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Chamilo is an open source e-learning and collaboration platform. The project is lead by a legal non-profit association founded in Belgium in 2010.
Chamilo is currently used by more than 6,000,000 teachers and students around the world. Governments, private companies, public and private universities, NGOs and other types of organisations are using this free software suite to manage from simple live training to full distant learning, certification centres, e-courses and staff selection.

Eduonline is a platform developed by the University of Alicante (Spain) that provides university teachers a series of tools to develop and manage online courses and lessons.
The objective of Eduonline is to serve the university community in general and provide a virtual space to develop many of the activities that are done physically at the campuses.
The platform aims to incorporate Internet into teaching practices and university research. Teachers can design and manage an online course using a simple web interface which allows creating and changing in just a few steps any content.
Eduonline is designed to optimize the integration of teaching in accordance with the European ECTS credits.

At some point in their career almost all teachers will have a student whose native language is not English. Engaging with English as a Second Language (ESL) learners, also called English Language Learners (ELLs), should be an enriching experience for the teacher, the language student and the rest of the class, and the experts behind the Motivating ESL Learners blog have put together a set of 10 tips for teachers to keep on motivating learners and elevating the educational and cultural environment for everyone involved:
   1. Create a cultural dialogue
   2. Engage with your students’ special occasions and interests
   3. Use scaffolding techniques to help students accomplish tasks
   4. Maximize inter-student interaction
   5. Correct errors with compassion
   6. Speak clearly
   7. Use hands-on and project-based activities
   8. Be adaptable, but maintain high expectations
   9. Encourage students to speak in their native language
  10. Seek resources

The latest issue of Bellaterra Journal of Teaching & Learning Language & Literature on technology in language education features an article by invited author Dr. Steven L. Thorne and an interview with the well-known expert in the field, Dr. Greg Kessler. The growing importance of technology in education is almost a cliché in today’s society. Still, the use of technology for language teaching is not as widespread as it could be hoped, although there are multiple examples of innovative practices that can be found. The question of integrating technology as part and parcel of teaching practice is a source of inspiration for this year’s annual monographic volume, edited by Victoria Antoniadou, a doctoral student at the Department of Language and Literature and Social Science Education, Faculty of Education (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona). The special editor has brought  together world renowned experts, along with emergent researchers to provide readers with inspiring and thought-provoking articles that dealwith this intriguing area of study. Read more...

Madrid Open University (UDIMA) is offering a series of free online summer courses during the month of July. The courses are taught using the Elluminate platform, a tool that combines real-time videoconferencing possibilities, chats and presentations with full interaction between participants. A total of 80 seminars are scheduled to take place throughout the month, framed within 10 distinct areas of study: Tourism, Psychology, Labour and Human Resources, Business Administration and Economics, Law, Criminology, Journalism, History and Humanities, Computer Engineering and Industrial Organisation, and Innovation. Read more...

By Marielk. Higher education in the Western Balkans was for a long period a relatively under-researcher region in Europe, but has in recent years gained more attention and an number of interesting research projects are underway.
As part of the project “European Integration of Higher Education and Research in the Western Balkans,” (read more about the project here) the project team has produced the series of reports entitled “Overview of Higher Education and Research Systems in the Western Balkans” which are now available for download on the project website. The reports cover seven higher education systems in the region – Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo*, FYR Macedonia, Montenegro, and Serbia and each of the reports represents a comprehensive overview of the higher education and research systems in the region, covering topics such as policy, governance arrangements, funding, institutional landscape, and quality, while focusing on the major reforms and trends in the recent years. Read more...

