2005-11-30 Berlin
The Online Educa Conference in Berlin (or OEB as it is known) has been attracting an international audience to its annual event since 2002. Doubtless Berlin's famous Christmas markets are part of the attraction, but 1800+ delegates from over 70 countries, 120+ exhibitors and 400+ speakers makes for a useful way of catching up with international trends in e-learning and alerting potential partners to ongoing project activity, so that's XCRI's rationale for attending/excuse and I'm sticking to it.
Particular thanks go to Ann Jeffrey of Southampton's LADIE project for arranging a pre-conference seminar to showcase the JISC Reference Model work. Entitled: "Did you hear the one about the ELF, the Model and the Learning Technologist?", and chaired by Charles Duncan of Intrallect, the seminar involved presentations and question sessions for each of the Reference Models. XCRI's presentation generated quite a lot of interest and questions, with seminar delegates from a number of countries making contact afterwards. The Reference Model seminar also highlighted how aware the projects had become of the links between them. XCRI's take on this was the "e-Patio" (credit to Sam for the term), which provided a graphic illustration of the way curriculum fitted with e-Portfolio, pathways guidance, validation and others:
The big topic at OEB this year was e-Portfolio with speakers from around the world recounting their experience of making e-Portfolio services available to learners and creating suitable personal development planning and support activities. The need for close links between e-Portfolio and curriculum modelling was highlighted by both the XCRI and EPLL (e-Portfolio for Lifelong Learning) Reference Models, and it was apparent that successful e-Portfolio deployment depends on industry sectors being able to articulate competence maps in a way that enables individuals to see where their e-portfolio places them and what learning opportunities might be available to support personal development for a chosen career route. Ways to progress this vision of personal learning plans and pathways guidance was a major topic of discussion, as was the need to build on the working relationship with key partners, such as UCAS, to show that the e-Framework could inspire integrated information activity across the UK HE sector.
Oh, and XCRI and FREMA even talked about Reference Models in the fabulous Sir Norman Foster dome on top of the Riechstag
