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INTERNATIONAL
FEDERATION FOR INFORMATION PROCESSING
DRAFT
Minutes of Open Annual General Meeting (AGM) 2011 for
Working Group 3.3
Meeting by e-mail from 22nd February 2011 and on Monday 7th March in Nashville, USA
Executive Summary
1. Apologies |
Noted |
|
2. Minutes of previous meeting |
Corrected and accepted |
3. Matters arising from minutes |
None |
|
4. Membership proposals |
a) We agreed to add 6 Corresponding Members at the meeting and 4 more subsequently. b) One Intending Member was approved c) Four Full Members were approved. |
|
5. Reports on recent and current WG 3-3 activities |
a) The JCAL Special Issue is proceeding, with one or two papers undergoing final revision. b) The pre-conference workshop at SITE went well and will generate a collaborative draft position paper on game changers and virtual worlds in teacher education. We thanked SITE for the keynote slot and agreed to ask TC3 to provide a SITE slot at WCCE’13. |
|
6. Communications – website |
All going well – we agreed to improve the web-site by transferring it to a hosting service and ensure two people have full control (succession planning). We’ll set up a WG3.3 area in the TC3 NING and explore its potential. |
|
7. Future activities of WG 3.3 |
a) The monthly member template will be sent to all members to gather brief details on all current projects. b) Andrew will contact Christine to see if she is still interested in the Maths Special Issue. c) Agreed to join WG 3.5 in Manchester in June/July 2012 d) At WCCE 2013 we will offer a symposium on Researching Technology Enhanced Learning and report on the EduSummits. e) Mary, Margaret and some other full members of WG3.3 will attend the EDUSummit 2011 at UNESCO HQ, Paris. f) Mary shall attend the TC3 meeting in Torun, Poland in June 2011. |
|
8. News from IFIP Technical Committee 3 for Education |
Many thanks to Nick for the Report from ‘Key Competencies in the Knowledge Society’ from the World Congress in Brisbane last September. |
|
9. Date and location of next AGM |
Manchester in June/July 2012 |
10. AOB |
We discussed the possibility of arranging online attendance at WCCE 2013 for suitable students who cannot attend. |
FULL MINUTES
1. Apologies (only for those who can neither attend Nashville meeting nor join in online).
2. Minutes of 2010 AGM in France (attached, to be approved)
Approved - Valentina Dagiene, Tony Jones
Peer
Stechert I accept the agenda and the minutes of Amiens. Just one slight
correction: My name is listed twice in the area "apologies", but not
in "also face-to-face in Amiens, France". I enjoyed the discussions
there and attended the meeting of WG 3.1, because I was asked to take notes for
the minutes of the group.
APPROVED
3. Matters arising from minutes
4. Membership proposals (using these definitions (that for corresponding member was slightly modified at the meeting)
|
Category |
|
|
|
Corresponding member |
WAS: Open to anyone: can attend meetings and observe; can join e-mail list. NOW: People with an interest in educational research in IT can apply. Can attend meetings and observe; can join e-mail list. |
No voting rights |
|
Intending member |
Proposed and seconded by a Member who knows them. Voted into the group at a WG3.3 meeting. |
No voting rights |
|
Member |
Intending Member who has participated in at least two IFIP events and been approved by their country representative and TC3. |
Full voting rights |
Members can link to the WG3.3 NING on their Linked-In pages.
4a Proposals for Corresponding Member
These have been checked and all appear to be appropriate as corresponding members.
