The 3rd EdReNe seminar puts educational repositories in perspective
3rd EdReNe strategic seminar, June 3 – 4 2009, Stockholm, Sweden
Three very different but related initiatives put educational repositories in perspective: a comparative study by OECD on digital learning resources as systemic innovation, Europeana providing access to millions of digitized items from museums, libraries, archives etc. and finally, a teacher driven streaming video service for learning.
Jan Hylen, Leif Andresen and Martin Claesson presented Beyond textbooks, Europeana and Kunskabshubben, respectively
Beyond textbooks is a comparative study by OECD’s Centre for Educational Research and Innovation, Directorate for Education, CERI. Some of the preliminary results from the study were presented by Jan Hylen, Metamatrix, who has performed as a consultant for CERI.
The aim of the study was to review the process of systemic innovation, e.g. how countries initiate ICT-based innovations related to DLR and what factors influence the success of policies aimed at promoting such initiatives.
Read more about Main Findings, Enablers, Barriers, Drivers, Recommendations and Conclusions in Jan Hylen’s presentation.
The final OECD report will be published in the near future, available at http://www.oecd.org/edu/systemicinnovation/dlr
Europeana is a place for inspiration and ideas. The current prototype links to 4.2 million digital objects from more than 1000 organisations. When version 1.0 will be ready in 2010 it will link to more than 10 million digital objects.
“Europeana should be the single, direct and multilingual access point to the European cultural heritage” (European Parliament September 27, 2007). However, Europeana is not an all in one database, but a distributed solution.
In 2005 a number or European presidents proposed a European digital library to ensure that Europe’s cultural and scientific heritage took its rightful place among the information resources of the digital world.
Archive
» WS 4.2 – Standards and interoperabililty II
» WS 5.2 – Engagement of producers and users II
» WS 3.2 – Repository strategies
» The 2nd EdReNe strategic seminar
» WS 6.1 – Rights issues
» WS 4.1 – Standards and interoperability
» WS 3.1 – Repository strategies, general level
» WS 5.1 – Engagement of producers and users, operational level
» Kick-off strategic seminar
» EdReNe’s first year
» The EdReNe network has got a good start
Europeana.eu – a search on “Paris”
The European Commission has a general interest in digital information, the new ways to deal with information, to put the content where the users are and not least the new opportunities to engage users. Museums, libraries etc. need to stay relevant to the people, giving them the kind of information they want in the place they want to access it.
The Digital Libraries initiative (September 2005) is addressing these issues among others. In August 2006 the Commission recommended to Member States to create a European Digital Library (EDL). The outcome (July 2007-March 2009) was the EDL Thematic network and the prototype web portal: Europeana.
The EDL foundation is the legal entity behind it all, and EDLnet brings together an operational network of 100+ partners. Each of these organizations communicates and endorses Europeana’s objectives to their members – which includes just about every cultural heritage organisation in Europe.
Martin Claesson from Årstaskolan in Stockholm presented the initiative Kunskapshubben.
Teachers and parents grew up with books; now children grow up in a total different setting. They have adopted technology in a very different way than the older generations. Furthermore, the internet provides new (and often free) tools for distribution and communication and the cost of storing and producing digital material has decreased rapidly.
Digital media are changing the schools!
At Årstaskollen many creative teachers wanted to reach out to the children and do things in a different and more creative way. They wished to improve the school’s performance.
Therefore they build Kunskapshubben, which is a knowledge hub with more than 100 online video clips - all produced by teachers - a local learning platform and a communication too!
Kunskapshubben – a teacher driven initiative started in 2008 in Sweden. More than 100 video clips have been produced during the first year.
