The Web2.0 ERC Project that I have been working on with my project partners has now been completed. However, please feel free to access our Web2.0ERC YouTube channel to view some of the videos that we produced and to find a little bit more information on what the project was about.
Here are some photos of a recent trip where I travelled to Korinthos just outside Athens in June. It was for an EU Project partners meeting for our Web2.0 ERC project. Korinthos is a really nice place. It was very warm there that time of year – one day reached a maximum temperature of 38 degrees! Fortunately we had time to travel to the site of ancient Korinthos which was of great interest to me as my first degree is in Classical Civilisation.
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I am just posting details of a new EU Project that I am involved in. It is a very exciting project which is described more in-depth below.
This project aims to enable the mass of educators who find ICT confusing and frightening to have a simple and secure environment to use ICT within their class. Today the ability of educators to use, create content and communicate on the Web is limited by complexity and sophistication of the offers available. Moreover many tools exist and teachers do not have time nor expertise to identify the best solution for their needs. Meanwhile students use and communicate easily and openly using Web2.0 tools (blogs , wikis, social networking, etc) and the technology gap between educators & students grows despite best efforts of national and European agencies. However, these tools have pedagogic value arising from sharing, communication and knowledge discovery that teachers could use to provide a more motivating, engaging, relevant and collaborative environment for students.
There is a clear need for:
- understanding how Web2.0 tools can be used effectively within education
- developing a pedagogy and guides for Web2.0 at an appropriate level for educators
- examples of best practices
- an integrated and secure environment (restricted to educators & their students)
- single source for these tools with appropriate support.
This project will:
- establish a European Resource Centre (ERC) for simplified and targeted Web2.0 tools, for schools, HE and adult education
- provide clear examples of how to use them in class with accompanying pedagogy, guides and videos
- produce a customisable Integrated Web2.0 Platform with Single Sign-On (SSO) for educators to use
- evaluate platform with institutions across Europe
- foster and build collaborative communities to exchange best practice and for experienced Web2.0 educators to mentor new users
- disseminate results.
Impact will be a significant increase in number of educators who can use Web2.0 tools in a pedagogically sound way, leading to an increase in the digital competency of both educators and students.
Should any educators (e.g. primary, secondary, further and higher education, adult education) be interested in this project further details can be found from the following links:
Project Website: The Web 2.0 ERC Project
Facebook page: Web 2.0 ERC
Twitter Page: Web 2.0 ERC EU Project
Gavin Baxter