European Schools Project The Aegis For Many Collaborative Projects
Ulf Akerberg
Background
It all started as a research project at the University of Amsterdam back in 1987. Six Geography and English teachers and 80 students were involved in Amsterdam and in Telegraph Creek in British Columbia, Canada. That was way before IT became ICT and network communication was still very rare in school. The Internet was not generally available yet and though there were other networks, they sometimes had to use "Adidas-net", i.e. running with a floppy from one computer to another. In 1988 the foundation of ESP was laid by starting co-operation between The Netherlands, United Kingdom and Germany and conferences were held in London, Amsterdam and Grossburgwedel, Germany. Since then there has been an annual conference in one of the member countries. The sixteenth conference was arranged in Malmö, Sweden, 21-24 March, 2002.
Where are we, and where are we going?
During the 1990s the organization has been growing rapidly. There are now 25 countries involved and the conference was fully booked six weeks in advance. There were 142 participants from 16 countries at this year's conference. The annual conference is a mixture of plenary lectures and different strands of lectures and workshops. Presentation and evaluation of projects is an important feature and so is of course the creation of new ones.
The Director of Education, Matz Nilsson opened the conference by emphasizing the importance of co-operation, to see possibilities in encounters and diversity instead of obstacles. This is as important for Malmö and Sweden as it is for many other member countries that are multicultural. Organizations like ESP promote the use of ICT to improve teaching and learning of course, but also to create better understanding between people. ICT tools offer new ways to do this.
Dr Henk Sligte, University of Amsterdam, Chairman of the board of ESP, opened by talking about the past, present and future of ESP. A main goal is to build virtual, international bridges for collaborative learning and teaching. A connected world full of diversity is a goldmine for schools. He said that the modern teacher is also a learner and a designer. From once being an instructor he/she now has a variety of roles contributing to the enhancement of the pedagogic and didactic repertoire.
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By using ICT:
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Will it enable learners to do something that they could not do before?
Will it enable learners to do something that they could do before, but better?
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As an educational designer it will:
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create the learning space;
enable new learning practices: collaborative learning.
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The learning effects for pupils and teachers are considerable:
intrinsic motivation;
communicative language skills;
deeper insight in domain of conversation;
intercultural insight and know-ledge;
collaborative skills;
living in the information and communication society.
He said that collaboration is a keyword: learn about collaborative projects;establish contact and exchange personal and other information; agree on a project; design and plan it together; and start collaborating!
Dr Göte Dahland from University of Gothenburg presented a paper about"Teachers' in-service training with IT-support" and about how to meet new demands in a changing profession. Four factors were discussed:
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The changing role of the teacher.
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Computer aid in teaching and learning.
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Teachers' necessary previous knowledge.
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The use of IT-support for improvement of teachers' qualifications.
To say that the role of the teacher has changed from being the "sage on the stage" to being a supervisor is to give a somewhat crude picture.
Reality is far more complex. One thing is to be a good supervisor,another that supervising must not lead to a situation where the students are left to themselves "to search for knowledge" in any media that happen to be at hand. Even the very best student needs an interested supporter, capable of asking the emancipatory questions and to discuss research questions and methods of studies, and not the least show new ways.
… all the links in the chain must be functioning if the outcome of competence raising efforts in distance studies for teachers will be a success. Good knowledge by the educators, a perfect technique for the interaction, good and relevant insight in the possibilities of the technique by the participants and finally opportunities to meet each other in person at some occasions during the course.
The IT Director of Malmö, Claes-Olof Olsson, pointed out that ICT for educational purposes must be part of the community's strategic planning. A holistic perspective including learning and technology as well as social and economical aspects is necessary. There is still reason to quote Peter Drucker(1993):
The real challenge ahead is not the technology itself. It is what we use it for. So far, no country has the educational system the knowledge society needs.
"eSchoolnet – The Educational Portal for Schools in Europe" was presented by Angela Andersson, Executive Secretary, European Schoolnet Committee and Magnus Saemundsson, Content Manager, eSchoolnet. eSchoolnet is a service to European schools provided by 23 Ministries of Education in cooperation with The European Commission. The member states comprise 5,500,000 teachers and 70,000,000 pupils. The aim is to strengthen collaboration between schools and foster a European dimension in education.
"European Collaborative Learning Network (ECOLE-network)" was presented by Dr Henk Sligte, University of Amsterdam and Dr Alessandra Talamo,University of Rome. The ECOLE-network is funded by the European Commission under the Comenius 3 action.
Its aims are focused on making available Web-based content for Computer Supported Collaborative Learning projects (or teleprojects), e-learning courses for teachers' professional development in this field, information on new ICT-tools and electronic learning environments. The ECOLE network will also offer support for transforming Comenius school projects into interactive electronic collaboration projects. The period of funding is October 2001 up to October 2004. The consortium encompasses ten members in ten countries, of which nine institutions are involved in ESP as board members. The countries represented in the consortium are The Netherlands, Italy, Denmark, Norway,Sweden, Estonia, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Portugal and Spain. To set the network up we will build both on ESP-experiences and expertise, and on Comenius best practices. The main idea is to collect the precious experiences on collaborative learning projects and to build on them valuable scenarios of ICT usage under a didactic point of view.
By participating in both ESP and ECOLE more teachers can use Comenius1 money for their projects and for visiting conferences. For new teachers previously or currently involved in Comenius1 projects the possibility arises of becoming a member of the ECOLE-network, which is complementary to the ESP-network. Membership of either one of the networks does not exclude membership of the other. It is the intention to organise ECOLE-conferences at least partly combined with ESP-conferences.
A first smaller conference on the ECOLE-network only will be held in Amsterdam in September 2002. More information is to follow at: http://www.ecolenet.nl
Read more about the sixteenth ESP Conference at the conference Web site,where you find abstracts, papers and presentations: www.esp.pedc.se/2002
Ulf Akerberg(mailto;ulf.akerberg@malmo.se) is Deputy Director of the Pedagogical Centre, Malmö, Sweden. He is also the Swedish ESP Coordinator, and a Member of the ECOLE consortium.