During the last 3-5 years many European countries have been creating online video archives. Many of these initiatives are meant for or used by schools. For that reason it becomes very relevant for the EdReNe network to learn more about them and their strategies. One of the interesting observations is that five different countries do not result in five different strategies. There are many similarities to be found in the presentations made by:
Dalida van Dessel, Ole Hjortdal, Cecilia Boreson and Daniel Elliot, Gunilla Palmen and Rosa Maria Gomez de Regil presented strategies of NIBG/ED*IT, DR, UR, YLE/Vetamix and initiatives of French broadcasters, respectively
It’s all about connections: successful use of online content in the classroom, The Netherlands
DR strategies, Denmark
UR strategies, Sweden
YLE strategies, Finland
Strategies of French broadcasters
NIBG is the audiovisual cultural heritage institute of The Netherlands holding a business archive of the Dutch public broadcasters with 70 % of all the audiovisual material in The Netherlands, which is 700.000 hours of television, radio, music and film and 2.000.000 photos.
One of the goals of NIBG is to have as much content available to the public, research etc. as possible. However, at the same time they are required to sell some of the content. The business model chosen is to provide value-added services. They provide services for all levels of education. Generally speaking the same content is presented in different contexts.
Currently 25.000 TV programmes, documentaries, home videos, etc. are available online. This material can all be searched and viewed via the frontend by broadcast professionals, academics and the general public. Once the material is digitized it can be used from different front ends – synergy is important to keep the costs down.
ED*IT, a new educational service to be launched in September. It comes in two versions: ED*IT basis (primary education) and extra (secondary education) - Same content, different metadata.
ED*IT provides access to 10 different content databases and tools to stay updated (an overview of new material), to share, upload (e.g. your own photos), edit, search, remix, and to create e-lessons. These tools are behind login and have been developed for this purpose or provided by partners.
One of the tools allows the teachers to make their own video clip, e.g. to cut out a piece of the clip. Actually the user does not cut the clip/make a new clip. The user simply adds time codes. This model was chosen for copyright reasons (it is not a new clip) and technical reasons as well (it is much easier).
ED*IT Basis. From the logon page the user has direct access to new clips and the various tools from the bar at the top.
DR (Danish Broadcasting Corporation) is an independent, licence financed public institution. As a public service organisation DR is obliged to broadcast education programmes and services. Special attention should be given to motivate for further education. The initiatives are a supplement to the primary school and the general education. DR must use a wide range of technological platforms for the programmes and services, including the Internet.
Within education DR works with: Educational TV-programmes (with topics like globalisation, climate change etc.), campaigns (like anti-bullying) and web-based educational materials (e.g. dr.dk/skole for primary schools, dr.dk/gymnasium for secondary).
The amount of content delivered on the web is growing, partly because it is a flexible platform (clips from many different areas can easily be combined), partly of cost-benefit reasons – you obtain more content for the same budget compared to e.g. a traditional TV-programme.
Case dr.dk/skole for primary schools
The subscription based service was launched January 1st 2005. It is the result of a development project with the Ministry of Education. It represented a new educational and technical concept for use of film clips, audio and stills in education. It is based on access to and digitization of DR Archives.
agent of dr.dk/skole. The more than 23.000 clips are organised in different categories (history, society, everyday life, science etc.). For each category there is a set of themes, e.g. World War I under history. A theme contains relevant clips, sound clips, facts, timelines, assignments, ideas for the teacher, etc. In this example the user searched for video clips related to “the first world war”.
860 out of approximately 2000 primary schools subscribe to the service. In secondary schools the ratio is 77 of 200. The prices are based on the number of students, e.g. it costs 900 Euro per year for a school with more than 1000 pupils/students. One of the challenges in the near future is that teachers are not using the material enough (although the growth in whiteboards seems to help). Limited access to adequate computers in the schools might be one explanation.
DR is moving in the Web 2.0 direction with more user involvement – “from viewing to interaction/production” - as with the Dutch ED*IT. However, first the website is moved to a standard CMS system and reorganised in cooperation with teachers.
