EDEN is proudly endorsing the acclaimed and traditional Open Education Week #OEWeek in 2021 as well.
The online webinar series organised by EDEN arching through five days (March 1–5) are coordinated by The Open Education Global, an association of universities, colleges, schools and organisations from all over the world that are committed to the ideals of open education.
The 2021 EDEN OEW, as a celebration of the global Open Education Movement will be also a good time to reflect on changes and achievements influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic and to enhance the possibilities of online and distance learning in today’s “new normal”. During the event you will have access to daily online webinars and panel sessions of expert scholars and practitioners who will present a variety of cutting edge open and online learning topics, from innovations in design to open educational research.
Join us for the following events – participation is free and open! EDEN will issue open badges to acknowledge and appreciate your participation at these events.
Be sure to mark March 1-5 on your calendar!
During the 2021 Open Education Week, EDEN offered the following online events:
Role of the openness in shaping of the post-pandemic education (Role of international associations)
Monday, 1 March 2021, 17:00 CET
Moderator: Ebba Ossiannilsson, Professor, Dr., EDEN EC, EDEN Fellow, EDEN SIG TEL QE, Sweden
Description:
We are facing the biggest disruption of education in history caused by the global health pandemic and it is more important than ever to ensure access to education. As schools closed, over a billion of students have been hampered from learning in the way they used to, and inequalities in access to education have become even more evident. If we take the position that education is common good and should be reachable and available to all, it is our obligation to join efforts and work in this direction. Open Educational Resources (OER) can help in achieving inclusive education aiming to ensure that learners with diverse needs and preferences (such as those with disabilities) have equal opportunities in accessing learning resources, services, and learning experience in general. The Open Education movement is evolving, and besides creating and publishing OERs, focus is shifting to Open Education Practices that can be implemented using OER. It is evident that the Covid-19 crisis has resulted in a paradigm shift in how learners of all ages, worldwide, can access learning. It is, therefore essential, more than ever that the global community come together now to foster universal access to information and knowledge through OER.
In this session, we plan to discuss what actions and approaches could be taken by international associations and communities to contribute to this goal.
Speakers:
- Sandra Kučina Softić
Dr., Assistant Director for Education and User Support, University Computing Centre (SRCE) Head of the E-learning Centre at SRCE, EDEN President
Croatia - George Ubachs
Dr., Secretary, General EADTU
Netherlands - Neil Fassina
Professor, President, Athabasca University, CA
President ICDE - Asha Kanwar
Professor, President & CEO
Commonwealth of Learning - Zeynep Varoglu
Dr., UNESCO OER Dynamic Coalition - Eva Cendon
Professor, Vice-President EUCEN
- Lena Patterson
Vice-President of the Board of Directors at Open Education Global - Michael Gaebel
Higher Education Policy Unit of the European University Association (EUA)
Finding Open Nuggets: Discovering and Demystifying the Published Literature
Tuesday, 2 March 2021, 12:00 CET
Moderator: Mark Brown
Description:
This webinar explores the rich offerings available to European educators in open access journals. It begins by sharing some “good reads” published over the past year and then discusses key lessons, tensions and takeaways emerging from a rich colour pallet of openly available literature in the field of open, online and digital education. Join a lively discussion with experienced authors and journal editors as we uncover some of the “nuggets” available to educators in the open access literature. The conversation aims to help demystify a number of critical reading strategies to support practitioners, scholarly professionals, and new and emerging researchers to successfully locate, critique and translate contemporary theory and research into practice, and back again. By the end of this webinar participants will be better equipped and more knowledgeable about how to locate, interpret and respond to relevant literature in their own educational contexts.
