Hybrid presence an emerging format #OEB16

Last week I had the pleasure of being part of a virtual connecting meeting at OnlineEducaBerlin. The initiative came from the VConnecting group. For this session, onsite buddies Christian Friedrich, Hoda Mostafa, and I spoke with guests Jeanine Reutemann (Jeanine researches the affordances of video and has great insights on it!). Ilona Buchem (Ilona has a long standing tech record, her latest research looks at open badges) and Aziza Ellozy (Aziza is a leader in faculty development, and making learning visible). The recording can be seen below (it was a hangout).

For those who are not familiar with the concept of Virtually Connecting through online buddies, have a look at the website. During Online Educa Berlin 2016 there were four virtual connecting meetings (I only could attend one, as I was chairing or speaking at the other moments), and it really provides an additional layer of interest to conferences. I had a previous experience with Whitney Kilgore at eMOOCs2015 which I blogged about here, and which worked inspiring as well.

The format has a basic idea behind it: connecting people with similar interests across conference boundaries (so those who can attend a conference, share knowledge that is provided within the conference to others who are unable to attend the venue).

Although the idea is simple enough, what is interesting is the emerging layer of knowledge that is transmitted. In some way those who attend get a meta layer going. Or at least that was what I felt when joining one of the virtual connecting sessions. When reflecting on why this extra - and to me meaningful layer of learning emerges - I had the idea that it might come from the available expertise in all who entered the conversation. The shared yet complementary expertise gave spice to the conversation, sparking new ideas and links to previous experiences on topic. And I think it was also related to similar interests that come together at that point, and drive the conversation forward. 

In the session that I was in, the conversation covered the plenary keynotes, some ideas coming from the keynote speakers and how we (participants in the virtual meeting) agreed or disagreed, the overall feeling of the conference, the formats and the consequent results of the sessions...

Free bidding for funding seminars for early researchers #PhD #EU #funding

While I am nearing the end of my PhD journey (which is basically: 'type until you drop' and 'what do you mean there is an outside world with real people?'), I am now confronted with: what happens next. I am lucky to have some options (one as a pedagogical adviser which I like), and I also applied for a Marie Curie-Sklodowska fellowship (a highly acclaimed 3 year academic scholarship). But to be honest funding is a main issue for any academic. Which is why I am happy that the KMI (Knowledge Media Institute of The Open University) has made two free webinars available which focus on the act of bidding for funding. Including why you should apply as well as how.

The bidding for funding seminars are aimed at doctoral students as well as early researchers, so an interesting and timely mix. Gladly sharing the description:

"The Bidding for Funding: Opportunities for Students workshop aims to provide an overview of some of the major sources of funding for research and knowledge transfer within UK and EU available to postgraduate research students. It will deal with funding to support their phd projects as well as looking at opportunities to support their research beyond their phd.  Dr Hitesh Patel will provide an overview. The workshop will also provide an opportunity to hear from Dr Sam Eden in the Dept of Physical Sciences, Science Faculty. Dr Eden will share his experience of securing external funding through a range of schemes to develop their academic career. He currently holds an EPSRC Accelerator Fellowship and also had funding from an EU Marie Curie Fellowship. There may also be an opportunity to hear from a PhD student and learn from them about how they have gone about sourcing funding for their phd project. The workshop will cover topics such as:

• OU support for seeking external funding and sourcing funding opportunities
• major sources of UK and EU funding
• submitting proposals
• developing external funding bids – opportunity to look at some successful and unsuccessful proposals and discuss and review these
• questions and answer

Select from replays below to look at the recordings (approx 50 min). 10:00 am Dr Hitesh Patel 11:00 am Dr Sam Eden

Free webinar on phases of Merrill's task-centered #MOOC design #EUMoocs

On 10 March 2016, from 14 - 15 CET (to find your timezone equivalent, look here) the EMMA consortium offers a free webinar on an interactive MOOC design; following Merrill's task-centered MOOC approach. You can find more information on the webinar here, and more information on Merrill's instructional design here. 

This one hour webinar is intended for people willing to improve the pedagogical design of MOOCs. Often MOOCs tend to follow an instructivist approach where learners are mostly expected to acquire and remember the knowledge presented by the teacher. This webinar will guide participants through the phases of Merrill’s task-centered instructional design model. We will show how the model can be applied to MOOC design for engaging learners in active and collaborative knowledge construction through meaningful and practical assignments. Opportunities that task-centered MOOC design offers and challenges that need to be considered will be discussed.

You can register here (for free), and there will be two speakers: 

Mart Laanpere, Institute of digital Technologies, Tallinn University, Estonia
Mart Laanpere received the degree in educational technology (M. Sc) from the University of Twente, the Netherlands and Ph.D. degree in educational science from the Tallinn University. Mart is an experienced lecturer, trainer and a researcher in the field of Technology-Enhanced Learning. He is a co-founder of the Centre for Educational Technology in Tallinn University. Currently he is coordinating the ERA Chair project CEITER (ceiter.tlu.ee). His research interests are related with designing innovative online learning environments, school-level educational innovation, instructional design, learning analytics, assessment of digital competences and supporting professional development of teachers with e-portfolio. He has been the convenor of EERA network on Open Learning and an contributing to e-learning development in various countries, such as Georgia, Moldova, Palestine, Kazakhstan, Afghanistan, Senegal, Croatia and Serbia. Mart is a member of the steering group of the Estonian Strategy for Lifelong Learning 2015 – 2020.

Olga Firssova, WELTEN Institute, The Netherlands
Dr. Olga Firssova is Assistant professor at WELTEN Institute, Centre for Learning, Teaching and Technology, Open University Netherlands. Firssova has been involved in course and curriculum design, quality assurance and evaluation projects at the OU for 10 years and has been teaching various courses at the Master of Educational Science program. Research interests and areas of expertise include course and curriculum design, academic writing and design for inquiry-based learning with technologies. Knowledge construction in Massive Online courses is her new research interest. Currently Olga is involved in two European projects: weSPOT (working environment for inquiry-based learning) and EMMA (European Multiple MOOC Aggregator).