UR is the smaller of Sweden’s three broadcasting companies. At the moment UR is still a very traditional broadcasting company: TV, Radio and Web. However, the future strategy is an area for discussion within UR at the moment, i.e. how to create interesting TV programmes, the use of the web etc.
Some of the popular websites made by UR are:
- RUM a project inviting people to work with digital storytelling. It is very interesting to see how people choose to tell their own story. Close to 500 small stories. The students and teachers like this website; it is very easy to use.
- URSmart is a pilot project working with digital learning objects on the web. However, is this the right way to do it and should UR be a learning object publisher? These questions are being considered. In the meantime the website can be found at www.ursmart.se
- Spelhalan is a very popular website with educational games.
UR as a provider for end-user systems
The schools connect with different providers, not with UR directly. UR do not see themselves producing these systems. Other partners, publishers etc., should deliver these services in cooperation with UR. UR should not be a competitor to the private market.
To implement this strategy, standards and a connecting service are required. UR tries to copy the strategies found in social networks without becoming a system provider as MSN or FaceBook, e.g. user generated metadata. An example of this is the site FLOD.nu, which will collect user ratings.
More than 280 schools have access to FLOD. UR is one of the content providers.
YLE is a public broadcasting company with 4 TV channels including one for the Swedish speaking minority group, radio channels and services on the internet. On the internet the users find TV and radio programmes, archive material for general use, news services etc.
YLE’s public service strategy is to inform, educate, entertain, and lately to ENABLE. YLE will build upon partnerships to make the content available to the greatest possible number of Finns. YLE will also develop new distribution methods together with others e.g. publishers. To support this strategy YLE seeks general copyright agreements that permit broad cooperation with other distribution, telecom and media companies.
Since 2008 rights to online distribution via listed known media have been added to the agreements. The rights are added with no end-date (= unlimited).
VETAMIX
The archive material is accessible for teachers through Vetamix (in Swedish – a language minority in Finland; the service is maintained by 2-3 people) and opettaja.tv (in Finnish, this service is maintained by 60 people). The target group is teachers in Finland. It will be extended to pupils and parents later on. Vetamix is for free, everyone has to register but anyone can do that.
Vetamix includes a digital media archive with thousands of learning objects, a lesson mixer (a simple presentation tool), and personal folders used to save bookmarks, mixes and discussion entries.
Teachers can comment on everything, including clips, keywords, mixes etc. directly or in public. To support the teachers, a coach visits schools and show them how to use Vetamix, a service which can be recommended for other video repositories.
Vetamix.yle.fi
Some general characteristics of video repositories in France:
Video classifications include thematic, curriculum and educational categories.
Access to the video clips is facilitated through search engines and/or browsing.
Display of video clips is according to newest videos, anti-chronological order, front page emphasis, and actuality (thematic).
There is publication control of the audiovisual contents and the importance of the content management strategies must be stretched because of the growing amount of content.
A successful use case is facilitated by national high bandwidth coverage, up-to-date computers at the school and at home, content which is usable by teachers, content granularity (teachers ask for small pieces instead of larger) etc.
Lesite.tv
Lesite.tv is a commercial service provided by France5. This service extends Curiosphere.tv. It includes 2500 French curriculum linked videos and more functions when logged in e.g. lesson planning, activity guides and download. The videos can be downloaded and put on the schools intranet to provide easier access. New developments include a community zone and facilities to edit and cut videos. “Lesite.tv pour tous” is another new service with accessible videos (the audio track is complemented by sign language). The metadata does not yet exist in standardised format. The existing metadata will be mapped to both LOM and Dublin Core.
In 2008 Lesite.tv had 4000 subscribers, including 20 % of the secondary schools in France. In primary school the price per pupil per year is less than 2 Euro.
Other examples
Canal-U.tv
Jalons
MédiaSCÉRÉN
Curiosphere
Rosa Maria Gomez de Regil’s presentation
July 2009, Leo Højsholt-Poulsen, UNI•C, EdReNe coordinator