Speakers:
- Mairead Nic Giolla Mhichil
- Wim Van Petegem
- Inés Gil-Jaurena
Taking OER to the Next Level: European Network for Catalysing Open Resources in Education
Tuesday, 2 March 2021, 16:30 CET
Moderator: Ulf-Daniel Ehlers, Professor for Educational Management and Lifelong Learning, Baden-Wuerttemberg Cooperative State University, Germany
Description:
The European Network for Catalysing Open Resources in Education (ENCORE+) is a new initiative launched by more than 10 organisations from higher education and business and co-funded by the European Commission. During the next 3 years, the initiative aims at creating four engaging European network communities – open to anyone interested – which will jointly consolidate a new, integrated vision and understanding of how OER and Open Education can foster innovation in higher education and business. Within each of the four communities, positions and visions will be elaborated:
- How can a new vision for an EU ecosystem of OER repositories look like?
- What are effective Open Education policies and practices for business as well as for higher ed?
- What does an effective quality model look like for OER?
- How is Open Education stimulating innovation in business and higher ed?
We invite you to take part in an initial event in which the founders of the initiative from across Europe take up the thread and to become part of the conversation along with your community peers in order to help shape what Europe’s OER initiative towards 2030 should ideally look like.
Speakers:
- Ulf-Daniel Ehlers
Professor for Educational Management and Lifelong Learning,
Baden-Wuerttemberg Cooperative State University, Germany - Torunn Gjelsvik
Secretary General,
International Council for Open and Distance Education, Norway - Robert Farrow
Senior Research Fellow,
Institute of Educational Technology, The Open University, UK - Orna Farrell
Assistant Professor, National Institute for Digital Learning;
Coordinator, Digital Learning Design Unit, Dublin City University, Ireland - Juliane Granly
Project and Development Manager,
International Council for Open and Distance Education, Norway - Laura Barlassina
Project Manager,
Fondazione Politecnico di Milano, Italy - Silvia Baldiris
Technology-enhanced teaching and learning specialist,
Universidad Internacional de La Rioja, Spain - Tina Marie Monelyon
Researcher, Chair of Education Management and Lifelong Learning,
Baden-Wuerttemberg Cooperative State University Karlsruhe, Germany - Mihajela Črnko
Project Coordinator,
Knowledge 4 All Foundation, United Kingdom
International Workshop Education open during the pandemic
Wednesday, 3 March 2021, 11:00 – 15:30 WET
Description:
Almost a year after education across the world has faced one of the greatest challenges in history – the impossibility of holding courses traditionally in classrooms, online education and online courses have become the only option for teaching over many months or even semesters.
Many teachers in schools and universities have struggled with the adjustment to working and teaching online, using applications, platforms, and digital tools “overnight” for an indefinite period of educational “social distancing”.
In these conditions of uncertainty and in such a confusing period for many actors in the field of education, free access to knowledge, open education, open educational resources, and especially collaboration between individuals and institutions have become the “engine” of digital integration, and digital transformation, even into the most rigid and traditional education systems in the world.
How has the concept of open education actually contributed to improving the conditions for education during the pandemic?
What projects and approaches have been set in motion by universities, associations at local, national, and European level?
How can we improve collaboration in universities, institutions, and the community to make the education process more efficient even in the most vulnerable demographic areas?
Speakers:
- Dr. Diana Andone
- Prof. Dr. Ulf-Daniel Ehlers
- Dr. Sandra Kučina Softić
- Michael Gaebel
- Alison Morrisroe
- Cengiz Hakan AYDIN, PhD
- Prof.univ.dr.ing. Radu Vasiu
- Prof. dr. Adrian A. Adascăliței
- Dr. Gabriela Grosseck
- Dr. eng. Vlad Mihăescu
- Dr. Carmen Holotescu
- Dr. eng. Silviu Vert
- Dr. eng. Andrei Ternauciuc
- Alexandru Luca
- Andrea Medrea
Online educational courses on cultural topics – helping the Creative Industries sector reinvent itself during a crisis- EDEN NAP webinar
Wednesday, 3 March 2021, 17:00 CET
Moderators:
- Alfredo Soeiro, EDEN Executive Committee Member, EUCEN – European Universities Continuing Education Network
- Vlad Mihaescu, EDEN NAP SC Chair, Faculty of Electronics, Telecommunications and Information Technology, Politehnica University of Timisoara
Description:
This webinar proposes to present innovative pedagogical trends, of MOOCs created around the topic of digital cultural heritage. The study cases will demonstrate how these courses are created in order to have a better interaction with students remotely in synchronous and asynchronous ways.
