The Blend-XL Project Meeting  in Zilina (Slowakia)  will be held Thursday-Friday 17-18 April 2008.

In September 2007 the 5th national conference Innovation in Education took place. The Blend-XL project was presented by P.Goetzen. The site of the conference is here.

  
Blend-XL community members John Heintz and Arnold Mühren submitted a paper for the Education theme of the WCPM conference to be held at Delft University of Technology in October 2007.

Heintz, J.L. & Mühren, A. (2007) 'Towards an active learning approach to design & construction management education'

Abstract. Design & construction management has rarely been a popular subject among architecture students. Such courses often have large class sizes and the students may be poorly motivated. The initiative described here is an attempt to apply the principles of active and blended learning to this problem. Modified traditional means of delivering knowledge are combined with web based learning objects and collaboration tools. This provides the learning environment for case study projects which are peer evaluated and from which the students draw lessons to share with their colleagues. The project to date has run through two cycles of action research. The results of both cycles showed improved student performance, and through both informal and formal evaluations, students demonstrated greater enthusiasm for design & construction management. Lessons drawn from the project thus far will inform the design of a third research cycle in the next academic year.

The full paper is currently under review.

  
Heintz, J.L. & Mühren, A. (2007) 'Active blended learning for management in architecture'

This paper is currently under review but you may want to read it in this version. The authors would appreciate any feedback, response or comments. Click on the title and then use the 'Add new comment' for this. Thank you.

Dear Friends,

Hatfield conference is over.  It was really good and great. Many , let me say so, fanatic  t blended teachers were gathered. Of course all the people were great specialists.

The organisers wrote in the e-mail: "All of the conference sessions were webcast via Elluminate and you can now access these recordings to view any presentations. Open the programme attached and click on the hyperlinks to enter the recording for that session. We hope that you find this useful. Presentation slides will soon be available to download from the BLU website www.herts.ac.uk/blu " which is a great news. It was not possible to attend all the sessions, although they were so interested.

Keynote lecture given by Professor Gráinne Conole form  The Open University "
Tailoring support for the net generation: an insight into students' real use and experience of technologies". The very true about blended learning. Also the introduction speech by Professor Peter Bullen - Blended Learning Unit, University of Hertfordshire gives some perspective view of the situation of blended learning. To summarize:
No doubts - we MUST teach using broad range of tools  (mainly WEB2 tools including, podcasting, video- and voicestreaming,  Second Life !!!)

The problem is dissemination of the methodology.
At the Hatfield the introduction of blended methodology is very  advanced. This was the most important part of Professor Eeva Leinonen - Deputy Vice Chancellor, University of Hertfordshire presentation. We should look at the University as the example how we should introduce the blended teaching in our institutions.
During the conference sessions many examples of the tools and methods can be used (case studies)

I would recommend You to have a look at  this presentation first: https://sas.elluminate.com/mr.jnlp?suid=M.B2AA9B7C3874F2AE588C107E0954B9

For sure we should be back to the conference next year (they are going to make it a two-days event). We have also great news to present.

and is located at http://blendedlearning.myfreeforum.org/index.php

We may read :

The 2nd International Blended Learning Conference is now only a week away.

(...)
This forum has been specifically established to support the conference (prior to the live-event) and also to continue our discussions after the event. We view the on-line activity as an integral feature of our conference experience.

(...)

Mrs Liz Mellor
Blended Learning Unit Administrator

Mark your agenda:
Berlin, November 28 – 30, 2007

Online Educa Berlin 2007 is all about increasing your skills and knowledge in e-learning. You can:

• explore the latest developments
• share experience
• expand your network and knowledge

Online Educa Berlin brings together the top professionals and experts in technology-supported learning and training of all sectors: corporate training, higher and professional education, compulsory education and lifelong learning.

Each year Online Educa Berlin provides an exchange of current best practice, resources and research, as well as the setting for the world's largest international gathering of e-learning practitioners, policy-makers, suppliers and stakeholders.

More at ... http://www.online-educa.com/

Blend-XL partners Christine Kösch (Aachen), Metka Zoric Venuti, Matija Vidicek (Maribor) and Floris Leurink (Delft) are following an EU funded e-Learning Fundamentals course in the period from 21 May to 30 June 2007.

More info

International Conference on Engineering Education, Instructional Technology, Assessment & E-learning (EIAE 07)

December 3rd – December 12th, 2007

Paper submission Deadline: October 5th, 2007
Notification of Acceptance: November 2nd, 2007
Final Manuscript and Registration: November 23rd, 2007

www.cisse2007.org/CFPEIAE07.pdf

International Conference ICL

26.-28. September 2007 in Villach, Austria

www.icl-conference.org