venue as EC-TEL 2010 |