Nominee |
Institution |
Country |
Proposer |
Seconder |
Decision |
Nicki Dabner - Senior Lecturer |
University of Canterbury |
NZ |
Niki Davis |
Andrew Fluck,Franziska Spring, Jianwei Zhang, Bob Munro |
APPROVED |
Hasniza
Nordin
|
Niki |
Mary |
APPROVED |
||
Christina Preston
|
MirandaNet |
||||
Douglas' Agyeiddagyei@yahoo.com |
Ghana |
Joke |
Mary |
APPROVED |
|
Serkan Ucan
|
Kings College London |
Turkey |
Mary |
Joke |
APPROVED |
I-fen Lin
|
Kings College London |
Taiwan |
Mary |
Joke |
APPROVED |
Ghaida Alayyar
|
NL |
Joke |
Mary |
APPROVED |
Requests subsequent to the AGM
Nominee |
Institution |
Country |
Proposer |
For vetting by 11th April by |
Decision |
Tiberio
Garza
|
Texas A&M University |
USA |
self |
Mary Webb |
APPROVED |
Patty Kostkova |
eHealth |
GB |
self |
Margaret Cox |
APPROVED |
Robert
Hancock
|
Southeastern Louisiana University |
USA |
Andrew |
Mary Webb |
APPROVED |
Becky
Sue Parton
|
Southeastern Louisiana University |
USA |
Andrew |
Mary Webb |
APPROVED |
Margaret Cox: Can we send the corresponding members an email asking them to list all their IFIP contributions so far and reminding them that if they are interested in becoming full members that they need to have E.g. Attended 3 conferences in the meantime etc
APPROVED
4b Proposals for Intending Member
Nominee |
Institution |
Country |
Proposer |
Seconder |
Decision |
|
|
Boise State University |
USA |
Niki |
Joke |
APPROVED |
4c Proposals for Member
Nominee |
Institution |
Country |
Proposer |
Seconder |
Decision |
|||||
|
|
University of Twente |
NL |
Joke Voogt |
Niki Davis |
APPROVED |
|||||
|
|
USA |
Niki Davis |
Joke Voogt |
APPROVED |
||||||
|
|
AU |
Joke |
Niki |
APPROVED |
||||||
|
|
NZ |
Andrew |
Niki and Margaret Cox |
APPROVED |
||||||
5. Reports on recent and current WG 3-3 activities
a. Status update on JCAL special issue
Rosa:
a) As far as the
recent and current WG 3-3 activities and, in
particular, the JCAL special issue, I would like to have some more
info on the state of the papers. I have sent a revised paper at the
end of August and I have not received any comment from then. Is my
paper one of those to be further revised or not? When the special
issue will be published (can yuo provide a rough evaluation?)
Mary: ex-Bento Goncalves – papers have been developed – can fill an issue – some
papers are still being improved – if can’t get them sorted might just have
those that are OK published as a part-issue.
b. This
workshop – format works well (eg pre-conference workshop) – follow on into SITE
with a symposium AND a keynote is marvellous.
Gerald has asked if there could be an ongoing IFIP slot at SITE. This will be
requested at the SITE executive.
WG3.3 will also request a slot in WCCE be reserved for SITE through TC3 meeting
in Torun. This could be attractive for USA people.
Thanks to SITE for inviting us.
OUTCOME – proposed position paper on game changers and virtual worlds in
teacher education – to WikiEducator and parallel conversation in the Ning
(1-30Apr).
Several papers will be put forward to journals for publication.
We resolved to seek funding for international collaboration. Peter & Joke
are on SITE executive international board – WG3.3 supports them on fostering
this kind of funding.
Papers considered here will be forwarded to journals etc. for publication, with
acknowledgement to WG3.3 for critique and feedback provided at this workshop
[Niki will provide a phrase]. We will provide links to abstracts of papers at
SITE.
6. Communications – website: http://www.ifipwg3-3.org/
Agreed to go hosted – Niki will share.
Marta: LinkedIn group is for internal communication,
voting and activities of strictly members of WGs and TC3.
Ning platform is open for any professional to join TC3 and any WGs, allowing new blood to fow in. But, there must be a way to make quick decision by administration on "who is any professional". By making the person join linkedIn (where one can see the professional profile of a person and professional contact). It can take only a few seconds to decide on the previous question. Remember, previously it took about a year with the old method to check a new member and authenticate. This method could attract new potential members (PhD students and younger professionals) who thus become associate members by following this process. The rest is to be decided by WG members themselves, how to involve new associates.
I would like to give all rights to WG, to do the
administration of their own groups. Please let me know if there is some
management function that you need and to whom I should assign it. On the other hand,
members should be informed that by clicking on the Groups and their own WG,
they could join.
We decided -
7. Future activities of WG 3.3
a. Members
to report on their relevant research work
Rosa & Bob: it would be useful to compile a
list of members research at/post Nashville.
Andrew will send the monthly member template to all members.
b. Further Publications
Christine:
Right now I'm at
a math education conference in Freiburg, Germany and listening to Kaye Stacey,
University of Melbourne. She is talking about "Integrating
Mathematically-Able Software into Teaching
Mathematics" - very interesting
Andrew will contact Christine to see if she is still interested, and if so,
circulate a call for paper and a timeline.
c. Joining WG 3.5 in Manchester in June/July 2012. Primary-focussed conference chaired by David Benzie. Nick Reynolds is chair of WG3.5. David Gibson offered to be on the Programme Committee. AGREED WG3.5 will be involved. Proposed ‘serious gaming’, ‘research methods’ and Pedagogical model including TPACK+ be put forward as themes. Possible the position paper could be presented, and a discussion on where to from that. WG3.3 AGM also.
d. WCCE 2013 we could plan to do a symposium in Researching TEL. Our WG focus is on Research. We might include in this a report back on the impact of the EDU Summitt 2011 on policy and practice. A SITE session. A co-session with other Technical Committees – perhaps on virtual worlds, data mining, learner analytics etc. Needs a good set of technical infrastructure. Can we get EU finding to provide some travel bursaries?
e. EDUSummitt 2011 – Paris, UNESCO HQ- Mary and Margaret will be involved on the PC representing 3.3 – Active full members of WG3.3 will be invited by Joke.
f. TC3 meeting in Torun 2011: June Mary shall attend Can EIT be indexed by ISI Thompson or Scopus?
g. Others? – Peer is no longer into Gaming – but on digital storytelling…… Watching brief…..
