Peter Mazohl (EFQBL), Ebba Ossiannielsson (SADE) and Luca Reitano (DigiLab) in the coffee break during the meeting and consultations in Rome (10/2018)

Peter Mazohl, Harald Makl (EFQBL), Ebba Ossiannielsson (SADE) and Luca Reitano (DigiLab) met to consultations in October 2018 in Rome. The discussed topics covered the development of documents and chapters for the MOOC as well as the creation of content for the „Trainers‘ Toolbox“. Besides this, the publishing of the multiple device report (as a scientific paper) was discussed.

Another item was the planning and the start of the preparation work for the next meeting, which will take place in March in Rome at DigiLab.

In this meeting the developed materials will be reviewed finally and fixed.

DigiLab Rome, part of the University La Sapienza, is established in the refurbished building of an ald glas and mirror factory.

Currently, the partners are developing the MOOC (for the trainers‘ training) and specific items for the toolbox. The EFQBL is working on the introduction videos and has just finished the first successful tryouts.

Meeting in Lund: Discussion of various items dealing with the course creation and the toolbox.

The intermediate meeting of the project took place in Lund (Sweden). Here we found the best working conditions for the project team.

The goals in this meeting were to clear all open issues in the tools for developing the pilot courses. There were activities like:

• Discussion and clearing of open issues for the pilot course implementation and performing
• Evaluation of monitoring activities with amendment steps, intermediate evaluation report (project plan EGC, quality and progress, partnership and cooperation), progress report
• Evaluation of the teaching activity
• Organisational items (preparation of an intermediate report)
• Coordination of dissemination activities
• Preparation of special dissemination activities (conference participation)

Besides this, various internal and content related issues could be fixed and agreed.

The interest and the feedback of the audience showed the importance of the project and the need of appropriate and ready-to-use support of trainers.

Achieved results

The project focuses on continuous vocational education and training (C-VET). In the project special courses using multiple devices will be developed. For these courses a specific training framework (covering the pedagogical aspects) has been developed.

Other used frameworks are the DigiComp 2.0 Framework for Citizens (developed by the JRE of the European Commission) and the e-Xellence framwork (for course developing, created by the European Association of Distance Teaching Universities EADTU).

Currently, the course with the umbrella organisation of the Sakralenergetiker (in Austria, with assistence of the Austrian partner EFQBL) is developed and the first implementation of content are done.

Future aspects

The next step in the project is the development of a MOOC which assista trainers in the course creating. Additional, a toolbox for the trainers containing a specific list of tools is in development.

About the EDEN Conference

The Conference programme includes plenaries, parallel sessions with paper presentations, workshops, trainings, moderated poster and demo sessions and the synergy strand, ensuring digital interactivity and cooperation on the social web.

The event started on Sunday afternoon on 17 June, with registration, followed by the Welcome Reception and ended with a Farewell Coffee on 20 June.

Distance Learning is changing due to the various devices which are currently used.

Blended Learning has been widely accepted in the various fields of education. It supports intensive face-to-face contacts in the onsite teaching and training. In the Distance Learning a broad range of various pedagogical practices are possible, like self-regulated, self-paced and heutagogical learning, and flipped training situations as well. Distance Learning has simple preconditions due to the use of the Internet and the existence of affordable learning platforms.

Especial in VET education it is necessary that trainees acquire both competences and capabilities, Competency in this context means knowledge, skills, and attitudes while capability overlaps the attitudes and enhances it by the trainee’s confidence in the competency.

Considering the outlined approach above Blended Learning can be an excellent way in Vocational Education and Training as well as in Continuous VET.

While the pedagogical way to implement Blended Learning courses seems to be clear, a new challenge is showing up – the used technical devices. Currently, there exists a wide body of electronically devices. The Distance Learning in C-VET Education often is done at the workplace, during a break, using the available devices like Tablets, notebooks, or even smartphones. All these different devices must be supplied by the method of delivering the content (from the learning platform) to the trainees. This means the flexibility of the process of displaying something on differently sized displays (web pages here use a flexible or responding design). Using multimedia based content or interactive processes also can lead to problems and conflicts because not all devices support all media types (due to different operating systems or restrictions done by the manufacturer of the device).

All these facts mentioned above make it necessary to investigate the options and new possibilities of the use of multiple devices in Blended C-VET Training as well as to be aware of the obstacles and problems which might arise with these common devices.

The TIBL-Project will analyse the current situation and develop a special set of tools to assist trainers in creating C-VET courses.

Multiple devices are electronical tools to process and display data, information and multimedia content. Currently we can distinguish several types of devices, most of them are portable today.

Multiple devices

Computers or desktop devices

They are the classical root of all mentioned devices. Computers usually accept data (from a network or using an external keyboard), process them using specific programs and produce some results like data, images, texts, multimedia content or similar output. Computers also can be used as an input device for web-based applications. Computers usually are big, heavy, use a big screen and are not mobile.

Laptops and notebooks

Learning with a typical laptop

Laptops and notebooks are similar devices, but the laptop usually emulates the desktop device (bigger, heavier, not so compact, in most cases better equipped). Notebooks were designed as more compact devices and handier. The basic functionality is like laptops, but specific devices (like a DVD drive) are often missing. Currently, notebooks are optimized to connectivity (to the cloud).

Both types of devices use a mechanical keyboard.

Tablets

Learning with a tablet

Tablets are more or less reduced notebooks. A smaller screen, not so powerful processor, minimized operating system, no hard disk and other minimizations characterize a tablet. Most tablets use either the Apple IOS or Google’s Android. From the screen (or display), these tablets offer a typical size a little bit bigger than smartphones but smaller than tiny notebooks – they bridge this typical gap in display size. As a standard, a mechanical keyboard is not available and replaced by a special area at the touch screen. Many tablets currently can be enhanced by some kind of mechanical keyboard. There exist tablets including the feature of a phone (and therefore can be seen as big smartphones).

Smartphones

Smartphones are “all in one” microcomputers which have the ability to be used as a phone. The screen size is limited (due to the fact of transporting them in the pocket of your trouser. As a standard, a mechanical keyboard is not available and replaced by a special area at the touch screen. The enhancement with an external keyboard is not foreseen.

Convertibles

New on the market – convertibles

A convertible is a kind of notebook, where the keyboard can be turned to the rear of the display to enable the device to work like a tablet. It is a kind og hybrid of tablet and notebook and always needs a touchscreen.

Multiple devices in learning

The TIBL Project is going to develop the methodology to use all multiple devises in Blended Learning. This needs an elementary analyses of the potential of all the mentioned devices and to develop a well-fitting concept to deliver the learning content in a suitable way to supply all the used devices.

About the Author

Peter Mazohl is member of the Institute of Analyses and Scientific Computing at the University of Technology in Vienna, Austria. He was involved in the AKMAT project of the institute. This project is one of the biggest Blended Learning projects at universities in Europe.
Peter Mazohl is the head of the „European Foundation for Qualify in Blended Learning“ which is the Austrian Partner of the TIBL Project.