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 The
final meeting of the Cultural Heritage and ICT Neothemi network
took place in Campobasso in Italy during 8 and 9 October. Harry
Kogon and Donny Gluckstein attended from SCE.
The conference was very useful and stimulating. This was for several
reasons:
- The conference was a presentation of three years of work from
a network of 10 different partners, ranging from schools to Universities.
- One session, addressed by a speaker from Brussels, covered the
future of European funded projects. Here it emerged that at present
educational institutions encompassing 2% of European young people
are involved in projects. The intention is to increase that percentage
to 5% from 2007. Accordingly funding for projects will increase
from the current €499m to €1600m.
- We were able to meet up with other partners involved in our
Comenius project and so were able to have very useful discussions
about carrying our project forward which is also coming to the
end of its three years. Although there is a project meeting taking
place shortly, there is a great deal of work to do in terms of
completing the project and presenting it at the final session
in Rome.
- We also met many people from a wide range of European countries
who were in a similar position to ourselves in that they were
completing projects and wished to become involved in new ones.
- Many of the sessions dealt with issues which we have been wrestling
with in our own project such as the extent to which ICT can be
employed in education. For example, one group from Norway explained
how all their students had been given laptops and they now operated
a ‘Learning Management System’ which had revolutionised
the way education was carried out. While there were many advantages
to this new system there was also a danger that some advantages
of more traditional teaching methods would be lost.
 As
a result of the conference we are much better prepared for the forthcoming
Comenius meeting, we have had the privilege of seeing how a very
well run and professional Comenius 3 network operates and have some
useful ideas about where it might be possible to develop new projects
that involve wider layers of students and staff at SCE.
To find out more about Neothemi go to http://www.neothemi.net/
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