No wonder that EDEN community becomes more and more a reference organisation when speaking about good practices in open education, digital skills and competences, teacher training and leadership development.
From the beginning of 2017, with the advent of the topic of diversity matters was put to the agenda of the EDEN Annual Conference in Jönköping, new events, new collaboration ideas made EDEN a reference point for a couple of global events for transformation of education. How? Through EDEN Community, through EU project results, through experimentations developing leadership skills, sharing practices and contributing to the establishment of comprehensive strategic policy frameworks, discussing incentives and support mechanisms for institutions, and consolidating stakeholders to reach common goals with European and global partners in transformation of education.
One key message of the joint Peer Learning Activity in Malta on January 18, 2017, organised jointly with the ET2020 Working Groups on the Modernisation of Higher Education and Digital Skills and Competences, positioned EDEN, its projects and the initiative of open professional collaboration as a European reference for teacher digital skills development, recognising how leadership academies are important to meet system challenges of transformation of teaching and learning in the digital age. The report of the event says that ”National authorities can support “leadership academies” for institutional leaders that develop the ability to manage change and make appropriate decisions about resource allocation and risk management in the context of digitalisation. They can also provide a forum for the professional development of both institutional leaders and national authorities. Cross-country collaboration in this domain is useful as the experience of the EDEN’s project shows”.
Airina Volungeviciene (EDEN President), Asha Kanwar (COL President) and Svetlana Knyazeva (Unesco IITE)
On the European regional consultation on OER in Malta, on February 23 – 24.organised by the Commonwealth of Learning, the Unesco and the Ministry of Education and Employment of Malta the President of EDEN, together with the President of Commonwealth of Learning, Unesco IITE representatives started discussion on OER, working collaboratively with the rest of 70 delegates from EU members states, open universities, OECD, ICDE and other organizations. With the involvement of all stakeholders they defined requirements for OER accessibility, the division of roles in the design of open educational resources, discussed the open education practices, the quality assurance mechanisms, as well as formulated suggestions for national governments on how open professional collaboration of all stakeholders would be important in finding the right solutions for the current issues in education. They also assessed what impact of non-action would have on tomorrow’s education. EDEN was noted as one of the key stakeholders in further discussion on OER development in Europe.
This is just the start of year 2017, the Year of Open. EDEN EC members work very hard on announcing coming events already in March (Open Education Week in Europe). Dedicated discussions on OER, Open and Digital Education in Europe in EDEN Jönköping annual conference, and further plans will be announced soon.
