On the 2nd of February, the European Commission is organising a full day of events about its ongoing work in language learning which will include presentations on the future programme, the various initiatives of the Multilingualism unit, a round table with a panel of experts and last but not least a workshop with projects. The workhop will take place between 13h and 14h15 and present

- a short introduction
- three projects presenting their results, pedagogical approach, methodologies, and impact
- a session of questions and answers

Moreover, beyond the workshop contribution, the LS6 project will also be present at the official EC stand the four days of the fair and initiate interactive activities concerning language learning and social media. The idea is to invite expo-visitors and interested volunteers to share their thoughts, stories, testimonies… about meaningful language learning processes and social media (as promoted within the LS6 project). The object is to move the visitor from a viewer to a contributor through

- tweets or blog posts (text-based),
- 60 second video clips,
- short audio comments
- screencasts as commented activities on a website

All these contributions are disseminated instantly via our dica-lab LS6 Blog with the request/option for further commenting and extending the contributions on the site.

It would be great meeting you in Paris or on our blog. Please find the programme attached to this post

Expolangues_programme_overview

Two major topics of the Luxembourg economic context and the related challenges will be addressed in particular during this day, i.e.

• Innovation and/from diversity in Luxembourg
• Multilingual and -cultural issues of the Luxembourg working context

The workshop is part of an international project, which brings together experts from Finland, Austria, the United Kingdom and Luxembourg in order to collect, reflect and disseminate knowledge and best practices of diverse co-operation and partnership solutions between educational institutions and working life. The aim of the project is to improve students’ possibilities to make quicker/easier steps into working life from higher education as mentioned by the project title “QUICKER STEPS FROM EDUCATION TO WORKING-LIFE”. The project is funded by the European Social Fund and the Finnish Centre for Economic Development, Transport and Environment (Central Finland ELY-Centre).

The workshop (see documents attached) will take place on Tuesday, November 8, from 09.00 to 17.00 h at the Faculty of Science, Technology and Communication (Campus Kirchberg).

It is free of any charges and the project group would be very pleased to welcome you amongst the workshop participants. You can enroll for the event using the link below

http://www.quickersteps.net/

Download: flyer and workshop program 

The Luxembourg workshop, which is run under the overall command of the vice-president for academic affairs, concerns all BA or MA programs, which prepare for a professional career in the various areas of working life. It addresses three core topics, closely related to the challenges of the Luxembourg economic context, i.e.
- Innovation and/from diversity
- Multilingualism in the working life
- Integration & participation of workforce with migrational/mobility backgrounds

The workshop will offer the opportunity to present and discuss specific forms of collaborations between university and professional partners so that all participants can learn from each other’s experiences and approaches. The international partners will contribute to this process as well by presenting initiatives from their home institution.

The project group would be very pleased to welcome members of academic institutions of the greater region amongst the workshop participants. When you are interested in contributing actively to this workshop, e.g. via a short presentation of 15 minutes, please send a mail to
charles.max(at)uni.lu

webinar poster

http://eacea.ec.europa.eu/llp/ka2/languages_en.php

LS6 project: Eve platform LS6 website

In this meeting, both teams confronted and discussed boundary-crossing research approaches based on current PhD research work.

To know more about the MINE-group : http://wiki.uni.lu/mine/Mine.html

A. Parlez-vous English hei zu Luxemburg?

B. Web 2.0 – Wer spricht/schreibt, wer nutzt’s, wer “lernt” damit, wo, wie und wann?

For further information, look at the Leonardo webpage of the Dica-lab blog

Recent studies of learning have involved concurrent collection of multiple types of data such as
computer activity logs and online discussion, or have applied multi-dimensional coding, resulting
in related data streams, which highlight the dynamic nature of learning and require analyses from
a temporal perspective. This workshop will explore issues emerging from integrating data streams
by identifying a set of analytic difficulties researchers face and illustrating the application of
specific methods that address these challenges.

Audience

This workshop is tailored towards those interested in exploring multi-dimensional quantitative

analysis of learning, conceptualized as inter-related processes occurring over time. More

specifically, two groups might find this workshop particularly relevant:

• Researchers who have completed some type of multi-dimensional coding of data such as interaction analysis, and
• CSCL researchers with time-related data, such as chat and log files of actions, who wish to integrate these data analytically.

For more information and applications, please look at: http://www.encorewiki.org/x/qA0v

Place

Palmer House Hilton Hotel, Chicago, IL, USA June 28th 2010. A preconference event of the 9th

International Conference of the Learning Sciences.

Applications will be accepted until the workshop is full.

The organizing committee:

Britte Haugan Cheng, Ming Ming Chiu, Inge Molenaar, Vanessa Svihla, Alyssa Wise, Vanessa L.

Peters and Katerina Zourou.

the second Alpine Rendez-Vous, November 30 – December 3, 2009, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany.

