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ECO MOOC

Social Learning Environments for MOOC Learning

By | Conferences MOOC, News about ECO | No Comments

On the 15th of June, representatives of the ECO project organised a workshop on social learning at one of the most relevant MOOC conferences in Europe, the EDEN Conference in Budapest:

ECO to host workshop at EDEN

ECO hosting a workshop at EDEN on Social Learning

The ECO-workshop was entitled “Social environments for Learning: Using commercial networks versus internal platform functionalities in the ECO project.”

and was prepared and conducted by:

  • Convenors: Divina Frau Meigs, Adeline Bossu, Sorbonne Nouvelle
  • Moderator: Sünne Eicher, SE, ECO Project

Social Learning as an accelerator
MOOCs are an essential part of open education and highly effective tool for social inclusion. The very nature of the massive, open learning modules such as proposed by ECO and other MOOC providers creates a socially inclusive platform. In addition, the ECO MOOC designers created modules that derive their learning models based on peer reviews and learning by sharing knowledge. In this workshop, social learning within the ECO Project is being used actively in the global MOOC Step by Step, which teaches the participants and future eTeachers how to create their own MOOC module. Knowledge sharing between is an essential part of the social learning premise of this MOOC.

ECO Workshop Content at EDEN MOOC Conference

In this workshop ECO discussed the controversial use of commercial social networks within learning environments, where privacy and traceability, are an issue in proposing this format.

Understanding the dynamics of such participatory tools is crucial to social MOOCs. They are a vital part of the 34 ECO MOOCs.

Participants were invited to share, compare, and comment on their own practices and ideas. Questions that were asked the workshop participants:

  • How to keep the potential of social networks while building learning and educational competences?
  • What is the right balance between commercial and non-commercial uses in sMOOC pedagogical design?
  • Are social networks valid tools that contribute to constructivist forms of knowledge?
  • What new learning strategies can emerge from such network effects?…

The presented went on to comment on the democratic foundings of the ECO MOOC design and the importance of ubiquitous and social learning in this context.

The workshop was very well received and attended.

Best poster on LAK16 conference in Edinburgh

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During the 6th International Conference Learning Analytics & Knowledge in Edinburgh (LAK16) researchers of the Welten Institute won the award for the best poster. Maren Scheffel was awarded the price for her poster on The Dutch xAPI Experience that was partly based on ECO’s learning analytics model developed in WP2 and implemented in WP3.

The online version of the poster is available here.

LAK16

Image taken from LAK16 website

Author: Francis Brouns (Open Universiteit)

ECO attends Policy Forum on European MOOCs

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Tomorrow, 28th of June, our partner Universidad de Oviedo, represented by Santiago Fano, is taking part in the Policy Forum on European MOOCs, organized by EADTU and HOME (Brussels, Dutch House of Provinces). As stated on the project’s website: “The forum will contribute to better position decision makers to understand the “MOOC phenomenon” and capitalise on the advantages of these large-scale courses and use them as a strategic opportunity to help meet local needs and develop related capacities.”

Santi Fano will take part in the panel “Shared MOOC services: regional, European or global level?” along with other project’s representatives, such as the French MOOC service provider, FUN. His policy paper “MOOC Development Policies: The ECO Project in the European and Spanish Context” is available (p. 78) at the full publication “European Policy Response on MOOC opportunities“.

310518_Events_website_ECO-policy forum

Image taken from http://home.eadtu.eu/news/109-policy-forum-on-european-moocs

 

Award to the MOOC “Digital Literacy for Groups in Risk of Social Exclusion” at Innodoct

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Innodoct is an International Conference about Innovation, Documentation and Teaching Technologies that has taken place in Valencia the days 18- 20 of May 2016. The aim of this conference is to provide a forum for teachers,  researchers and professionals that allows sharing their investigations, actual projects, results and challenges and discussing ideas related with New Technologies of Information and Communication; it also will allows sharing innovations and methodologies applied to Education and to Investigation.  In the context of this conference the eTIC team of the University of Oviedo has presented the communication “Teaching Innovation in the training about Digital Literacy for groups in risk of social exclusion” where the teaching roles of the MOOC “Digital Literacy for groups in risk of social exclusion” of the project ECO Learning is analysed, this shows the possibilities that social networks open for teaching innovation through the strengthening of the paper of teaching teams that develop massive online training, which finally is one of the challenges that are considered currently in this area.

This paper  has gotten a double recognition in Innodoct: the award for the best paper and the award for the best video presentation. The awarded video sums up the most relevant aspects of the  paper and shows the experience developed has teachers in the MOOC about Digital Literacy of groups in risk of social exclusion of the ECO Project.