8.
News from IFIP Technical Committee 3 for Education
Nick: See KCKS Report at end of previous Minutes
Thanks to Nick for providing this report. Will consider incorporating some of
this material in our position paper.
9.
Date and location of next AGM.
2012 Manchester
10. AOB
Joke – impecunious PhD student – can online attendance at WCCE 2013 be made
possible?
Minutes of Annual General
Meeting 2010 for
Working Group 3.3 (Research)
The 2010 Annual General Meeting took place by e-mail from 29th June 2010 and on Monday 28th June in Amiens, France followed by further email discussion concluding Tuesday 6th July.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
1. We accepted three corresponding members and two (three as at 30Aug10) new full members.
2. A book (Researching IT in Education by Routledge) has been published and a special issue of Journal for Computer Assisted Learning (JCAL) is in progress.
3. The TC3 NING will be used to discuss the next two journal special issues:
· Games Based Learning (Editors Wolfgang Mueller & Rosa Maria Bottino) in a journal such as British Journal for Educational Technology (BJET)?
· ICT in Maths Education (Editor Christine Bescherer)
4. Various WG 3.3 members will be at the World Computer Congress in Brisbane, Australia in September 2010.
5. Future meeting events:
a. 2011 - IFIP WG3.3 Workshop 5–6 March Nashville, Tennessee, USA in association with SITE (Society for Information Technology in Teacher Education) Conference –6-11 March 2011. Part of this 2 day workshop will focus on discussion and feedback on papers to support their development into journal articles. Proposed Themes:
· Games Based Learning
· ICT in Maths Education
· Blended learning
· Futures
b. 2012 –working group conference in late June with WG 3.5 in Manchester, England OR AERA 2012 in USA OR an open IFIP conference with 3.1, 3.5 and 3.9 in Europe.
c. 2013 – In conjunction with World Conference on Computers in Education (WCCE) in Melbourne, Poland or Asia.
6. Next AGM: 6 March 2011 Nashville, Tennessee, USA.
FULL MINUTES
In attendance:
E-mail: Niki Davis (New Zealand), Andrew Fluck (Australia), Valentina Dagiene (Lithuania), Ulrich Kortenkamp (Germany), Peter Twinning (England), Rosa Maria Bottino (Italy), Jianwei Zhang (China), Clark Quinn (USA), Bob Munro (Scotland), Barry Quinn (GB), Margaret Cox (GB), Ulrich Kortenkamp (Germany), Robert Aitken (USA).
and also face-to-face in Amiens, France:
Mary Webb (England)[in the chair], Anthony Jones (Australia), Nick Reynolds (Australia), Kleopatra Nikolopoulou (Greece), Valentina Dagiene (Lithuania), Christine Bescherer (Germany), Wolfgang Müller, Christophe Reffay, John Murnan, Bent Andreson, Gerald Fuschtek , Jari Kovisto, Bernard Cornu, Jeonghee Seo, Woojin Paik, Peer Stechert (Germany)
Apologies:
Anne McDougall (Australia), Franziska Spring (Switzerland), Vince Ham
(New Zealand), Steve Kennewell (England), Geoff Romeo (Australia), Sergei
Christochevsky (Russia), Helen Drenoyianni (Greece), Paolo Rocchi (Italy),
Lampros Stergioulas (England), Peer Stechert (Germany), Joke Voogt
(Holland), Johannes Magenheim (Germany), Andrea Kárpáti (Hungary), Baltasar
Fernandez Manjon (Spain), Peer Stechert (Germany), Tobias Nelkner (D), Jonathan
San Diego (GB), Bruce Elsen (GB).
1. Opening
Mary Webb opened the meeting on 29th June:
Welcome to our AGM 2010 for Working Group 3.3. I do hope that all of you can actively participate in the discussion in the virtual AGM. The open meeting in Amiens will pick up issues from the virtual AGM and may enable prospective members to join in. Many thanks to all active members in the group for the hard work and enthusiasm they have put in during the year.
