As a Doctor in communication, Daniel Peraya teaches at TECFA, Unit of Technologies éducatives de la Faculté de psychologie et des sciences de l’éducation of the Université de Genève and Director of the MALTT Master (Master of Science in Learning and Teaching Technologies, TECFA). His research and teaching deal with mediated education communication, more particularly within the framework of totally or partially distance university curricula. (http://tecfa.unige.ch/tecfa-people/peraya.html)

Blended learning

Universities and higher education implement increasingly virtual working environments, learning management systems or "virtual campuses". These techno-pedagogical tools are integrated within the so-called « hybrid » environments. How to analyse them, how to understand their working and how to develop good practice

"Donald Clark was CEO, and one of the original founders, of Epic Group plc, which established itself as the leading company in the UK e-learning market. It was floated on the Stock Market in 1996 and sold in 2005. He is now a board member of Ufi (learndirect), Brighton Festival, LINE Communications, Caspian Learning and a school governor. He has produced over 40 papers, dozens of book reviews and many articles on e-learning. Donald has also won many awards for the design and implementation of e-learning, and the ‘Outstanding Achievement in e-learning Award’ at the World Open Learning Conference. He is a regular speaker at national and international conferences. He is also a regular blogger on e-learning! http://donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.com/ "

 "Roger Larsen, 35, is the Founder and Managing Director of Fronter, Europe's largest commercial open source learning platform, with 4 million users. Larsen founded Fronter in 1998 based on the idea of making simple-to-use tools for collaboration and learning on the web, with the users and educationalists in control of the development and based on open standards. Simplicity, user control, and openness have therefore become the essence of Fronter's philosophy and products, which today are used by more than 5000 learning institutions across Europe. Prior to Fronter, Larsen co-founded three Internet companies, all within the development of various web-based applications and services.
http://www.fronter.com/"

Philippe Bonfils has been docteur en Science de l’Information et de la communication since 2007.  His research deals with the appearance of socio-technical tools such as « Virtual Worlds or Persistent Universe» in digital learning contexts. This research also questions the new communication situations these particular tools could give rise to through their spatial and sensorimotor modalities.
 (http://en.scientificcommons.org/philippe_bonfils)

Philippe Bonfils also teaches at the Institut Ingémédia of the Université du Sud Toulon-Var.  He has implemented and experimented this type of tool in the courses he coaches.

Ph. Bonfils presents his experience in Second Life

The progressive use of virtual worlds in distance education raises a variety of pedagogical, ethical, philosophical, technical and even financial questions. Ph. Bonfils will present concrete results obtained through a Second Life experiment carried out at the Université du Sud, and proposes to discuss the pros and contras related to these new practices. What would be the advantages or disadvantages in using these “communication machines” in an educational context? Can their use be aligned with the existing objectives in the institution ?

Gavin Dudeney is Project Director for the Consultants-E. Author of The Internet & The Language Classroom (CUP2000, 2007) and co-author of How To Teach English with Technology (Longman 2007), he has worked in teaching and training with ICT for nineteen years. He currently spends a lot of his professional time in Second Life as Dudeney Ge, training educators to use 3D spaces in their teaching practice.
More on Gavin can be found here: http://www.theconsultants-e.com/courses/tutors/dudeney/index.asp
 



His talk will deal with virtual learning environnements (Brave New World – Web 3D, Teaching & Training)
 
Much of the research into distance teaching and training over the years has found that social elements, feelings of isolation and lack of immediate feedback – as well as a failure to engender good group work – have largely been responsible for the often-quoted high attrition rates amongst learners. Traditional VLE platforms such as Blackboard and Moodle, whilst being excellent for the more formal learning and critical thinking which often surface in elements such as fora and journals, have often been let down by poor synchronous tools, and not enough tools for developing groupwork and collaboration opportunities.
 
However, a change is in the air - as Web 1.0 slides gracefully into Web 2.0 and the consumer morphs into the prosumer, a quiet revolution is taking place behind the scenes with the birth of Web3D. This talk looks at Second Life – the leading player in the Web3D area – and considers why, and how, educators are currently using it in teaching and training . I will also touch upon SLoodle and consider how traditional VLEs – coupled with a multi-user virtual environment – may be the new killer education app.

