project management

The MEDEA Awards 2012: 212 entries from 31 countries, and 95 judges from 29 countries… this is a nice snapshot of the media and learning community. Judges are ploughing through the entries. Looking at games and apps, but also at traditional media such as DVDs or online videos. Are there trends already to be seen? Hard to say when we have not been able to see all entries yet, but in one way it seems that there is somewhat less pure linear content, but that process and context is coming more and more to the front stage. Quality is certainly at least on a par with what we have seen last year, and remarkable is the creative power of many end users who generate their own media materials. One more week of judging to go, and then nominations will be announced. The Awards will be handed out during the Media and Learning Conference at the Ministry of Education in Brussels on 14th of November.

On Tuesday 25th of September 2012, the MEDEA: Media & Learning Association was formally launched at the office of Public Notary Guillaume Roberti de Winghe in Leuven.
Until the first annual general meeting of all members in December 2013 Eleonora Pantó (CSP, Italy), Gerard Casanova (Aunege, France) and Mathy Vanbuel (ATiT, Belgium) will act as President, treasurer and secretary, with Ene Koitla (EITF, Estonia), Bernard Mullarkey (IADT, Ireland) and Wim Van Petegem (DOeL K.U.Leuven, Belgium) acting as additional board members.
The MEDEA: Media & Learning Association has the statute of an iVZW and its main aims are to promote and stimulate the use of media as a way to enhance innovation and creativity in teaching and learning across all levels of education and training in Europe. In order to achieve this objective, the Association will amongst other things continue to organise the MEDEA awards and international conferences and workshops. The MEDEA: Media & Learning Association will also provide online support services including workshops and newsletters and will encourage participation of its members in national and international projects. Membership to the association will be open to all individuals and organisations that are interested in taking these objectives forward. More information on how to become a member can be obtained from the secretariat@medea-awards.com

Partners of two projects, MEDEAnet (funded by the EC under Key Activity 3) and MEDEA2020 (funded under Key Activity 4), met at a jointly held meeting in Leuven on 24-25 September 2012. There are plenty of connections between both projects through their support and activities related to the MEDEA Awards and the annual Media & Learning Conference. Both sets of partners also organise  training in the field of media-based learning, which meant that there was plenty to talk about. This was particularly relevant given the  launch of the MEDEA: Media & Learning Association.

Partners gave reports on the current status of workpackages, such as the number of MEDEA Awards entries, conference registrations, the status of workshops and webinars and other work including the status of the annual report on media literacy and education being undertaken in MEDEAnet.

Thanks to this meeting, partners will be able to work more effectively together to ensure the future of the valuable activities organised in both projects, and opportunities for future collaborations were discussed to sustain the established network.

Partners in the VISCED project on Virtual Schools have been meeting this week in Sheffield to discuss the work to date and to plan for the final stages of the project. This meeting also included a gathering of the project's International Advisory Committee where the outputs of the project including critical success factors for the successful deployment of virtual schools were disussed.

These meetings followed the very successful Virtual School Colloquium which brought together virtual schools from 14 different countries, these included schools catering for students that are travelling or seriously ill. It also included schools aimed at marginalised and isolated students.

Full details of the presentations given will be available shortly on the VISCED project website.

CSP in Italy organised a two day workshop on use and re-use of video resources for teaching and learning on 20/21 April in Torino. This workshop was aimed at teachers and others interested in this topic. Participants learnt more about Italian and European initiatives in this area including EUscreen which was represented by Marco Rendina from Luce in Italy and Mathy Vanbuel from ATiT. This workshop was run in the context of the MEDEA2020 project. Oher inputs came from previous MEDEA Award winner, BBC Schools report which was given by Helen Shreeve.  

MEDEA2020 is a project supporting the annual MEDEA Awards which involves partners in Spain, Italy, France, Poland and Belgium. It is led by ATiT and involves the organisation of workshops, the support of the monthly Media & Learning newsletter, the annual Media & Learning conference and other dissemination actions as well as the awards scheme. Project partners met this week in Torino to discuss the progress of the project and to support the organisation of a workshop in Torino on the use and re-use of media resources. Find out more about MEDEA2020.

The DiVa project, which focusses on Good Practice for Dissemination and Valorization of Educational Projects, has recently published its final products: a handbook for project co-ordinators, a best-practice catalogue and recommendations, and the MEDEA Awards are mentioned in the best-practice catalogue thanks to the dissemination activities undertaken by the MEDEA:EU project, of which ATiT was the project coordinator. The successful actions of the MEDEA:EU project, the European Commission-supported project which helped to extend the European identity of the MEDEA Awards through a multilingual newsletter and the European network of national contact points, have been taken up and are being enhanced by our current MEDEA2020 project.

By carrying out European studies about successful educational projects and evaluating them based on certain criteria, the DiVa project has already proven to be very useful for new as well as already started European projects and through these publications everyone can now benefit from this collection of different and innovative ways to promote, disseminate, exploit and valorize.

On Wednesday 1st of June 2011, the MEDEA2020 consortium gathered at the Ramada Viking hotel in Waterford, to discuss the progress of this European Project. The project partners also participated in the EdTech conference where the MEDEA Awards were presented.

9 finalists for the annual MEDEA Awards were announced by the MEDEA Secretariat on 4 October and are (in alphabetical order): BBC News School Report by BBC (UK), Bla Bla Bla e-democracy e minori by Civil Life Lab (Italy), Et si c'était toi by Lycée Technique du Centre (Luxembourg), Evolution of life by CNDP (France), Level 7 by Careersbox (UK), Monkey Labs by Die Keure/Larian Studios (Belgium), Pocket Anatomy by eMedia Interactive (Ireland), Theorem of Fire by Nafta Films (Estonia) and The Classroom by Cornerhouse (UK). 

The overall winner will be announced during the MEDEA Awards Ceremony which takes place on Thursday 25 November during the Media & Learning Conference in Brussels.This year the competition attracted 140 entries from 31 countries and for the first time, those entering could chose between submitting their entry as a production made by a professional company or semi-professional production unit or as one made by teachers, students, learners, parents, professors, individual or organisational representatives in primary education, secondary education, higher education, adult education, vocational education and/or training. This means that this year as well as the overall MEDEA Prize, there will also be a prize for the highest scoring entry in each of these two categories. There will also be a special prize, the European Collaboration Prize which is supported by the European Commission’s Lifelong Learning Programme. Prizes are sponsored by Adobe, Smart and AVID.

The finalists were chosen by a jury made up of 74 education and media experts from 26 countries who evaluated the MEDEA entries during August and September. All finalists will attend the Awards Ceremony on Thursday, 25 November which is a highlight of the Media & Learning conference and presentations by each of the finalists will be included in the conference programme.  

The European network that has been building up around the annual MEDEA awards was further expanded during the 13th annual ICL conference held in Hasselt from 15-17 September when Sally Reynolds presented MEDEA. During her presentation, Sally described the way in which the competition operates and the type of entries it attracts.This presentation included a discussion about the selection criteria used in the judging process and highlighted the growing level of interest in the use of media in teaching and learning. It also included samples of entries from previous years. More information about MEDEA is available from this website.