Once a year, with the exception of the year when the General Conference takes place, the IAU holds an international conference for Members and beyond to discuss matters of general concern to international higher education.
IAU 2014 International Conference. 19/03/2014 - 21/03/2014 - Iquitos, Peru.
The IAU 2014 International Conference will take place on 19-21 March 2014.
Organized in collaboration with the Universidad Científica del Perú located in Iquitos, Peru, it will focus on the theme:
Blending Higher Education and Traditional Knowledge for Sustainable Development.
Registration will be open from 15 October 2013 to 10 March 2014. More information about registration fees will be available soon.
More information regarding the Conference Theme, the Conference Venue and other will be published on this page shortly, so do not hesitate to visit it regularly.  In the meantime, please mark the date!
To learn more about our host, Universidad Científica del Perú please visit: www.ucp.edu.pe/public/index.html.
To learn more about Peru please visit: www.peru.travel/en/.

‘MOOC’ stands for Massive Open Online Course, which is a form of distance learning embraced not only by traditional providers of distance learning (e.g. open universities) but also the elites that are highly visible in global rankings. The MOOCment originated from North Americas about five years ago and has rapidly spread around the world, with China, India and recently Europe, all pledging to MOOC along. They do this either by using established big-name American MOOC platforms (e.g. Coursera, edX) or constructing their own (e.g. iversity and FutureLearn in Europe; icourse in China).
MOOC enthusiasts see the movement as a revolutionary change in the world of learning. MOOC sceptics regard it as another technological hype that may soon fade away. The openness of MOOCs is also being called into question when the providers start to attach a price tag to the use of the platform, the licensed content or the certification of the learning results. Besides, some MOOCs are no longer ‘courses’, but complete degree programmes. Some MOOCs were intended for massive enrolments but have attracted only a few. With rapid developments in the MOOC world, the MOOC today may be completely different from the MOOC tomorrow and the MOOC in one country may be defined differently from one in another country, depending on the orientation of the providers and the target audiences. Read more...

Interview with David Hoey, Chief Executive Officer of WorldSkills International, by Cassandra Davis and Julie Harris. “A high-performing athlete is the result of his or her training,” he explained during a break at the OECD Forum in Paris in May, focusing in on the question of how one benchmarks skills development and acquisition. “A well-trained athlete will perform well. But how do you measure ‘well’? Competitions draw out real excellence. By creating international skills competitions, deep learning can be demonstrated and witnessed. But more than that, competitions introduce fun into the process with games, introduces a healthy competitive spirit, and raises both levels and training. At WorldSkills, we’ve instituted a ranking and a scoring system, at the individual, sector and country levels.”
If we didn’t know better, we’d returned to the first Olympic games. David Hoey, Chief Executive Officer of WorldSkills International spoke to us of the international skills extravaganza (WorldSkills Leipzig 2013) going on now, between 2-7 July. Over 200,000 people and representatives from upwards of 50 countries will be walking through the doors in Leipzig, attending the main and side events, witnessing some of the stellar skills and talents of the world’s top carpenters, graphic designers, technologists, robotic engineers, hairdressers, plumbers and more (46 skills in all). Read more...

With post-recession growth remaining sluggish, the emerging economies must interrogate the sustainability of their development models and adapt domestic policies to promote inclusive growth and greater social equality.
Since the acronym was coined by Goldman Sachs’ Jim O’Neill in 2001, the story of the BRICs (later to become BRICS) has almost exclusively been relayed in gross domestic product (GDP) terms. It has been one that emphasized size and scale where magnitude and margins propelled markets. By now the statistics are all too familiar: In 2013, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa together contributed 25 per cent to global GDP, conducted 15 per cent of global trade, and hosted 40 per cent of the world’s population. By 2016, China is expected to overtake the United States as the world’s largest economy in purchasing power parity terms.
The turbo-charged growth in these countries not only made many fabulously wealthy, it also catapulted millions out of poverty into the middle class. In Brazil, for example, Lula’s Bolsa Familia reduced the incidence of poverty by 27% since its inception. The rapid extension of government grants and pensions in South Africa also lifted millions out of poverty. And most remarkably, in China 680 million people escaped the ranks of the poor between 1981 and 2010; a decline in poverty rates from 84% to 10%. Read more...