INFORM - ISSUE 16 - Entrepreneurial learning: Keystone to an Entrepreneurial Culture
Increasingly open markets, volatile economies and concerns about unemployment are the backdrop to a dialogue among European Union (EU) countries on how governments, the private sector and civic society meet the challenges of competitiveness and jobs. Addressing this challenge, the EU has made entrepreneurship promotion a top priority (European Commission, 2010). Integral to the EU’s entrepreneurship drive is encouraging countries in neighbouring regions undergoing significant institutional and policy reforms to adopt more strategic approaches to entrepreneurial learning across their education and training systems (European Commission, 2006). This forms part of a wider support package, which includes the European Training Foundation (ETF) services, to help economies to be competitive and inclusive.
This policy briefing considers the challenges and potential of promoting entrepreneurial learning more strategically. Primarily targeted at policy makers from transition and emerging economies, it argues for a model of lifelong entrepreneurial learning in which policy development and systemic reforms are benchmarked and assessed.
A major challenge is to ensure full engagement and ownership of the entrepreneurial learning agenda by all stakeholders, particularly education authorities, backed by leadership from within those authorities to see through reforms. Given the relative newness of the concept of lifelong entrepreneurial learning, this policy briefing points to the pivotal role of teachers and argues that borrowing from good practice makes good sense. Building value in an evolving policy area requires cooperation between strategic partners from the public and private sectors, including civic interest groups. Download INFORM - ISSUE 16.

The European Training Foundation is a decentralised agency of the European Union based in Turin, Italy. It was established by Council Regulation No. 1360 in 1990 recast No. 1339 in 2008 to contribute to the development of the education and training systems of the EU partner countries. It became operational in 1994 in its premises of Villa Gualino. The ETF currently employs approximately 130 staff and has an annual budget of about 18 million €. Madlen Serban is Director of the ETF since 1 July 2009.
Our mission is to help transition and developing countries to harness the potential of their human capital through the reform of education, training and labour market systems in the context of the Eu's external relations policy.
We base our work on the conviction that human capital development in a lifelong learning perspective can make a fundamental contribution to increasing prosperity, creating sustainable growth and encouraging social inclusion in transition and developing countries.
We recruit and deploy experts from multiple disciplines to handle complex and multidimensional topics in a team environment, in order to create new knowledge, insight and solutions.

By Lauren Hepler. Thanks to a slew of high-profile startups like Coursera and Udacity, online education may be most associated with MOOCs and other disruptive technologies in higher education.
But corporate training is another area where education technology can come in handy. Just ask Twitter.
On Tuesday, a company blog post by Senior Vice President of Engineering Chris Fry announced that the social media company has acquired open-source training company Marakana to launch a technical training tool called Twitter University. No price for the transaction was given, though Fry noted that the companies have been working together for several months. Read more...

By Joanne Jacobs. If President Obama really wants to “shake up” higher education, he should start by scaling back student loans, writes economist Richard Vedder on Washington Monthly‘s College Guide. That means dropping loans to affluent parents and the federal tuition tax credit, limiting student borrowing and, ultimately, getting the federal government out of the student-loan business.
Colleges that benefit from student loans and grants should share some costs of high default rates, Vedder argues. That would discourage colleges from enrolling students with little chance of success. (Politically, this is a big loser.)
Next, consumers need better information, he writes. Read more...

By Nancy Dixon. “We know more than we can say” is a popular phrase heard at KM conferences and quoted in the many KM blogs. It is quoted to encourage attending to tacit knowledge, rather than exclusively focusing on explicit knowledge.  But those quoting the phrase seldom go beyond referencing it to Polanyi, providing little explanation or reasoning for why, if we know it, we can’t just write it down.
In this post I want to offer the “why” behind the phrase and give some examples. The answer lies in, 1) how our brains store knowledge, 2) how we create knowledge, and 3) the values and relationships that are interlinked with tacit knowledge.
How Our Brains Store Knowledge  What we learn from experience is stored, not in the form of answers, but in bits and pieces of the experience we have accumulated, sometimes over years. What we think of as tacit knowledge is really the human ability to draw on our past experiences to respond to new problems or questions.
When a colleague asks a question, the responder pulls together the bits and pieces from different parts of past experience to construct an answer. The operant word in that sentence is “construct.”  The responder constructs an answer in the moment of responding. Responders do not “know” the response they will give until faced with the need for it. Karl Weick, the well-known organizational theorist, affirms this idea when he says, “How do I know what I think until I hear what I say?” Read more...