2. Minutes of 2009 AGM in Brazil were approved.
3. Matters arising from minutes : none
4. Membership proposals (using these definitions)
|
Category |
|
|
|
Corresponding member |
Open to anyone: can attend meetings and observe; can join e-mail list. |
No voting rights |
|
Intending member |
Proposed and seconded by a Member who knows them. Voted into the group at a WG3.3 meeting. |
No voting rights |
|
Member |
Intending Member who has participated in at least two IFIP events and been approved by their country representative and TC3. |
Full voting rights |
4a Proposals for Corresponding Member
Nominee |
Institution |
Country |
Proposer |
Seconder |
Decision |
Djordje Kadijevich |
Megatrend University & Mathematical Institute, Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (SANU), Belgrade |
Serbia |
Mary Webb |
Christine Bescherer |
accepted |
|
Dr Seo Jeonghee jhseo@keris.or.kr |
Korea Education and Research Information Service (KERIS) |
Korea |
Mary Webb |
Christine Bescherer |
accepted |
|
Dr Woojin Paik |
Department of Computer Science, Konkuk University |
Korea |
Mary Webb |
Christine Bescherer |
accepted |
4b Proposals for Intending Member
Nominee |
Institution |
Country |
Proposer |
Seconder |
Decision |
none
4c Proposals for Member
Nominee |
Institution |
Country |
Proposer |
Seconder |
Decision |
Bent B. Andresenbba@mail.dk |
|
|
Mary Webb |
Christine Bescherer |
accepted |
Libby Jaredecj20@cam.ac.uk |
University of Cambridge and King’s College London |
England |
Mary Webb |
Christine Bescherer |
accepted |
|
Christine
Redman |
Melbourne
Graduate School of Education |
Austalia |
Margaret Cox |
Mary Webb |
accepted by e-mail |
4d Resignations
Nominee |
Institution |
Country |
Betty Collis |
|
|
Jef Moonen |
|
|
5. Reports on recent and current WG 3-3 activities
a. JCAL special issue (Mary Webb)
i) Currently many of us are working hard on this-finalising papers, reviewing etc.. Some of the papers have been sent to JCAL already. They make interesting reading and this seems a very worthwhile activity. We hope the special issue will come out later this year.
ii) Mary Webb: Christine Bescherer was planning another one with a mathematics focus – how is that going Christine?
à Tony Jones, Libby Jared ,… asking members from other WGs – outline a focus
iii) Jianwei Zhang: We may consider putting together a special issue on new methods for studying and analyzing learning in technology-enriched contexts, harnessing natural, distributed, longitudinal data to understand learning interactions and assess student progress.
b. WCC 2010 in Brisbane, 20-23 September 2010 (Nick Reynolds, Andrew Fluck)
Nick Reynolds: Very briefly I can say that we have some 43 papers to be presented at the Learn IT stream for the TC3 Conference Key Competencies for the Knowledge Society. It is my understanding that the Learn IT stream (History of Computing and Education) will be the largest. Papers have all been edited and sent for publication to Springer – quite a job in that, especially given the formatting and referencing requirements. I can’t say off hand how many 3.3 papers are in the 43 but we do have a strong and interesting program. I will be making some recommendations about ways to update and keep current membership lists to the TC3 AGM, as this caused me some concern when trying to arrange the review process. My Co-Chair, Márta Turcsányi-Szabó, needs to be recognised for her wonderful efforts
c. Others?
“The Book”: Researching IT in Education” published at the beginning of 2010 by Routledge
- Proposal for Special Issue in BJET, focus on “creativity” – a definition would be needed first to know what it will be about – who would like to be the editor? The focus would be on “game based learning” (suggestion from Wolfgang Müller à so he’ll be one of the editors, maybe Peter Twining the other?)
6. Communications – website: http://www.ifipwg3-3.org/
Mary Webb: Our website: http://www.ifipwg3-3.org/ has been well maintained by Andrew Fluck – many thanks Andrew.
I am hopeful that the TC3 NING will support our online
collaboration and that we will be able to conduct discussions through
that and reduce email. This will depend on us using it but I
do think it will be a bit better and easier than Yahoogroups. The
free Yahoo provision has served us well though thanks to Andrew. For
the present I suggest we keep the website at http://www.ifipwg3-3.org/
Andrew-perhaps you could check it is up to date and include link
to Amiens workshop http://www.dep.u-picardie.fr/ifip/spip.php?rubrique4.
[DONE!] As soon as Marta has set up the TC3 NING we (Andrew, Nick and
I -I hope) will look at facilities, enable your access and see how it can
support our ongoing activities.