Coen Free is President of Koning Willem I College ‘s-Hertogenbosch, a town in the South of the Netherlands. Koning Willem I College is considered one of the most innovative Community Colleges in Europe.

A special project of Koning Willem I College is School for the Future, a very innovative Research & Development Center for Teaching and Learning, e-Learning, Creative Thinking and Multiple Intelligences.

Coen Free is also president of the Dutch Consortium for Innovation, a sister organization of the American League for Innovation. He is member of the International Advisory Board of the American Chair Academy; he is founding member and president of the European Federation for Open and Digital Learning (EFODL) and founding member of the Dutch De Bono Foundation.

He publishes frequently in journals and books his ideas about education in 21st century. He has given guest lectures at numerous universities in Europe.

Because of his merits he is knighted by the Queen of the Netherlands in the Order of the House of Oranje Nassau.


Coen Free presents  "A Second or Third Life for ODL?"

Coen Free will give an overview of the history of Open and Distance Learning, starting with the Letters by the apostle Paul towards Second Life. His conclusion is that little has changed since the days of Paul, but at present we are at the verge of a revolution, in which Second Life plays an important part. This, however, will not last long, as the successors of Second Life are already approaching.

Wilfred Rubens (1964), policy advisor, started his graduation in Pedagocical Sciences (specialization: adult education) in 1983 at the Catholic University of Nijmegen. He graduated in 1989. After a two years study in 1994, Wilfred became Master in Educational Management (Dutch School for Educational Management, Amsterdam).
After his graduation Wilfred worked several years as a consultant in the field of adult and vocational education. Since December 1995 Wilfred is concerned with Internet technology in learning situations (e-learning). He worked for BVEnet, and as e-learning consultant at Siennax/Acadoo and KPMG Consulting. From June 1, 2002 till October 2006 Wilfred worked as consultant at the Centre for ICT in Education (IVLOS, University of Utrecht).
Now he is policy advisor of the board of Gilde Opleidingen, an institute for vocational training and education. His focus is on educational development and ICT in education. Furthermore he is editor of the Dutch e-learning portal, http://www.e-learning.nl/, and edublogger (http://www.wilfredrubens.com).

Wilfred wrote several articles about e-learning (in Dutch). He was co-organiser of the NVvO E-learning Experience (NVvO: Dutch Training & Development Association).

More information is also available on http://www.linkedin.com/in/wrubens

Summary of the presentation :

Technological developments are influencing the way people behave. Social software, for example, enables user generated content. By publishing on platforms like YouTube, Flickr or Facebook, people create a digital identity. In the 21th century one of the challenges is how to build a powerful digital identity. It is one of the pedagogical assignments of education to support learners in building this identity. In this presentation Wilfred Rubens will illustrate why and how schools can help learners creating an digital identity.

Annabel De Craene is a staff member of the VDAB's (Flemish Agency for Employment and Training) Strategic Services. She is the project leader for strategic career development, a project dealing with broadening VDAB services in order to cope with the changing work market.
VDAB is developing a competences portfolio "my career", a tool that will enable citizens to manage and apply their career-related competences throughout a lifetime.
Before that, Annabel De Craene was working as an Innovations Managers with the NGO "Vitamine W", in the field of career-related subjects such as "orientation and career path counselling", "career counselling and coaching" and "competence development and learning on the work floor".

Philippe Seynaeve is HR Development Manager at Smals, the IT consulting firm, partner of e-government and the social and health sectors in Belgium.  At Smals, he is responsible for the training and learning initiatives within the company and the current e-HRM implementation.
Previously, he was e-HR Project Manager at the Belgian Federal Ministry of Health and e-Learning Manager for the Training Institute of the Federal Government in Brussels. Prior to this, he worked as a consultant and project manager for IT consulting firms such as Cronos and Global Knowledge in Brussels and Paris.  He also lectures at Vesalius College, Vrije Universiteit Brussels.
He obtained a B.A. from the Vrije Universiteit Brussels and he did graduate work at the University of Kent at Canterbury.  He obtained an M.A. from Columbia University in New York.