Last week I took part in the EC-TEL08. Here is a brief report of what I learnt.
WORKSHOP on Story-Telling and Educational Gaming (STEG'08) >>>
what (I realized) is a workshop? a group of people working in the same field of interest who present and discuss together their ongoing works/efforts --> it's like a consortium of ideas whose mottos are: sharing, collaboration, personal involvement!
something about communities: a community rises around an object of interest and then grows like a cobweb --> workshops are key-events for communities: members meet each other spreading and strengthening the cobweb;
personal comment: - research communities work exactly as other communites ("the ballet school c. of my town" or "the c. of mushrooms seekers") --> one can apply the same informal strategies to join a c. of reasearch and find his own way!
- I wasn't part of any of the c. involved in the W. and I didn't know anyone: people looked at me with curiosity and a bit of suspect!
discussed topic in STEG'08: balance between: (story)telling and interactivity, gaming and learning, physical effort and reasoning; modding; formal ad informal learning through games --> proceedings
DOCTORAL CONSORTIUM >>>
what's the good: it's like a general proof of the dissertation defence: you explain your research work in front of experts (to whom you have previously sent a summaryzing paper) and you have to defend it! You receive constructive criticisms and suggetions, and it's a useful way to identify the dark nodes, thanks to non-experts questions (other ph.d. students).
other useful aspects: looking at collgues' works and wondering about methodology, related issues, problems, attitudes
research topics of EC-TEL d.c.: tools and models to help teachers in learning scenarios design, intelligent agents programming (for simulations in crisis situations), new technologies in education and school curricula, adaptive personalized learning environments (indicators).
personal comment: to be repeated at Red-Ink!
CONFERENCE
Three adjectives to describe the EC-TEL community:
- growing: it draws close different research fields which need each other to reach their goals --> from the division to the re-union of knowledge; it's a european "window" to know and to let yourself know
- appealing: it concerns the "rethinking of the education in the knowledge society"!!; it allows to be propositive and proactive because it's an open community
- active: it gathers many worthy studies and interesting projects.
pre-conference tipp: have a mission! e.g. people to get in touch, key-topics to direct your attention to/to inquire, an already started project or study --> it could seem a trivial tipp but it actually wasn't that kind for me! --> the "have a go at it!" or "go and explore" attitude (without having some clear objectives) demands a lot of effort but doesn't garantuee worthy outcomes!
KEYNOTES (that I listened to) >>>
a) Kristina Höök: "Mind, mouse and body: designing engaging technologies" --> challenges in designing digital products for physical, emotional and bodily involvement;
b) Manu Kapur: "Productive failure" --> well structured problems vs ill-structured problems and the process of learning from one's failure.
WORKSHOP on Story-Telling and Educational Gaming (STEG'08) >>>
what (I realized) is a workshop? a group of people working in the same field of interest who present and discuss together their ongoing works/efforts --> it's like a consortium of ideas whose mottos are: sharing, collaboration, personal involvement!
something about communities: a community rises around an object of interest and then grows like a cobweb --> workshops are key-events for communities: members meet each other spreading and strengthening the cobweb;
personal comment: - research communities work exactly as other communites ("the ballet school c. of my town" or "the c. of mushrooms seekers") --> one can apply the same informal strategies to join a c. of reasearch and find his own way!
- I wasn't part of any of the c. involved in the W. and I didn't know anyone: people looked at me with curiosity and a bit of suspect!
discussed topic in STEG'08: balance between: (story)telling and interactivity, gaming and learning, physical effort and reasoning; modding; formal ad informal learning through games --> proceedings
DOCTORAL CONSORTIUM >>>
what's the good: it's like a general proof of the dissertation defence: you explain your research work in front of experts (to whom you have previously sent a summaryzing paper) and you have to defend it! You receive constructive criticisms and suggetions, and it's a useful way to identify the dark nodes, thanks to non-experts questions (other ph.d. students).
other useful aspects: looking at collgues' works and wondering about methodology, related issues, problems, attitudes
research topics of EC-TEL d.c.: tools and models to help teachers in learning scenarios design, intelligent agents programming (for simulations in crisis situations), new technologies in education and school curricula, adaptive personalized learning environments (indicators).
personal comment: to be repeated at Red-Ink!
CONFERENCE
Three adjectives to describe the EC-TEL community:
- growing: it draws close different research fields which need each other to reach their goals --> from the division to the re-union of knowledge; it's a european "window" to know and to let yourself know
- appealing: it concerns the "rethinking of the education in the knowledge society"!!; it allows to be propositive and proactive because it's an open community
- active: it gathers many worthy studies and interesting projects.
pre-conference tipp: have a mission! e.g. people to get in touch, key-topics to direct your attention to/to inquire, an already started project or study --> it could seem a trivial tipp but it actually wasn't that kind for me! --> the "have a go at it!" or "go and explore" attitude (without having some clear objectives) demands a lot of effort but doesn't garantuee worthy outcomes!
KEYNOTES (that I listened to) >>>
a) Kristina Höök: "Mind, mouse and body: designing engaging technologies" --> challenges in designing digital products for physical, emotional and bodily involvement;
b) Manu Kapur: "Productive failure" --> well structured problems vs ill-structured problems and the process of learning from one's failure.
FORTHCOMING RELATED EVENTS: - International Conference on Web-based Learning (ICWL) 2009, 19-21 August, Aachen, Germany
- 23rd ICDE World Conference on Open Learning and Distance Education 2009, 7-10 June, Maastricht, the Netherlands
- "TEN Compentence" Winter School, 1-6 February 2009, Innsbruck, Austria
1 comment:
Thanks Sylvia! That was a useful report and I think your tip for confrences is very good.
I'd like to know more about the idea of productive failure - do you have some more references or materials on that?
Post a Comment