Peter Twining: If 3.3 wanted to have a space in the Vital Website (which would provide ability to have web pages, upload resources, wiki, forum, blogs, flash meetings, etc) that could be arranged very quickly. The forum provides email notifications (can be configured to immediate, daily, weekly). See http://www.vital.ac.uk
We also have Elluminate Live! – so if we wanted to have video/audio conference meetings/events we could do so.
If you wanted to try out Elluminate Live then you could join one of our sessions – see http://www.vital.ac.uk/community/course/category.php?id=81 for a list of current and past ones (you can playback the recordings) – there is one today (Monday) at 4pm. All of this would be free of charge. Please let me know if any of it would be of interest.
Short input from Bernard Cornu:
· What is TC 3?
· Why Education is important for IFIP?
· National representatives of IFIP should become involved in education.
· NING social network will be established shortly as a permanent place for TC 3
Margaret Cox: re: Bernards’ suggestions, maybe we could build on this idea and starting working on a thought paper on why Education is so important for the field of IT. E.g. 21st Century skills, interface between IT technologies and learning; theories underpinning researching ICT in Education which provide some longer term consistency.
7. Future activities of WG 3.3
a. Further Publications
Bob Munro: I agree that special issues in Journals are a good idea (in addition to papers in EAIT). What about deciding at Amiens on an additional focus to Christine’s (maybe creativity-oriented) and then targeting an appropriate journal.
Clark Quinn: While BJET (British Journal of Educational Technology) ostensibly is British, it really is international, and out of *all* ed and ed research journals it has been climbing: 2009 Impact Factors have been released and BJET’s Impact Factor has increased from 1.041 in 2008 to 1.255 in 2009, which places it 32/139 in the new Education and Educational Research category. I'd guess Nick Rushby would be open to a special issue. Let me know if you'd like me to ask him (with the disclaimer that I'm on the editorial board, which I guess would mean I have to excuse myself from reviewing any submissions).
Jianwei Zhang:I agree that BJET is a good option to explore; Technology, pedagogy, and assessment-related issues could be a very interesting topic for a special issue in this journal.
Peter Twining: Potentially interested in co-editing a special issue on Games based learning (though my expertise is more on Open Virtual Worlds than ‘games’). We need to distinguish between:
· what I would call ‘Open Virtual Worlds’ such as Second Life, which have no pre-defined purpose from a user perspective and provide tools for creating/extending the world,
· ‘Closed Virtual Worlds’ such as WoW, where there are clear purposes (e.g. killing the big bad monster) and where everything you can create is pre-scripted)
· games (which may be played on a variety of platforms, including web-based games, hand-held games, console games, PC games, etc)
Rosa Bottino: I am potentially interested in being involved in the editing of the special issue on games and learning. My Institute and I, in particular, are now involved in the new EC funded Network of Excellence on Serious Games and Education that will start at the beginning of the Autumn. So, I can provide links with this community, if useful.
Margaret Cox: Maybe our next group conference could be on Serious Games and learning – wide enough to include informal learning. Although I know SITE is a very good group and a good conference, WG3.3 focus is Educational Research so a presence at AERA2011 would be more appropriate. We did a WG presentation in 2008 (or was it 2007) so maybe it is time to do a presentation again. AERA 2011 is from Friday, April 8 - Tuesday, April 12 in New Orleans, Louisiana. See http://www.aera.net/AboutAERA.htm. The deadline for submissions is July 15th 2010. All submissions are reviewed by AERA members.
What about offering a
symposium building on the JCAL issue and the workshops at Amiens?
If this is too soon perhaps we could aim to have a WG3.3 meeting while at AERA
2012 –giving us more time to plan.
We have had lots of IFIP meetings in many countries, but I don’t remember any
being in the US for TC3 for a long time.
Mary
Webb: I agree with Margaret that a presence again at AERA fairly soon would be
beneficial –perhaps a symposium in 2012. I know this would not suit all but it
could still be an additional event to our main meeting.
Some want a European event – we have an offer from 3.5 to join in a working
group conference (a larger and more open event than the Amiens workshop) in
Manchester in late June 2012. We must let 3.5 know by September whether we want
to join them for this so please indicate whether you would attend and whether
you could serve on the programme committee.
Ulrich Kortenkamp – offered to be on programme committee
Journal Special Issues
Games Based Learning (Editor Wolfgang Mueller)
ICT in Maths Education (Editor Christine Bescherer)
b. Working Group 3.3 2011 event –voted at 2009 AGM to be 6-11 March 2011 in Nashville, Tennessee, USA at SITE (Society for Information Technology in Teacher Education)
Rosa Bottino: It is worth considering that, due to the severe reduction of public funds in more or less all the European countries it could be difficult to have many participants able to travel to USA.
