Monday, March 15, 2004
Kaleidoscope etc.
Apologies for the silence for the last few days, but meetings abroad have taken all the time. Kaleidoscope - the future of learning with digital technologies - is a major EU network of excellence, and it had its kick-off meeting in Grenoble. Some good collating work going on, though much of the meeting was administrative rather than content-rich, but it is important to understand some of the big issues.
Whilst it brings together a lot of work in the educational field, it seems to be missing some key stuff too which troubles me. There are a number of current EU FP5 projects doing good stuff that are not incorporated, and one or two speical projects that are rather too parochial for my liking. But in such a major network, this is only to be expected.
For some institutions the cost of participating is high: all acocunts have to be audited, and for some groups it looks like that cost will be higher than the amount they get paid for their work in participating. I can't work out whether overall this is a good thing, especially coming from the EU which hasn't exactly got the best record in producing detailed accounts. If I'm feeling generous, then this is a step in the right direction.
Papers have been submitted to various conferences, though Kaleidoscope scuppered our efforts for Ubicomp, which is a shame. Not good enough network access and too many distractions. Still, using a wireless LAN in a XVII'eme chateau is a cool experience.
And the weekend I escaped from it all by boarding in Les Deux Alpes. Tough old life.
Apologies for the silence for the last few days, but meetings abroad have taken all the time. Kaleidoscope - the future of learning with digital technologies - is a major EU network of excellence, and it had its kick-off meeting in Grenoble. Some good collating work going on, though much of the meeting was administrative rather than content-rich, but it is important to understand some of the big issues.
Whilst it brings together a lot of work in the educational field, it seems to be missing some key stuff too which troubles me. There are a number of current EU FP5 projects doing good stuff that are not incorporated, and one or two speical projects that are rather too parochial for my liking. But in such a major network, this is only to be expected.
For some institutions the cost of participating is high: all acocunts have to be audited, and for some groups it looks like that cost will be higher than the amount they get paid for their work in participating. I can't work out whether overall this is a good thing, especially coming from the EU which hasn't exactly got the best record in producing detailed accounts. If I'm feeling generous, then this is a step in the right direction.
Papers have been submitted to various conferences, though Kaleidoscope scuppered our efforts for Ubicomp, which is a shame. Not good enough network access and too many distractions. Still, using a wireless LAN in a XVII'eme chateau is a cool experience.
And the weekend I escaped from it all by boarding in Les Deux Alpes. Tough old life.
(c) 2003-2005 Russell Beale
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