The Rendez-Vous is a series of independent but collocated workshops broaching Technology-Enhanced Learning with a special focus on “Orchestration”, “Connecting Learners” and “Contextualisation”. The series brings learning sciences researchers from North America, Asia, and Europe together with researchers in the Tempora STELLAR network to explore methods for characterizing and analyzing data related to collaboration and group learning over time.

The full programme of the Rendez-Vous is available http://www.stellarnet.eu/programme/wp3/rendez-vous/

Details on the workshop on temporal analysis of group learning can be found here: http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0Acs1KSmE2rRaZGY0ZzMzeDRfMmZud25ucmM5&hl=en

The workshop is supported by the STELLAR Network of Excellence in Technology-Enhanced Learning (TEL).

Details

This workshop supports a recent push towards unpacking the dynamics of interactions (in particular group processes), their complexities and their influence on group performance as they unfold over time. The inherent complexity of dynamics of group processes and interactions has compelled researchers to adopt a temporal view of how groups function and perform (Arrow, McGrath, & Berdahl, 2000; Stahl, 2005). This view presents a unique challenge to traditional analytical measures and methods for analyzing group processes and their role in knowledge construction (Barab et al., 2001). For example, a problem-solving discussion can be conceptualized as a temporal sequence of events or phases. With the events and phases identified, one can describe patterns of social dynamics and begin to understand how patterns (e.g., turn-taking) or dynamics (e.g., cycles of collaboration) unfold providing insights into collaborative activities of connected learning.

Measures and methods for characterizing and analyzing the temporal evolution of dynamics of group interactions are needed and emerging (Akhras & Self, 2000; Barab et al., 2001; Collazos, Guerrero, Pino, & Ochoa, 2002; Reimann, in press). We therefore invite applications from researchers who seek to apply temporal methodologies to explore group processes. At this workshop, we will focus on the use of Lag Sequential Analysis (LSA) and Markov Models (MM). These models are especially promising analytical approaches for capturing emerging structures in evolving collaborative interactions at various time scales. Participants are asked to bring their data so that on-the-spot analyses can be conducted at the workshop to facilitate discussion of advantages and limitations of MM and LSA as techniques to interrogate the robustness of these analytical techniques in various interactional contexts.

The workshop will begin a series of conversations about how to consider the temporal aspects of interactions between people and tools as they occur within activities and to explore how macro-level phenomena (like group learning) emerge from and constrain micro-level dynamics of interaction (e.g., patterns of discourse or gesture, use of objects or practices, or emergence/dissipation of ideas) over variable time periods (e.g., days, weeks, etc). Examples of temporal analyses will be presented and discussed after which participants will conduct analyses in small groups. Participant analyses will comprise the majority of the workshop. Based on participant applications, organizers will suggest small groups that share a research interest or paradigm that will meet to analyze their data collaboratively. Participants will document dynamics that are present in their data (including the development of data visualizations) using LSA or MM. The culminating activity of the workshop will be a planning session for developing a set of collaborative papers that will present results of analyses conducted at the workshop. This paper set will discuss the salience of dynamics made possible by the temporal analysis methods used. Additionally, workshop organizers will contribute a paper that provides a conceptual integration of the workshop analyses. These papers will comprise a special issue to a journal that is selected by the participants, likely CSCL.

Participants

Our goal for the workshop is to bring together researchers from leading international communities in the area of Technology-Enhanced Learning in order to advance methods for characterizing and analyzing the dynamics of interactions between people and tools within activity as they unfold over various timescales. Due to limited funding, the workshop will be limited to 14 participants including workshop organizers.

Researchers interested in participating in this workshop are asked to submit an abstract to the organizers (via the group contact) that describes their interest in these analytic techniques and their relevant research. Organizers will select participants who have formulated research questions that have a temporal dimension that best meet the workshop goal of exploring the connection between macro-level phenomena of group learning and and micro-level dynamics of interaction.

Although not all participants will be asked to bring their data to the workshop, participants will be more likely to be considered for selection if they:
Have event-based data relating to community development or collaboration
Have a sufficient quantity of data points over time to enable MM and LSA analysis
Are willing to pre-code their data in a specific format prior to the workshop (formatting instructions will be provided to participants on the workshop website), however, not all participants will be asked to bring their data for group analysis during the workshop.

To support the goal of collaboration across research communities, we will select participants to provide diverse representation of STELLAR and non-STELLAR researchers, with an emphasis on including different perspectives from the international community.

The working language of the workshop will be English, however verbal data for analysis can be in any language (data will be pre-coded by participants so translation is not necessary). Applications can be submitted in English, French, German or Spanish.

Organizers

Britte Haugan Cheng, SRI International (Group Contact: britte.cheng@sri.com)
Murat Cakir, Drexel University
Manu Kapur, National Institute of Education – Singapore
Vanessa L. Peters, University of Toronto
Vanessa Svihla, University of California, Berkeley
Alyssa Wise, Simon Fraser University
Timothy Zimmerman, Rutgers University
Katerina Zourou, University of Luxembourg