By Shashi Tharoor. “Launch of National Repository of Open Education Resources (NROER)”. Address by Dr. Shashi Tharoor.
Hon’ble Minister of State for HRD. National Conference on ICT in School Education, New Delhi, 13th August, 2013
Shri M.M. Pallam Raju, Hon’ble Minister for Human Resource Development, Shri Ashok Thakur, Secretary, Higher Education, Shri Rajarshi Bhattacharya, Secretary, School Education and Literacy, Prof. Parvin Sinclair, Director, NCERT, other senior colleagues from the Ministry of HRD, distinguished participants at this conference, ladies and gentlemen.
I am delighted to be here at the National Conference on Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in School Education and at the launch of the National Repository of Open Education Resources (NROER). As Prof. Sinclair knows, I have been a staunch supporter of open education resources as a significant part of the response to the challenges that are faced by the education sector in our country and the launch of the NROER is a significant step in this direction. Reaching the unreached, including the excluded, has long been the priority for us in extending education to all. I am informed that the NROER aims to offer “resources for all school subjects and grades in multiple languages. The resources are available in the form of concept maps, videos, audio clips, talking books, multimedia, learning objects, photographs, diagrams, charts, articles, wikipages and textbooks.” The Ministry of HRD has been actively engaging with various organisations to propagate Education for All. This repository will most certainly help to open the doors of educational opportunity to those very little or no access to education. Read more...

By Jonathan Rees.
Dear Stephen:
It’s really nice of you to have linked to my last post just as I’m sorta- kinda- trying to move beyond MOOC commentary, as I still remember our last discussion near the beginning of my long run of MOOC posts. Besides making me look up who you actually are, I’m afraid the rather blatant hostility you showed to faculty in those comments soured me on MOOCs of all kinds, including the better ones that you’ve been working on. I should have been more open-minded about what you and George Siemens have been trying to do. As I wrote with respect to George a little while back, “anybody whose ideas got mugged by a bunch of Clayton Christensen acolytes automatically has my sympathy.” That goes for you too.
As I’ve learned more about this subject, I’ve come to realize that my problem with MOOCs isn’t really the MOOCs themselves, it’s with the power dynamic behind the way in which they’ve been championed and implemented (at least in the United States). For lack of better term, the MOOC “brand” has been weaponized and that’s given your original idea a bad name that it doesn’t deserve. Read more...

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Download Facebook Guide for Educators.
Facebook Guide for Educators - A tool for teaching and learning
Facebook as a tool for teaching and learning
Education systems around the world are undergoing a revolution in teaching and learning, with the advent and maturity of new technology driving new forms of engagement between students, teachers and the wider world, powered by the web. Digital and social learning often starts from the perspective of where young people are accessing knowledge and learning for themselves. That learning is typically interactive, student centred, collaborative and on demand. It is often outside of school hours, in non-formal settings and increasingly peer to peer via their own friends and networks. Teaching and learning is and will become much more social.
Young people today also have the ability to communicate with anyone in the world using a variety of digital platforms, increasingly through mobile as well as static devices. These tools enable millions to connect with each other and for information to be shared in an unprecedented way. Questions have been raised about how we best prepare young people for a digital world and the need for digital literacy and skills for future jobs and prosperity. What we believe is that giving young people access to digital platforms in schools, colleges and other learning environments provides them with essential core skills that will enable them to navigate their future digital world and enable them to be positive digital citizens.
This revolution coincides with the exponential growth and access to smartphones and mobile devices that allow access to information in real time, at young people’s fingertips. Allied to this, cheap and free online platforms are being used by teachers and students to create and share knowledge and learning inside and outside of the classroom and at home via virtual learning environments. Plus the new phenomenon of MOOCs (Massive Open Online courses) such as the EdX, Khan Academy, Udacity and Futurelearn and Mozilla’s Open Badges have started to change the way higher education and indeed learning is accessed, used and accredited. It is in this rapidly changing landscape that Facebook’s work on the use of its platform as a tool for teaching and learning can be placed.
As a result of our work on this project, we see Facebook as a vital tool for teaching and learning in the 21st century and for making education more social. It is an essential ‘toolbox for educators’ in schools, colleges, universities and other learning settings to open up, inspire and catalyse young people’s learning. From transforming the teaching of subjects across the curriculum within the classroom, to the huge potential for using Facebook for non-formal and out of school hours learning in breakfast clubs, lunchtime, after school, weekend and holiday activities; from young people ‘liking’ each other’s work on a Facebook Page or Group, to young people making, creating and curating their own content and learning; to the ways in which social networks can be harnessed to engage young people in informal learning in youth and community settings.
Ideas from our research, expert groups and case studies are shown in the following table but the inspiration from students, teachers, lecturers and educators keeps on growing and we signpost you to some excellence resources online to give you inspiration:
Quick links
Social Media for Schools Guide, Matt Britland, Guardian Teacher Network: guardian.co.uk.
Mashable: Teachers Guide to Facebook: mashable.com.
50 reasons to invite Facebook into your classroom: onlinecollege.org.
The Why and How of Using Facebook For Educators: theedublogger.com. Download Facebook Guide for Educators.

