Top educators gather to discuss transformation in digital ecosystem

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KUCHING: The 1st International Conference on Education in the Digital Ecosystem (ICEdDE) which kicked off yesterday aims to address Industrial Revolution 4.0 which has given new impetus to education transformation, says Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) Sarawak rector Prof Dato Dr Jamil Hamali.

He said the conference would try to address the transformation process by gathering leading policy makers, academic scientists, researchers, teacher trainers and teachers in an international setting to present and discuss the most recent innovations, trends and concerns as well as many of the practical challenges encountered.

“The focus is on identifying solutions for the adaptation of education in the digital ecosystem by providing a creative platform for inspirational exchanges, interaction and scientific debate on practices and research related to education in the digital ecosystem and on the use of blended learning in pre-service and in-service teacher training,” he said at the opening ceremony of ICEdDE 2019, here yesterday.

Jamil said lCEdDE 2019 is the initiative of the ERASMUS+ Capacity Building in Higher Education programme – funded by the European Union – for the ‘Blended Learning Courses for Teacher Educators between Asia and Europe’ project as part of its dissemination activity.

This Blended Learning project, he pointed out, consists of 11 institutions, namely Aix Marseille University, France as the project manager; Aalborg University, Denmark; University of Tallinn, Estonia; Audiovisual Technologies, Informatics and Telecommunitions, Belgium; Royal University of Bhutan, Bhutan; UiTM, Malaysia; Teachers Education Institute (IPG) Batu Lintang Campus, Malaysia; The National University of Modern Languages, Pakistan; Islamabad International Islamic University, Pakistan; Bangladesh Open University, Bangladesh; and University of Dhaka, Bangladesh.

“The aim of the project is to support a collaborative learning community consisting of teacher educators to improve their skills, with a direct and indirect impact on the quality of teacher training.

“International cooperation between partners makes it possible to share and discuss critically the practices of teacher educators, supporting each other in innovative pedagogical practice through the mediation of technology,” added Jamil.

Some 300 participants from 13 countries are attending the four-day conference, which is themed ‘Blended Learning in Teacher Training Innovation and Good Practices’.