Links

• Debate video
• Voting result

Attachments

Read Steve Bainbridge's speech (DOCX  176.08 Kb 04/11/2013)

See the presentation (PPT  2688.50 Kb 04/11/2013)

ESCO is the multilingual classification of European Skills, Competences, Qualifications and Occupations. It identifies and categorises skills/competences, qualifications and occupations relevant for the EU labour market and education and training, in 25 European languages. The system provides occupational profiles showing the relationships between occupations, skills/competences and qualifications.

ESCO is the only European standard terminology linking skills and competences and qualifications to occupations and will be available free of charge to all labour market, education institutions and other stakeholders.

Cedefop has collaborated with this project.

Links

• ESCO Navigation tool
• ESCO booklet

The growing importance of cooperation and networking in improving visibility of vocational education and training (VET) was at the core of the 11th plenary annual meeting of ReferNet, Cedefop’s European network of VET, on 5 and 6 November. 
Opening the meeting, ReferNet coordinator Sylvie Bousquet said to the 70 participants from across Europe gathered in Thessaloniki that the plenary represented ‘not only a milestone but also momentum’ and that ‘striving for quality had inspired us.’ She added that the aim is to ‘strengthen the partnership with more inter-member activities throughout the year.’
In his speech, Cedefop Director James Calleja pointed out that ‘ReferNet has always been a very important network within Cedefop and the intention is to strengthen it in the years to come.’ More...

91% of respondents rated their experience as ‘Good’, ‘Very Good’ or ‘Excellent’ in a post-course survey of the massive open online courses (MOOCs) offered by the University of London International Programmes on the Coursera online platform. The four free online courses offered, which began in June this year, were: Creative Programming for Digital Media & Mobile Apps, English Common Law: Structure and Principles, Malicious Software and its Underground Economy: Two Sides to Every Story, and The Camera Never Lies.
An impressive 210,000 students signed up to the courses from countries all over the world, including the United States, India, Brazil, Spain and Canada, among many others.
The MOOCs took the format of video lectures, assessments based on automatically-graded multiple choice questions or peer reviews, and forums allowing the students to interact with the content, each other and course teams. Twitter chats and live video sessions were also used as part of the English Common Law MOOC. Of the 210,000 total registered students, 90,000 of them went on to participate in the courses as ‘active’ students, with 8,843 completing a course in full, to receive a Statement of Accomplishment. More...

I’m at the Open Education conference in Park City, Utah. The conference is now in its impressive 10th year. I did a presentation following Andrew Ng (Coursera). Slides and video are below. The focus is on my early experiences with MOOCs, their current state, and future directions (as well as some angst and hope). 
Open Education 2013 from gsiemens.

At Coursera, we envision a future where everyone has access to a world-class education. We strive to create and deliver experiences that break down daily barriers that stand in the way of successful learning. Today, in support of our goals, we’re delighted to announce a new initiative- Coursera Learning Hubs - that will offer people around the world physical spaces where they can access the Internet to take a Coursera course, while learning alongside peers in an interactive, facilitated setting. All for free. More...

By CLAYTON M. CHRISTENSEN and MICHAEL B. HORN. WHEN the first commercially successful steamship traveled the Hudson River in 1807, it didn’t appear to be much of a competitive threat to transoceanic sailing ships. It was more expensive, less reliable and couldn’t travel very far. Sailors dismissed the idea that steam technology could ever measure up — the vast reach of the Atlantic Ocean surely demanded sails. And so steam power gained its foothold as a “disruptive innovation” in inland waterways, where the ability to move against the wind, or when there was no wind at all, was important. More...

By Ted Curran. This past year has brought a massive amount of attention to Massive Open Online Courses, and much speculation about what they mean for traditional institutions of learning. The education and technology blogosphere have been breathlessly predicting the end of the world for traditional, brick-and-mortar universities and colleges as elite institutions like MIT, Stanford, Harvard and the University of California throw their weighty reputations behind low cost online courses from Udacity, Coursera, EdX, and Canvas Network. At the same time, sage edtech watchers like Audrey Watters and Michael Feldstein caution that we may be permanently dismantling much that is good in education as we try to keep up with the VC-funded race to give away high quality instruction for free to the masses. To understand the terrain we’re entering, it helps to talk about the value proposition that traditional schools have provided to students, and discuss how the new economics of online learning might disrupt that. More...

International Conference on New Technologies for Language Learning
Promoting the sharing of an innovative approach to language teaching
Language experts, language teachers, trainers and researchers in the field of language learning are invited to participate  in the 6th edition of the International Conference “Information and Communication Technologies for Language Learning” taking  place in Florence, (Italy), on  14-15 November 2013.

The Conference aims to promote transnational sharing of good practices and research findings in the application of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to Language Learning and Teaching.  The event also offers the opportunity to develop international contacts among experts in language learning.

160 participants from 45 different countries (representing, among others, Universities, language schools and public authorities) have already registered.

More information