The Executive Committee met twice in the last month! The first time we met using the CISCO Webex system, where we were able to work from 8 different locations with both video and audio, looking at documents managed by our facilitator Tapio Koskinen who was in fact in the US. I have to say the system worked very well and offers significant opportunities for improving our process and reducing cost and time for travel. We dedicated the Webex meeting to business of the sort where brisk movement through an agenda was going to achieve most. Central to this was the preparation of the 2010 conference in Valencia, details of which have just been sent out to colleagues in the EDEN Newsflash. This left us in our second meeting that took place in the beautiful city of Porto, with the chance to look at the strategic possibilities for the development of EDEN.
I have to say a word about the very enjoyable and valuable Open Classroom conference held in Porto, in partnership with the University of Porto and led by Professor Antonio Teixeira of the Universidade Aberta of Portugal. We had more than 100 participants at the meeting, with excellent keynote speakers and parallel sessions. Very innovative was the Twitter trail that was managed under Antonio’s leadership that provided a forum for debate through the meeting, and a record of that debate for later reflection. The Porto Message that resulted from the conference looks to influence leaders in the field of schools education at national and European levels.
The Executive Committee then met over two further sessions looking at a stakeholder analysis, led by Ari-Matti Auvinen. We reflected on the question as to who were the principle stakeholders in EDEN, and how we could more fully meet the range of expectations. I should say too that we welcomed to his first meting of the EC Wim Van Petegem of the Catholic University of Leuven.
The conference also enjoyed a wonderful tour and evening dinner in the Ferreira port Cellars!