As there is a clear gap in creative and cultural industries education related to digital technologies, these good practice examples will help a large variety of people, from teachers who can find creative ways to interact with their students, people involved in the creative industries and students who can find opportunities for learning.
Last year was filled with lockdowns and restrictions, which hit the Creative Industries sector very bad, thus making such courses related to digital culture very useful for those who more and more need to reinvent themselves.
Speakers:
- Diana Andone
EDEN Vice-President for Communication and Communities of Practice
Director of the eLearning Center at the Politehnica University of Timisoara, Romania - Achilles Kameas
Professor of Pervasive and Global Computing Systems at Hellenic Open University - Isabel Crespo
Europeana Education
Designing hybrid spaces with cultural heritage
Insights from an internationally co-developed MOOC on digital citizenship
Thursday, 4 March 2021, 13:00 CET
Moderator: Timothy Read, EDEN Vice-President for Open Professional Collaboration, Senior Lecturer in Computer Languages and Systems, UNED – Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, Madrid, Spain
Description:
Within the Erasmus+ NEXUS project, a MOOC on active digital citizenship has recently been developed, with the rationale that, due to recent influx of migrants into Europe, a majority of European universities have a student population who are excluded from broader civic or political participation. In a way that is different from the typical MOOCs, that are designed and developed by a single professor, as a “translation” of face-to-face teaching practices in to a massive online experience, the NEXUS MOOC was conceived, designed, developed and reviewed in a fully collaborative fashion among six organizations from different countries.
The webinar will reflect on this experience, that was both extremely enriching for the participating groups and contributed to the coexistence of different perspectives within the MOOC, while being less effective from a production point of view. The underlying question of the webinar will be: can a break-even point between international co-production and effectiveness be found within MOOCs?
Speakers:
- Fabio Nascimbeni
Senior Expert, UNIMED – Unione delle Università del Mediterraneo, Rome, Italy - Cristina Stefanelli
Project Manager, UNIMED – Unione delle Università del Mediterraneo, Rome, Italy - Beatriz Sedano
Research Associate, UNED – Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, Madrid, Spain
Supporting teaching and learning in schools through OER: Lessons from the pandemic
Friday, 5 March 2021, 14:00 CET
Moderator:António Teixeira, EDEN Senior Fellow, Associate Professor, Universidade Aberta, Lisbon, Portugal
Description:
As a result of the impact of Covid-19, schools across Europe and the world had to close for long periods. Learning activities had to be conducted remotely. The massive transition of the European school system to online learning was facilitated by the large number of open educational resources available on the internet. OERs and MOOCs could be found in dedicated aggregator portals, institutional repositories curated by universities, foundations and public agencies or through individual recommendations by peers. Teachers were advised to actively search, use and share them.
In the webinar a number of experts, representing the European Commission, Unesco, universities, NGOs and the school system, will discuss how OER use and reuse has expanded during the pandemic and how this has contributed to support the quality of teaching and learning during these challenging times. They will also analyse what is the role of OERs in the ongoing digital transformation of schools.
Speakers:
- Abby Ross
Chief Executive Officer
Curriki
New York, USA - Andreia Inamorato dos Santos
Scientific Officer, DG Joint Research Centre (JRC), European Commission, Seville, Spain - Agueda Gras-Velázquez
Science Programme Manager / Head of the Science Education Department
European Schoolnet, Brussels, Belgium - Sofoklis Sotiriou
Head of R&D Department
Ellinogermaniki Agogi, Athens, Greece - Tel Amiel
Director, UNESCO Chair in Distance Education
University of Brasilia, Brasília, Brazil