Please, use YouTube’s self-winding translation to read the subtitles of the video in English.

Author: Isabel Hevia (Universidad de Oviedo)

ECO to host workhop at EDEN conference

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ECO to host workshop at EDEN

ECO to host workshop at EDEN

Between the 14th and 17th of June the annual elEarning European Distance and eLearning Network (EDEN) Conference will take place in Budapest.

The context of the EDEN conference for 2016 is described (on the website) as follows:  “The powerful combination of the ’information age’ and the consequent disruption caused by these unstable environments provides the impetus to look afresh and identify new models and approaches for education (e.g. OERs, MOOCs, PLEs, Learning Analytics etc.).”

Attend ECO workshop

It is therefore very suitable for ECO to attend this conference and connect with subject matter peers and experts.

ECO will be hosting a workshop “Social environments for Learning” on Wednesday 15th of June, during the afternoon parallel sessions: C7 from 16:15h until 17:45h.

  • Convenors: Divina Frau Meigs, Adeline Bossu, Sorbonne Nouvelle, ECO project
  • Moderator: Sünne Eicher, SE, ECO Project

In this workshop we propose to discuss the pros and cons of using commercial social networks vs internal contained social network functionalities within a MOOC platform. The use of commercial social networks is relatively controversial for learning environments, beyond issues of privacy and traceability, especially in Europe.

Researchers have found tensions and polarizations that complicate the issue: open vs contained content, formal vs informal settings, structured vs unstructured exchanges, traceable vs untraceable data, personal vs professional status of interactions.

Why attend?

Understanding the dynamics of such participatory tools is crucial to social MOOCs. They are part of the live core of interactive spaces characteristic of sMOOCs and contribute to transforming the relation to learning, if not to the nature of knowledge itself. They enable flux and openness while facilitating communication among various types of participants (teachers, mentors, tutors, learners….). They create an epistemic community with an important impact on the learning events as they are delivered within the spaces of interaction provided by the social networks. This “inside-outside” navigation creates synergies and empowers communities as they can mix and remix the resources available online and produce their own projects and evaluations.

The workshop will examine different ways of using social networks functionalities “inside-outside” a sMOOC platform, based on practices carried out by the sMOOC pilots of the European project ECO and their evolution through several iterations. We will also present how ECO pedagogical teams use commercial and non-commercial social networks in order to reach the goals of the European project (enrolment, motivation, community management, e-teacher projects…). We will also consider some limitations and constraints that may arise, such as the efficiency and/or redundancy of using several social networks. We will also reflect on the logics adopted by various actors as the limits between social conversations and pedagogical conversations get blurred, in spaces that remain partly dominated by the heritage academic framework.

Participants are invited to share, compare, and comment on their own practices and ideas. They are invited to join the conversation around such questions as: how to keep the potential of social networks while building learning and educational competences?

What is the right balance between commercial and non-commercial uses in sMOOC pedagogical design? Are social networks valid tools that contribute to constructivist forms of knowledge? What new learning strategies can emerge from such network effects..?

The full conference programme can be downloaded here.

ECO Learning drives an educational democracy

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The ECO project is presenting and represented in various MOOC and educational conferences, not just in Europe but throughout the world.

ECO project coordinator Sara Osuna travelled to the CIP conference in May in Cancún 2016 to present the status on the 17 ECO Learning MOOCs as well as the progress made on the first MOOCs designed and run by the programmes own eTeachers. ECO learning is on a path of growth towards an expending democratic form of education, where both learning and teaching anytime, anywhere needs to be top of mind.

“The idea is to drive the enrichment of ubiquitous learning and pull down the classroom walls in education, proving that people are capable of learning anywhere”, Sara Osuna says in an interview with Quinta Roo Hoy, a media platform covering the CIP Conference, II Cumbre Iberamericano de Periodismo, which took place between 12 and 15th of May in Cancún, Mexico. Theme of the conference was Channels, journalism and development, the power of internet in Latin America (Medios, periodismo y desarrollo, el poder de internet en América Latina).

Osuna commented during the interview and at the conference on the results ECO Learning project so far: 17 MOOC courses, 100% free, the ECO course portfolio encompassing content from humanities topics to languages, robotics and creativity, in no less than 6 different languages. 50.000 Registered participants so far.

The interview can be read here in Spanish.