Bob Munro: Rosa is absolutely right. Although I think the Conference in Nashville would be desirable and could tie two meetings together very cost effectively money will be tight (particularly in the University sector) - for some time to come. Look at the way Becta got swept aside. We've just had a letter from our Principal saying that because of the Budget cuts in the UK the staffing/resourcing (which has just be pruned quite drastically) etc. will have to be looked at again over the summer.
Niki
Davis: Details of the conference are at http://site.aace.org/conf/
I recommend a WG 3.3 workshop could take place on Sunday and Monday 6-7 March
2011. To be followed a symposium and Keynote panel to disseminate and develop
the outcomes at the SITE conference. Overarching dates would then be: March 6 -
11, 2011.
I was the person who suggested the SITE conference in Nashville Tennessee as a
venue because I have a close association with the society and can help to
negotiate an appropriate level of support and independence. I would also be
prepared to be a leader of the event if our WG wishes. While I was President of
SITE I responded to a similar request for university deans who whose ICT
leadership development was being supported by Cisco and that went well for all
partners and led to others. So there are successful presidents.
Mary and I have checked with SITE leadership including the president Gerald
Knezek and Exec Director Gary Marks (CEO of AACE). There would be no additional
charge, and it is possible that we could negotiate up to 4 invited speakers for
a Keynote panel, so there could be support for some participants at least in
terms of conference fees. This could ameliorate the challenges noted by Rosa
and others for obtaining financial support to attend. AACE provides the
conference organization for SITE so that is also a benefit that we can draw on.
Gary's response so far is "Hi Niki, One our goals has been to help other
groups to co-locate meeting in conjunction with SITE. This was very successful
for both PT3 and SITE. If the meeting is held Sunday and Monday, SITE can
absorb any cost for the WG meeting space. All the best, Gary"
In addition to meeting accommodation support, I should be able to negotiate use
the online conference submission review database, if we wish, with a special
code to identify our WG meeting.
It is unusual to have an IFIP WG meeting in the USA, but that is not a bar to
one. It has the advantage of increasing attraction to some good educational
researchers to our WG 3.3 meeting from within North America, if we wish. It
also puts us in a similar time zone to countries in South America should we
wish to use some synchronous meeting software to extend our participation.
Mary Webb: Many thanks to Niki for formulating this strong proposal.
I understand colleagues’ difficulties with attending far-flung conferences. I have a similar problem and feel restricted by both time and expense. Therefore I intend to attend only one conference per year so it needs to be worthwhile. I believe this working group meeting at SITE will be very valuable both for the working group meeting and attending the SITE conference. Furthermore we can hope to encourage more North American colleagues to join IFIP
I am also hopeful that the organisers in Nashville will provide good technology to support colleagues linking in from distant locations.
Nominees for WG3.3 @ SITE programme committee: Niki Davis (chair), Joke Voogt, Jianwei Zhang, Bob Munro, Mary Webb.
2011 IFIP WG3.3 Workshop 5–6 March Nashville, Tennessee, USA in association with SITE (Society for Information Technology in Teacher Education) Conference –6-11 March 2011.
Proposed Themes for IFIP WG3.3 Workshop in Nashville
· Games Based Learning
· ICT in Maths Education
· Blended learning
· Futures
Part of this 2 day workshop will focus on discussion and feedback on papers to support their development into journal articles
c. International Scientific track on "Computer science education research conference " of the bi-annual Conference Series of NIOC, a Dutch foundation on Computer Science Education – awaiting further detail
Rosa Bottino: I think that for the group in the future it would be good to have an event by its own and not in conjunction with other events.
Mary Webb: I agree that it would be good to run an open IFIP conference and I think we should consider that for 2012. I think this needs to be joint with other group(s) and I think 3.1, 3.5 and 3.9 may be interested to join us especially if we can identify a good venue. I think we need a nice place in Europe with good local organiser, good technology and good technical support. Any ideas?
I am assuming our main working group event in 2013 will be at WCCE so the final decision about that venue may affect our planning. Nevertheless I think we should begin planning now. It could be in Melbourne, Poland or Asia. If we hold a symposium à what focus? à creativity ;-)
d. Others?
