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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.