 

In addition she expressed her content with not only these numbers and facts, but moreover the proof that through these Massive Online Open Coomunication modules, education can be accessed and enjoyed by anyone, regardless of the time or place. Anyone interested needs just an email address and internet connection, register and choose the or more courses as they like, free of charge. In that sense the MOOC portfolio is giving everyone the opportunity to develop, learn, close any skills gap they feel they to close for better job opportunity or for the purpose of personal growth.

In other words: we are getting one step closer to eductional democracy.

Learn Spanish while travelling with ECO Project e-teachers’ new MOOC

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After a MOOC-based, specific training, participants in the educational, EU-funded ECO project have turned into e-teachers: they have designed, developed and now prepare to launch their own MOOCs. Among the first four courses ready to open up on April 5th, one may prove essential for a holiday in Spanish-speaking countries. Would you like to try?

Español para viajeros (Spanish for travellers) is an accessory course of Spanish as a Foreign Language, focusing on communicational situations likely to take place while travelling in Spain. Scenes and featured situations can be personalized according to participants’ interests and preferences.

The MOOC targets intermediate level students of Spanish as a Foreign language (A2-B1 according to CEFR) planning to visit a Spanish-speaking country and hoping to improve their language skills on real-life, travelling-focused situations.

Forum boards and Social media are essential tools in this course, aimed at promoting interactive and learning of both spoken and written Spanish. Team work and peer-to-peer assessment will also enhance the participant’s capacity to develop learning skills in a self-sufficient, collaborative way, according to the MOOC designers.

The teaching team consists of educators from all paths of life, who previously completed a number of ECO Project MOOCs, mandatorily including the “sMOOC Step by Step”, through which they got capacitation to later develop their own social MOOCs. ECO Consortium provides them with virtual space to host the courses, which are now part of the project’s catalogue. All further information on how to become an e-teacher is available on ECO-learning website. .

For those already fluent in Spanish, there will be three other MOOCs available on April 5th as well: Road sMOOC: Un viaje Eduktransformador on edu-communication; Running Saludable 2.0 which implements technology and social media to improve daily training routines for amateur runners and Introducción a la escritura científica: Retos y potencialidades del entorno digital, a tutorial on scientific writing texts.

Meanwhile, the latest edition of ECO MOOC pilots is successfully unfolding. All 11 updated courses (among 25 in the catalogue) are midway its tutorized period and, therefore, open for all those interested!

ECO Project condemns terror attacks on Brussels

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The ECO Project and all of its members are shocked by the atrocious attacks on the Brussels´ airport and city center metro station.

We condemn the attacks masterminded by a group of extremists who have no concept of our our values of freedom and peace.

We urge everyone to refrain from distributing image and video materials showing victims. Out of repect for the families and loved ones and in addition to not play into the hands of the extremists who use these images for propagandistic purposes.

Our thoughts are with the fathers, mothers, sons and daughters who became victims of today´s attacks.

– The ECO-Learning Consortium

ECO reloaded with Brand new MOOC releases & updates

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Enrollments are open for a new edition of ECO Project’s MOOCs, to be launched on Monday, March 7th. ECO’s catalogue has been enriched with updated editions of the most successful MOOCs and 2 brand new courses.

The new MOOCs, in Spanish, focus on cutting-edge topics such as applications of robotics and computational thinking to digital education and entrepreneurship and social network management in professional environments.

Eight other, improved editions ECO MOOCs will be relaunched on March 7th. Among them are several courses focused on enhancing teachers’ competences, a community Management training and ECO’s successful MOOC aimed at preparing for B1 level English exams.

The MOOC on Videos for teaching Learning and Communication, developed by Manchester University in English, will be also reopened and tutored from March 7th onwards.

Likewise, all systems go for a new edition of ECO’s transversal ´sMOOC Step by Step´, available in 6 languages (English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian and German). Created according to an innovative pedagogical approach, the sMOOC Step by Step is designed to guide educators from all professional backgrounds through all the stages needed to create their own MOOCs. Moreover, those completing this MOOC, plus yet another course listed in ECO catalogue, are invited to actually make their educational MOOC projects real and become e-teachers. ECO offers monitoring throughout the process and virtual space on ECO portal to host their MOOCs. For further info on how to become an e-teacher, check participants’ FAQs on ECO website.

In addition, the English version of Instituto Politecnico di Milano’s MOOC ´To Flip or Not to Flip´ – Discover the flipped clasroom methodology , will be launched on its second edition on March 14th.

MOOCs: connection vs. information

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The below video explains very concisely what kind of learning MOOCs entail and how it helps us connect the dots in an age where information seems to explode beyond our control.

Core concepts discussed in the video: Lifelong learning, connect, learing experience, validating informal learning and ungoing professional education.


Source: educause