Peter Twining: I am currently a member of BERA Council – and would be happy to facilitate links between BERA and WG3.3
8. News from IFIP Technical Committee 3 for Education
WCCE 2013 venue and exact date will be agreed in Autumn. Expressions of interest have been received from Melbourne and Poland. A date of 15th September has been set for full proposals to be received – they hope to also get one from Asia
Other working groups have events planned mostly attached to other conferences. For 2011 WG3.1 has a proposal for a meeting in Kenya based in a secondary school. Pieter Hogenbirk (chair WG3.1) thinks that WG3.1 members may be interested in attending WG3-3 working group meeting if held at SITE and perhaps some 3-3 members may be interested in going to Kenya. These ideas still to be confirmed at WG AGMs. Most working groups are finding difficulties maintaining any momentum or activity between meetings – I think actually our group has done particularly well by focusing on journal special issues.
Kenya 2011 WG3.1: As I think I mentioned WG3.1 are planning a meeting in Mombasa, Kenya July 2011. They are inviting other TC3 members especially in 3-3 and so I am passing the message on. In particular they are looking for an editor who is a native English speaker. I have no further details yet but will keep you informed.
Online collaboration in TC3. TC3 agreed to fund setting up a NING for TC3 including all working groups. This was agreed after much discussion and good presentation by Marta Turcsanyi-Szabo. Marta has investigated many Web 2.0 tools and NING seems to be most suited to TC3’s needs for collaboration and exchange of information/ideas. NING is about to introduce a charging system and has a stable well- supported product. TC3 will pay for the NING and for one of Marta’s student to set up and oversee it under Marta’s supervision. I think this will be very useful and will allow us to discuss more efficiently.
Use of TC3 online provision (NING)
As soon as NING available 2 discussions will be started:
1. Games Based Learning (Wolfgang Mueller) : Online sharing of ideas and developing papers
2. ICT in Maths Education (Christine Bescherer) : Online sharing of ideas and developing papers
Notes on other possible online discussion / knowledge sharing:
- Further themed discussion
- Develop/ refine / improve concept map –online concept mapping tool?
- Link from concept map online to people’s research interests and / or to important research
- Further develop concept map with layers
- F2F meetings are important, but we need to communicate between meetings and engage with those unable to attend a meeting.
- Offer from Korea to use a video-conferencing system. Time will need to be considered.
- Horizon Report [Wolfgang] – can we use this?
9. Date and location of next AGM
6 March 2011 Nashville, Tennessee, USA in association with SITE (Society for Information Technology in Teacher Education) Conference.
10. AOB
Clark Quinn: Is WG 3.3 really only focused on education? That is: formal K12 and higher ed? How about workplace learning (c.f. Impact journal of workplace elearning, http://www.journal.elnet.com.au/index.php?journal=impact)? Informal learning? Lifelong?
Ulrich Kortenkamp: In my opinion it should include also informal learning and variations.
Peter Twining: I agree – we should be focussed on learning (formal, informal irrespective of where it happens)
KCKS Review – Emerging Themes and Directions
Nicholas Reynolds, Co-Editor: KCKS
Introduction
Not surprisingly for a conference entitled, Key Competencies in the Knowledge Society, competency was a major focus of these proceedings. This was, however, not the only theme with significant interest given to areas of, amongst other things, Virtual Worlds and Learning, Social Networking Tools and Digital Literacy.
The term ‘competencies’ was an excellent choice for inclusion in a conference title given the many varied and valuable approaches given to the term throughout the conference. It is apparent that as with any international educational context different values are given to different areas of competency and what is seen as significantly important in one national context is not so important in another. Be that as it may, there was enough similarity of vision underlying the papers and the discussions that surrounded them to inform this report. In the following sections the headings above are addressed. It must be pointed out, however, that these four areas are not mutually exclusive and that there is significant cross over between the fields. Not the least is the stated importance for competence in all reported areas.
Competencies
Within the Competencies heading, three clear themes emerged. The first involves the actual definition of the term itself and how that can be applied in improving educational outcomes at all levels. TC3 could take the opportunity to investigate the meanings of this term and even formalise some working definitions of the term itself, even before a pathway towards competency is developed. A look to authors such as Dorge, and Diethelm and Dorge indicates that the work of defining competencies has begun. Similarly, Domik and Fischer, Carvalho, and Ibanez, Crespo and Kloos (specifically referring to Virtual Worlds) seek to define competency in context and to identify the essential competencies and how to assess and develop them. Taking a different approach, Tarrago and Wilson seek a development of educational management systems in an attempt to identify and develop competencies.
These authors are just a small sample but represent the different approaches taken by nations, by education institutions and by authors. The commonality of identifying relevant and appropriate competencies cannot be ignored.
The importance of understanding competencies in all aspects of ICT in Education came through in many papers. In addition to those mentioned above, authors addressed issues of competencies in teacher education (both primary and secondary), digital literacy, lifelong learning and many other specific areas.
