COMBLE

COMBLE meeting in Poland

Mariis2 Comments

Tomorrow my ELL colleague, Heilyn Camacho and I will be going to Poland to meet our partners from the COMBLE project. As part of the COMBLE project Heilyn and I are responsible for developing, implementing and testing a course that aims at educating future trainers in blended learning, and we will be giving a stat on our work and ideas:

We’ve chosen Problem Based Learning (PBL) as the overall pedagogical strategy for the course, and this is by no means a coincidence. When Aalborg University was founded in 1974 it was based on ideas of learning-by-doing and experiential learning that has evolved into a  strategy called Problem Oriented Project Pedagogy (POPP), which can be seen as a particular branch of PBL. The strategy is fundamentally based on group work, and it will be especially interesting to watch how this strategy works in a pure online course. This is also one of the main reasons for using SL in the course, because we hope SL will give the participants a strong sense of presence and co-presence in the learning environment that also consists of Moodle and different web 2.0 technologies.

The course is set to kick-off mid April and Heilyn and I will be working on setting up the Moodle environment and finding relevant places/people to visit in SL. It has not yet been decided where the main teaching and learning activites in SL will take place, but our Polish partners own an island, which we might use.

This course is the second case in my PhD, and in contrast to the MIL course I will not be the only teacher, since we’ve planned that some of my ELL colleagues, incl. Heilyn will teach in-world. This will give me an opportunity to get some feedback and different perspectives on teaching in-world, which I think will be very valuable for my PhD work, so I’m really looking forward to running this course :-)

/Mariis

SL in the COMBLE project

Mariis1 Comment

As part of the COMBLE project the Danish team is responsible for developing, implementing and testing a course that should help future trainers in blended learning. We recently had a meeting in Aalborg with our Polish partner and decided that in the pilot course there will not be sufficient resources for the participants to meet f2f, so we will combine activities in a traditional learning platform (Moodle) with activities in SL.

As it turns out our Polish partner already has an island, which we can use unless Aalborg University decides to buy land before the course is supposed to be tested (spring ’09). Today I went visiting their island, Second UMCS (University Marii Curi-Sklodowsiej):

The arrival area

The Cinema

The Exhibition

The Sandbox

Intimate Classroom

The entrance to the Old Lublin

As you can see there are plenty of possibilities to both meet and explore!

Next step in the COMBLE project will be for all application partners to meet in-world – usually we use Skype and several Google apps, but none of them really gives the same sense of being there together ..

/Mariis

The COMBLE Project

Mariis2 Comments

Tomorrow I’ll go to Berlin to attend a kick-off seminar in the EU Project: COMmunity of Integrated Blended Learning in Europe (COMBLE). Several of my colleges from E-Learning Lab will join me – and after the meetings Friday we’ll stay in Berlin as tourists for 2 days :-)

This description is a C/P from the original EU proposal:

“COMBLE defines new and innovative models for the use of Blended learning in different educational backgrounds (vocational training, enterprises, universities, public bodies). To use the potentials of Blended learning a European wiki-based community called Methopedia will be established. By contributing to the development of Blended learning COMBLE supports ICT relevant methods that are indispensable for lifelong learning in Europe. Moreover, COMBLE will address to management-level, learners and trainers at the same time.
COMBLE will develop a number of products – an applied reference model of Blended Learning, an expert course for trainers, and a European Blended Learning Driver’s License within the overall frame of the Methopedia. These products support the development of a community for best practices and the use of Blended Learning to be used in all educational contexts. Moreover, the quality of education and training in Europe will be enhanced by improving innovative Blended Learning concepts.
COMBLE supports the successful implementation of Blended learning methods and strategies in the formal learning context of Vocational training, Continued Professional Development and Higher education systems. By working closely with application partners COMBLE develops practical, situated and innovative Blended Learning methods.”

I’m looking forward to learning more from this – my first EU project – and I’m sure the work will produce posts in the future :-)

/Mariis