Introduction & Sitemap

"EDUVINET - Education via Networks in the European Union is an initiative to promote the use of the Internet/WWW for teaching and learning in and between European schools through the development of exemplary teaching content, teacher training and a variety of other supportive measures. "

Societies that have become accustomed to a relatively high standard of living, will only be able to maintain this standard in an increasingly global economy if their productivity is higher than in other countries. In this context, the fast access to important information has gained more and more importance and with it also the initial and continuing training in the use of new information technologies. However, the introduction of these new information and communication technologies, particularly to young people, can not be successfully realised without special efforts in the education sector.

A series of obstacles still hinders the broad based introduction of Internet-supported teaching and learning in and between European schools: e.g., too little teacher training in the use of new information technologies, missing support by the school administration authorities, no integration of the new technology oriented teaching methods into the curricula, missing hardware and software equipment, slow or too few connections to the Internet, etc.. However, the most important obstacle seems to be that there still is not enough pedagogically elaborated content on the Internet after all in the arts.

The EDUVINET partner team from Ireland, Great Britain, France, Germany, Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece wants to start reducing these obstacles, raise awareness and set a good example by realising the two following activities:

1. Developing exemplary content and teaching material including didactical-methodical guidelines for the use in Internet-supported teaching in and between schools in Europe.
   
   
2. On regional and local levels key actors in the education sector, above all school administrators and teachers, are trained in the use of electronic networks (Internet/WWW) for teaching, learning and self-studying purposes partly by using the developed materials.

EDUVINET's target group are primarily teachers but also school administrators, students, parents and other actors in the education sector. Teachers and students from various test school classes in different Member States of the EU participate in the project.

A central role with regard to the dissemination of the project idea, the exchange of results and the realisation of the project plays the EDUVINET Website on the Internet (EDUVINET Service): http://www.eduvinet.de/ . All exemplary material and content developed by the partner team can be found there. A special Web-based discussion forum (EDUTALK) software makes it possible to discuss the developed materials with other teachers, educators and school classes on the Internet. Furthermore, the Website was designed with the aim to be a European online orientation point and resource centre for the partner team and for all others not directly participating in the project (school administration experts, teachers, students, parents or adults who want to train themselves). For this purpose hundreds of relevant links to educational resources on the Internet have been collected and ordered into different sections (see below). The EDUVINET site is full text searchable for keywords and can be extended with own content or URLs using special online submission forms.

The EDUVINET team is looking for new authors who want to join the team. We offer authors who want to upload their teaching material to the EDUVINET server FREE Web-space. Go to the authors section to read more about this or sent an e-mail to ohlendorf@eduvinet.de if this offer interests you.

EDUVINET in this way wants to contribute:

• to extend the educational European content available on the Internet
• to help to overcome geographical and curriculum boundaries in teaching and learning between European schools
• to prepare young people, teachers and adults for the requirements of the information society in a better way than it could have been achieved with conventional teaching methods
• to use scarce educational resources more efficiently in Europe

In most of the sections of the Service you can add your own link. Please use the Mail-forms provided at the end of the corresponding sections to submit the link/links and comments you would like to have added.

Most of the information in the Service is currently in English. Some materials are also available in other languages mainly in German, Spanish, French and Portuguese. Our long term goal is to have as many full texts available as possible in many different EU languages.

We can not guarantee that the links to information sources you find in the Service are always up to date. If you click on an old link that leads nowhere or want to update the link to your site please fill out the forms provided for this purpose at the end of the corresponding section.

More information about the EDUVINET project and its progress (Project summary, project partner and supporting organisations list, meeting agendas and pictures from the transnational meetings, project reports, download of the english, german, italian and spanish versions of the EDUVINET questionnaire testing the attitude of teachers towards the use of the Internet in schools, download of the SOCRATES project co-ordinator meeting minutes, list of other SOCRATES ODL-projects).

EDUVINET receives support under the SOCRATES Open and Distance Learning Programme of DG XXII of the European Commission. Click here for more information about the other supporters of the project.

A CD-ROM version of the EDUVINET Website including all materials is available for a small fee.

Please do not hesitate to contact the EDUVINET Team (E-Mail: ohlendorf@eduvinet.de) with all the questions, comments and suggestions you might have.

I hope you can share our views and ideas and if so be encouraged to contribute and participate.

Edmund Ohlendorf, Studiendirektor
(Co-ordinator EDUVINET project)


Josef Hund, Oberstudiendirektor
(Chairman IWB e.V.)

and

the EDUVINET Team