Virtual Worlds and Environments
While a somewhat specialised area, and one that requires certain expertise to design, implement and develop, Virtual Worlds featured significantly in KCKS proceedings. As mentioned earlier, Ibanez et al. seek ways to assess competencies in Virtual World environments. In a useful section, they refer to the European Qualifications Framework for Life Long Learning (EQF) definitions of Knowledge, Skills and Competence.
In a highly specialised paper Suman, Amini, Elson and Reynolds report on a Virtual World project for the education of dentists. While this project is beyond the reach of many it demonstrates powerful connections between emerging technologies (including haptics), new pedagogical approaches and open source technologies. Less ambitious projects that focus on the development of virtual environments (as opposed to Virtual Worlds) include the use of virtual space to build collaborative research training (Rodriguez, Bertone and Garcia-Martinez), the development and use of adaptive web-based learning (Simko, Barla and Bielikova), investigating the affective dimension in the ROODA VLE (Longhi, Behar and Bercht), and the use of video annotation technologies in improving pre-service teacher education (Magenheim, Reinhardt, Roth, Moi and Engbring).
Social Networks
Not only were social networks presented in KCKS as part of the proceedings, they also appeared as part of the conference interactions. This in itself indicates the importance of this phenomenon to TC3 and to educators. A very important presentation by Marta Turcsanyi-Svabo outlined possible future directions for TC3 in terms of its use of social networks for communication, socialisation and academic discourse. Throughout the conference delegates were invited to Tweet to a KCKS Twitter stream (as well as a WCC2010 stream). The KCKS stream served to take pressure off an extremely full program by allowing delegates to raise issues and questions with presenters that could then be addressed at the end of each day in a plenary session.
In terms of formal proceedings, authors addresses the use of Twitter in higher education (Reinhardt, Wheeler and Ebner) and the use of Twitter as a conference tool (Ebner, Muhlberger, Schaffert, Schiefner, Reinhardt and Wheeler), Zammit presented on wikis for collaborative writing, and Krebs, Schmidt, Henninger, Ludwig and Muller presented on the appropriateness of wikis and blogs as collaborative tools.
Digital Literacy
It is not possible to discuss Digital Literacy in isolation from the three themes already discussed. It is included in this report because of its singular importance and its connection to conference themes and discussions. Two papers in particular present discussion of great value to TC3. Hadjerrouit presents a case for the development of Digital Literacy through teacher education and through the design, collection and evaluation of Digital Literacy Resources. Leahy and Dolan present a detailed and contextual definition of Digital Literacy as a vital competence. This paper investigates European and international approaches to Digital Literacy and argues that while definitions and approaches change the importance of Digital Literacy doesn’t.
Conclusion
The four days of the KCKS conference were rich with discussion, debate and collaboration. The themes mentioned above are only part of what was a significantly important event. By listing some papers here to draw themes together it is inevitable that many authors will be left out of the discussion. The intention here is to highlight commonality in order to guide future direction and deliberation. Within the 43 papers presented a very wide range of ideas, research and theoretical frameworks were highlighted. Those presentations included theoretical links between human development and informatics education (Saito), the use of e-examinations on a large scale (Fluck), the importance of creativity in teacher education (Welsh and Condie), and the role of ICT in supporting long-term sick children (Jones and Wilkie). The presentation of such varied and rich ideas serves to further highlight the importance of face to face events.
The area of Teacher Education needs some mention here. One paper by Finger, Jamieson-Proctor and Albion presented the importance of Technological, Pedagogical and Content Knowledge (TPACK). This is not the first time TPACK has been written about but it presents an approach to the use of ICT in teaching (and in teacher education) that moves us beyond the teaching of skills toward what might be true competence.
The KCKS conference was an event highlighted by the strength of the contributions and by the willingness of all delegates to engage in a collaborative and collegial discourse about the key areas of ICT in education.
Recommendations for consideration
While it is not possible or necessary to achieve agreement on the definition of the word ‘competency’ it would be helpful for TC3 to investigate points of similarity and difference in the use of the term.
A very important role for TC3 could be to develop a working definition of competency within the context of ICT in Education. It could also develop exemplars of practice that could guide members in their application of the term.
Virtual Worlds and Environments for Learning will become and increasing presence in educational settings, an even that brings together practitioners and researchers in this area could be of significant interest and benefit (perhaps a stream within WCCE2013).
Social Networks form an ever increasing part of our ICT practice, developing an understanding of their capacities and limitations, and the kinds of competencies needed for effective use could be a goal for TC3.
Digital Literacy as a Key Competence in a Knowledge Society needs to be articulated clearly and meaningfully. TC3 could begin that process of articulation.
Investigation of the TPACK approach