Pontydysgu – Bridge to Learning

The deadline for submissions for the PLE conference being held in Barcelona on 8 and  9 July this year is fast approaching. Abstracts should be submitted by March 26. Full derails can be found on the PLE conference website.

The PLE Conference is intended to produce a space for researchers and practitioners to exchange ideas, experience and research around the development and implementation of PLEs including the design of environments, sociological and educational issues and their effectiveness and desirability as (informal) learning spaces.

Whilst the conference includes a traditional research paper strand, the conference organisers also encourage proposals for sessions in different formats including workshops, posters, debates, cafe sessions, hands on sessions and demonstrations. The conference will also provide opportunities for unconferencing events, including the provision of spaces for informal meetings and discussions.

As well as the face to face sessions, the conference will be supported by a variety of different online spaces.

Selected papers will be published by the International Virtual and Personal Learning Environments Journal.”

We were recently approached by an organisation looking to develop a project on webquests. did we have any experience of using, web quests they wanted to know. And where could they find documentation of our work? As in so many things, we have been working on webquests but have never properly documented it. In particular we have been looking at how to enhance webquests through the sue of social software and Web 2.0 tools. And the subject of webquests is one of the main research topics for Pontydysgu blogger Maria Perifanou. So working with Maria we have developed a  wiki page on webquests. It includes presentations, examples and references. Some of the material is in English, some in Italian.

It took us some time to unearth a copy of Maria’s popular presentation at last years Thoughfest event. But we finally found it and are happy to feature it on this page.

If anyone would like to add to the wiki please email us and we will give you permissions.

Joe Dale says: “Ask a 21st Century educator what their personal learning network or PLN means to them and you’ll probably get a range of impassioned and emphatic responses. I posed this question via Twitter during my talk at Language World 2009 and was delighted by the quality of the replies I received.”

This clip is a compilation of those answers, pasted into PowerPoint and filmed using Camtasia Studio with a backing track from podsafe artist Andreas Viklund.”

Maria Perifanou’s presentation from last years Thoughfest event in Manchester. For more examples of her work on this subject go to our Webquests wiki page

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