Dissemination Activities Report
Author: Barclay, Hanna
Date: 2008-03-06
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Program Effectiveness,Teaching Methods,Information Dissemination,Consortia,Pilot Projects,Research and Development,Web Sites,Computer System Design,Educational Technology,Computer Software,Instructional Design,Computer Assisted Instruction,Internet,Computer Mediated Communication,Program Descriptions,Instructional Development,Workplace Learning,Knowledge Management,Teacher Education,Higher Education,Networks,Publications

In the first 24 months of the project, KP-Lab members were highly dedicated to dissemination and were engaged in various dissemination activities that contributed to the prime objective of the KP-Lab dissemination efforts which is &quot;to make the project widely known to a variety of prospective users and, at a later stage, to promote the technological tools and pedagogical practices developed by the research programme, so that they will be incorporated and integrated in the European market and further&quot;. The dissemination activities carried out by the KP-Lab consortium focused mainly on the following: dissemination embedded in the project's pilots; publications; participation in scientific and other events; and other specific dissemination activities. Pilots are conducted as part of the pedagogical WPs and are presumed to have a dissemination impact both on the organisations and institutions conducting the pilots and the organizations participating in the pilots. In the following subsections, we bring an account of past and on-going pilots broken down by the above-mentioned pedagogical WPs. The R&amp;D work in WP8 (Knowledge Practices in Education) has involved pilots in various educational institutions. Over 500 students and several dozen teachers and instructional assistants were exposed to the project during the first 24 months as a result of the pilots conducted in the framework of WP8. The R&amp;D work in WP9 (Knowledge Practices in Teacher Training) has involved pilots in various Teacher Training Institutions. Nearly 500 participants (university instructors, pre-service and in-service teachers, students, pupils and others) were exposed to the project during the first 24 months as a result of these pilots. The R&amp;D work in WP10 (Knowledge Practices in work places) has involved pilots in various workplaces. A large number of organisations, workplaces and individuals were exposed to the project during the first 24 months as a result of these pilots. Since the beginning of the project, KP-Lab members produced a remarkable amount of over 100 publications. These include papers, proceedings, research theses, articles and chapters in books. KP-Lab members also participated in approximately 90 scientific and other events and presented the project, its activities and its results to various degrees. Besides the dissemination activities in which the partners are commonly engaged as members of the project, KP-Lab partners also designed some special events intended to call certain members of the public attention to the project, its people and work: Open Days. In addition to participation in a &quot;regular dissemination efforts&quot;, the KP-Lab consortium acknowledges the importance of smaller scale dissemination efforts that include, amongst others, numerous lectures and presentations, participation in small workshops and meetings with key individuals. These smaller scale--but, nevertheless, important--efforts were mostly done at local level. The KP-Lab consortium members produced numerous posters which were presented at various scientific and other events. In order to expose a wider audience to the posters, a posters repository was created in the public section of the project's website in which some of the posters are already available. WP9 members took the initiative of creating a series of newsletters dealing with issues related to teacher training. We also anticipate including in the future newsletters, information from other pedagogical WPs, particularly of WP8. Some preliminary steps in this direction were already taken and some input from WP8 will be integrated in the next (2nd volume) newsletter. The official website for the KP-Lab project plays a major role in the dissemination of the emerging tools, models, practices and materials. The website was created at the very beginning of the project. The website is updated regularly, according to the progress of the project. (Contains 1 footnote.)