Bonn, 14.06.2013. Seit über 25 Jahren unterstützt das ERASMUS-Programm der EU mit großem Erfolg die akademische Mobilität und Zusammenarbeit in Europa. Das Programm ist damit zu einem Motor der Internationalisierung von mehr als 3.000 Hochschulen in inzwischen 33 Ländern geworden. 320 deutsche Hochschulen beteiligen sich zurzeit am Programm und haben allein im Hochschuljahr 2011/12 über 33.000 Studierenden und rund 4.000 Personen aus Lehre und Verwaltung eine internationale Erfahrung ermöglicht – mehr als je zuvor. Gleichzeitig kamen über 32.000 Geförderte aus dem europäischen Ausland nach Deutschland und erwerben so nicht zuletzt zusätzliche Qualifikationen für den Arbeitsmarkt. ''Damit ist das ERASMUS-Programm für unsere junge Generation auch ein Symbol der Hoffnung und des Zusammenhaltes in Europa, das wir gerade in Zeiten der finanziellen Krise brauchen und das daher in der nächsten Programmgeneration ab 2014 ausgebaut werden muss'', betonte DAAD-Präsidentin Professor Margret Wintermantel.
Die Zukunft des Programms wird das Hauptthema der ERASMUS-Jahrestagung am 20. und 21. Juni 2013 in Bonn sein, die vom Deutschen Akademischen Austauschdienst (DAAD) als Nationale Agentur für ERASMUS durchgeführt wird.
Zudem verleiht die DAAD-Generalsekretärin, Dr. Dorothea Rüland, in dieser Veranstaltung gemeinsam mit Vertretern der Europäischen Kommission und des Bundesministeriums für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF) das ERASMUS-Qualitätssiegel an fünf deutsche Hochschulen sowie den ERASMUS-Individualpreis an vier Personen aus deutschen Hochschulen für besondere Verdienste bei der Umsetzung des Programms. Ebenfalls ausgezeichnet werden vier studentische Preisträger des erstmals ausgeschriebenen Wettbewerbs ''Mein ERASMUS-Tagebuch''.
Den genauen Ablauf der Tagung, die Preisträger sowie die Themen der verschiedenen Veranstaltungen finden Sie hier.

Gemeinsame Pressemitteilung mit der HRK
Die 14. Mitgliederversammlung der Hochschulrektorenkonferenz (HRK) hat in Nürnberg einen Kodex für deutsche Hochschulprojekte im Ausland verabschiedet. Der Kodex formuliert qualitative – akademische und ethische – ''Mindestanforderungen'', die für deutsche Hochschulprojekte im Ausland gelten und sowohl von den deutschen Hochschulen als auch von ihren ausländischen Partnern eingehalten werden sollen. Er wurde auf Einladung von HRK und Deutschem Akademischen Austauschdienst (DAAD) von einer Gruppe internationaler Experten erarbeitet.

Seit einigen Jahren engagieren sich deutsche Hochschulen verstärkt beim Aufbau von Studienangeboten, Fakultäten und Hochschulen im Ausland. Transnationale Bildung (TNB) gewinnt dadurch zunehmend an Gewicht in den institutionellen Internationalisierungsstrategien. Deutsche Hochschulprojekte im Ausland zeichnen sich durch ein hohes innovatives Potential, durch eine praxisorientierte Lehre und kooperative Strukturen aus. Mit diesem partnerschaftlichen Ansatz, der auch die Bildungsinteressen und -traditionen der Sitzländer einbezieht, ist es den deutschen Hochschulen gelungen, sich auf dem globalen TNB-Markt erfolgreich mit einem eigenen Profil zu etablieren.
''Nur qualitativ hochwertige Studienangebote werden langfristig auf diesem weltweiten Markt bestehen können. Trotz des großen Engagements in diesem Bereich hat sich gezeigt, dass die Entwicklungsgeschwindigkeit der einzelnen Projekte und die damit verbundenen Qualitätsansprüche variieren. Bislang wird oftmals auch der spezifische Deutschlandbezug noch zu wenig deutlich. Hier müssen wir mehr Profil gewinnen'', so HRK-Präsident Hippler.
''Mit dem Kodex bieten DAAD und HRK ihren Mitgliedshochschulen nicht nur Orientierung und Unterstützung in den genannten Fragen, sie geben ihnen auch die Möglichkeit zu einer klaren Positionierung als qualitätsbewusste und interkulturell sensible Partner im globalen Wettbewerb um attraktive Bildungsangebote. Zu diesem Zweck wurde der vorliegende Kodex für deutsche Hochschulprojekte im Ausland formuliert'', bestätigt DAAD-Präsidentin Margret Wintermantel.
Bei dem Kodex handelt es sich um eine Selbstverpflichtung der einzelnen Hochschulen. Sie sind nun eingeladen, dem Kodex individuell beizutreten.
DAAD und HRK arbeiten bereits seit längerem im Bereich TNB zusammen. Unter anderem geben sie seit 2012 gemeinsam ein Praxishandbuch zu unterschiedlichen Fragen von Personalentsendung über Qualitätssicherung bis Marketing heraus.