CERI Eye - two-day workshop on e-learning, Barcelona, Spain

Francesc Pedro reports back from a two-day workshop on e-learning hosted by Generalitat de Catalunya (the regional government) in Barcelona, Spain on 28 June 2007. Dr. Anthony Bates, formerly at the University of British Columbia (Canada) and I were the two international speakers. The rest of presentations were made by nationals, mostly teachers.
This workshop was intended to accompany the official launching of a new public initiative, the “Open Institute of Catalonia". This college-type of institution aims at delivering e-learning programs in three different areas: vocational education and training, academic secondary education, and adult learners. It will be using an open source platform, based on Moodle, and has plans to create some open educational resources, including full programs. Based on already existing traditional distance teaching education programs, the unification into a common institution of the three different cultures that shape academic education, VET, and adult education is seen as a major step, far more than the use of open educational resources.
Dr. Bates, who participated in the CERI study of e-learning, gave a speech according to which this initiative was completely new in the international context, with no equivalents elsewhere. He focused his presentation on the LearnBCnow initiative, which is a common portal for k-12 e-learning courses in British Columbia with a really interesting approach.  Later, he elaborated on future trends in e-learning, on the basis of the report he published at the request of UNESCO’s IIEP.
My presentation, focused on the significance of OER in e-learning and the implications for the educational models.