EDEN fifth Research workshop - at Unesco, Paris - 20-22 October 2008
Call for a "student session" - proposals to be sent before July 31^st at martine.vidal@cned.fr

The session will take place on October 21st - 5.30-6.45

On the occasion of EDEN fifth research Workshop (see : www.eden-online.org, Paris, Unesco), we wish to organise a session where students will be able to express their views on distance education, in the light of the following question :

"How do students in their specific educational and training environments effectively learn and gain access to resources and support, build their relationship to teachers and fellow students, and participate in an educational social life? What has been set up to follow these evolutions and assure their quality?"

It implies that the students themselves have a reflexive attitude concerning their learning ways.

Principle :
-          have participants discuss several experiences on the learning side.
-          involve students, and not just talk about them ;
-          have teams ;
-          consider different level and study environments ;
-          have a participative session ... 

Main topics :
o        higher education (any field, but carried at distance) ;
o        lifelong training, professional training, continuing education (ib.) ;
o        school level and teacher training (EDEN "Open Classroom Working Group" category) ;
o        distance education as specialised field of studies : masters of distance education, engineering of distance education, etc.

For each of those 4 categories :
-          Form teams of two : one student + one tutor (or any referent from the teaching/organisation side : he/she will be there just to answer questions, and to give confidence to student if necessary, not as main speaker)
-          Each team will prepare a very short presentation of a case corresponding to main question above, seen from the student's side :
      o        short enough to be explained quickly but explicitly
      o        precise enough for enabling discussion with a small group of participants (up to 10) for about 20 minutes ;
-          and in the shape of a "research question" or approaching (see below and visit papers at www.distanceandaccesstoeducation.org )
-          A "reporter/moderator" will give the tempo, check things are going fine and collect attendance information for each group in his/her category/room.
 
Participants will have to choose one first category, discuss with the team, and change to another category, once.

This call for proposals :
-          A number of master programmes are already interested, and some proposals have been received concerning, for example :
    *         Learning innovation and ICT ;
    *         Expressing a technical/ pedagogical/ organisational ... difficulty and solution, or no solution ;
    *         Showing virtual social life, collaborative learning, etc.

Interested teams can send a proposal (A4 page), identifying the programme, the case and question(s) the student would like to discuss, its main points - before July 31^st.

- Examples of topics ...

Possible topics to base case studies on, to question: (examples …, more can be found at : www.distanceandaccesstoeducation.org )	Being part of a group of learners at distance	Collaborative learning	Accessing courses and being tutored from a different country/ cultural background	Mobile learning and access	Combining professional activity and access to training	Etc.
Categories
Higher education
Lifelong training
School level and teacher training
Distance education as specialised field of studies