The deadline for to submit an abstract for the VII International GUIDE Conference, Culture in the Midst of Global Modernization: The Role of Distance Education, has been extended to February 24, 2014. Authors can apply by filling out this Call for Papers form. GUIDE Conference website. More...

One of the principal critiques of massive open online courses (MOOCs) is that of the massive amounts of students that register, only a tiny fraction actually completes each course. Roi Tzikorel, Chief Technical Officer at the Trump Foundation, believes that using MOOCs for group learning rather than individual learning could significantly improve the completion rates.  He and his friend Michael Shurp developed an approach towards MOOC pedagogy that is now being adopted at the national level, but it started as a personal endeavour. Tzikorel and Shurp were taking a MOOC and they gathered some friends in a Facebook group to take the course together. More...

The European MOOCs Scoreboard has been updated for February 2014, showing 10% growth in the MOOCs offered from European institutions and 12% growth in the rest of the world. According to Open Education Europa’s research, the number of MOOCs continues to grow, both in Europe and globally. Meanwhile, MOOC pedagogy continues to develop as different providers experiment and adapt their models. We recently wrote about the emerging trends in the monetization of MOOCs. More...

Over the last decade, the importance of mobile devices has grown dramatically in education. The latest issue of RUSC. Universities and Knowledge Society Journal devotes a special section to the analysis and assessment of the current state of m-learning by studying specific cases. RUSC. Universities and Knowledge Society Journal. More...

Cedefop – Municipality of Thessaloniki/European Youth Capital – Regional Directorate for Education
Skills and Employability: labour market opportunities for youth
21 February 2014,Thessaloniki, Olympion Film Theatre
Since 2009,  Greece has been struggling with economic depression, severe youth unemployment (now around 55%) and plummeting wages and living standards. The debt crisis exposed structural weaknesses of the Greek economy, including the weak link between education and the labour market. Policy makers need to help young people make informed decisions about learning and working if Greece is to make the most of its rich skills reserves. This is the direction taken by recent national policies and legislation. More...

Young people with vocational education and training (VET) qualifications, which include a significant amount of work-based learning, have higher employment rates compared to those who come from general education or from fully or mainly school-based VET, Cedefop Director James Calleja told the European Commission’s monitoring conference in Brussels (11-12 February).
In his keynote speech, Mr Calleja said that, according to Cedefop research, ‘employers place a premium on work experience, and in countries where VET is well developed, includes work-based learning and is governed together with social partners, it results in better labour-market outcomes for VET graduates.’ More...

Experts from international organisations including ILO, Unesco, Unitar, the World Bank and universities, as well as country delegates, met at the 2nd Cedefop/OECD Green skills forum in Paris, on 14 February, to discuss how environmental policies can successfully be implemented in combination with policies for job creation and social inclusion.
The forum was opened by OECD Deputy Secretary-General Rintaro Tamaki. He underlined that ‘we need to share experience and cooperate in the creation of knowledge as we move from a high-carbon to a low-carbon society.’ More...

In the past months, Cedefop tested in 8 countries its revised employer survey instrument to measure changing skill needs in Europe and has explored the optimal survey sampling design. The objective of this meeting is to have a final review of the instrument and sampling design and discuss the recommendations for a full-scale implementation based on the latest results.

The participation in this event is restricted to the invited experts.

New Trends in Language Didactics conference is aimed at bringing together specialists working on different topics of language learning. It represents an outstanding opportunity of exchange between researchers, research groups and institutions working in the field.
The conference is organised around the following main lines of research:

Topics

We are inviting presentations reflecting the developments of our rapidly changing times within the focus of the following themes:

Proposals

Proposals for the oral presentations can be sent by email in .doc format together with the following information:

The proposals may be send at language.didactics@gmail.com by 25th February 2014. Abstracts will be blind peer-reviewed. A selection of the papers will be published in the volume of the conference.
Notification of acceptance will be sent by 10 March 2014.

Languages

The official languages of the conference are: English, Romanian, French, Spanish, Italian. Professional interpretation will be provided if needed.

• Language for specific purposes (LSPs)
• Computer assisted language learning
• Audiovisuals and language learning enhancement
• Translation and language learning

Thematic areas

Presentations should reflect on the developments of the fast changing language acquisition environment with specific emphasis on the following thematic areas:

• Language learning and cultural mediation
• E-learning and M-learning
• Video game localisation and language learning
• Subtitling and the role of audiovisual translation in language learning
• Language for specific purposes
• Social networks & language learning
• Copyright issues in language learning
• New trends in foreign language learning
• Training the trainers: working with foreign language instructors
• Quality and innovation in the teaching of Romanian as a foreign language.

Please send your proposal in .doc format by e-mail to language.didactics@gmail.com with the following accompanying information:

• Name of the author(s), affiliation and contact information
• Abstract and title (250-350 words in the language of the presentation)
• Line of research of the presentation (see above main areas of enquiry)

Deadline for submission: 25th February 2014.

More information is available on the official conference website