Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Great Lx International Conference 2013






"How can we bring attention of policy makers to the significant potential of games? This  issue will be addressed by the GREAT Lisbon Conference on Games & TEL."

Claudio Dondi


The Great Lx International Conference on Games and TEL took place in Lisbon, Portugal last 15-16 September 2013 at ISCTE-IUL.

The GREAT LX International Conference on Games & TEL (technology enhanced learning) was promoted by Portuguese Association of People Management (APG) partnership with ISCTE and European partnership project supported by the European Leonardo da Vinci.

The Organizing Committee Claudio Dondi, Edeberto Costa, Maja Pivec and Ana Passos joined all the speakers and participants for a full and interesting day for the future of learning in Europe



Great LX | Auditorium

Interesting opportunity to participate, listen and share the last concepts about the current paradigms and evolution of Games in Education (GBL) Training (SG) and Technology Enchanced Learninig (TEL).

The Great Lx started, on September 15th with a Social Play - Porto de Honra followed by a dinner.

The main conference began on September 16th 2013 at 9:00. The conference themes were:

Theme 1: Games

  • Serious Game
  • GBL-Games based learning
  • Gaming

Theme 2: Technology Enhanced Learning:

  • E-learning
  • Social and inclusive learning
  • ICT Contexts
  • Environments for learning
  • Collaborative Virtual Environments



Claudio Dondi

Claudio Dondi, a policy maker and influent learning thinker about European issues gave the participants guidance and experienced learning processes. EFQUEL, Menon, Scienter some references of his work.

At the Great Auditorium (Grande Auditório), the conference started with "E&T 2020 strategy powered by networks and partnerships."

Over the past years the EU has gained more and more influence in the field of lifelong learning. 

The central points for dialogues on the round table were the relevance of joining forces from various sources in a common field of battle by learning interests with eyes on the future. 

  • Networks are one of the agents for change. 
  • The paradigm shift in learning is an opportunity to blow the collaborative work of thematic networks in lifelong learning.
  • Games in Learning; Game Based Learning; Serious Games; Gaming - Findings and appreciations from recent researches The IPTS / JRC European Commission (March 2013), emphasized the importance of learning through play.

Great Lx Conference | Maja Pivec
photo: GSouto

"Game-based learning has been considered a significant approach to increase motivation of learners for a long time, and ICT has brought a lot of new options to broaden the range of learning objectives that can be addressed by games."

Claudio Dondi

"Gaming; Game Based Learning; Serious Games, Gaming: Findings and appreciations from recent researches" were at the top of dialogues at this Round Table at 11: 30,moderated by Edelberto Costa.

Maja Pivec presented a research project based in focus group and an online survey. Also presented several specific games that can be used in the learning process. 

I knew the work of Maja Pivec because we participated in 2010 at the ENGAGE Quality Awards 2010 as members of the Jury for evaluation.

Petridis Panagiotis from the Serious Games Institute (SGI), presented several games related to Health; Paul Pivec highlighted the characteristics of the games that a game designer need to considerer; Leonel Morgado introduced the new ways of learning and teaching – games change the process and the way we learn.



Great Lx Conference

After lunch and continuing at the Great Auditorium the round table "ICT for learning in the EU 2020: Findings and appreciations from recent researches" began.

I was very interested on key note speaker Claudio Dondi analysis about the role of ICT in learning moving the change on E&T and bringing a great challenge for the shift on paradigm in Europe. 

I know Claudio Dondi from different international conferences. The last one, in Brussels, at the European Forum on Learning Futures and Innovationwhere I had a presentation at VISIR workshop on the 19th March, 2013 with Giordano Koch and Jan Pawlowski.

Claudio Dondi is one of best European researcher and expert and his thoughts are always very important.

Claudio Dondi made a splendid evaluation with remarkable key notes and items that I have the chance to hear.



Great Lx Conference | Final session

Some considerations or a possible report:


For one long day, speakers, researchers, practitioners, producers, skate holders and participants shared  interesting ideas and experiences.

I joined key speakers and round tables at the Great Auditorium. I am an independent researcher on TEL and I was very curious to hear about the new ideas.

Games, TEL and MOOCs were on my best interests

I knew the work of Maja Pivec. We worked together at the ENGAGE Quality Awards 2010 as members of the Jury for Evaluation.

As an expert on Social Media Tools in Education and  trainer teachers, I am an educator and practitioner of the integration of games in school. I really know the importance of gaming to change teaching and learning in Secondary Education.

I would like to hear something new. However, it was interesting to hear the questions of some participants in the room. 

Some teachers talked about their fears and demotivation to introduce games and ICT tools in the classroom. This is not new. 

Younger teachers who teach in schools now are the ones who reveal more Informatic skills but the domain of a simple technique does not guarantee that teachers uses it easily, with clearance and with critical thinking.

Teachers must not be afraid to introduce ICT and games in Secondary Education.

I think it is a question of changing mentalities and most important, training teachers, helping them to develop a high-attuned sense of technique in the classroom.

A good final session. The speakers and the participants presented an overview about their own ideas and interests, trying to contribute to better inclusion and excellent innovation technologies in Education.

Finally the team Rapporteurs leader's communication comments and questions selected from audience and internet addressed to representatives.

I special appreciated Claudio Dondi (Scienter) evaluation on TEL and António Teixeira (EDEN) on MOOCs.

It is very important to understand the new challenges until 2020. As the final rapporteur pointed:
  • We have to work harder on the issues above. 
  • MOOCs are not inclusive. 
  • Less focus on thecnology and more in people.

Really liked a testimony of a college student talking about MOOCs. He feel more engaged on academy face to face learning and social experience between peers than online learning.

Of course there were interesting parallel sessions as The MOOC experience : "The Bright and the Dark Sides" by António Teixeira - EDEN; Natural User Interfaces: "Devices as smartphones and tablets brought several sensors into our daily life" by Antão Almada - Ydreams; "Technology Enhanced Learning: where are we heading to?" by Patrick Belpaire - European Training and Developement Federation; "The Social Learning Revolution: Knowledge workers uses social tools to work and learn" by Jane Hart - C4LPT.co.uk | Sara Brito - Global Estratégias and other.



Tuna Universidade Europeia | Great Lx

Break coffee and lunch were animated by Tuna Universidade Europeia (Academic Music) that cheered the network. As an ancient college student, I loved it!


Poster | Great Lx


On the lobby for launch and break coffee, the participants could read the different posters displayed on the corners as follow the last tweets about the sessions displayed on a big wall as a giant Twitter network. Great participation !

The event was broadcast live by Sapo and offered the possibility to interact with participants on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin group and Google +



Lobby | Great Lx

A fruitful and instructive conference! The "Great Lx" was an excellent opportunity for an active participation, by sharing ideas building and exchanging visions. 

A great work from all the volunteer team!

G-Souto

25.09.2013
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Great Lisbon International Conference 2013 bG-Souto is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Credits: Photos The Great Lisbon International Conference & GSouto

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