EdViCon Multiplier Event June 26-27th 2023

Marseille, France

To conclude the first year of the EdViCon project, partners attended the first Multiplier event on June 25-27^th 2023 at Aix-Marseille University (AMU) in Marseille, France. The 11 participants were excited to finally meet in person after a year of online meetings and coordination. 

During the conference hosted by Aix-Marseille University under the facilitation of Maria Antonietta Impedovo, PhD, and Associate Professor Md Saifuddin Khalid, partners were invited to share the preliminary findings of R2. Over two days, partners and external participants shared their experiences and learnings from in-class observations and participatory interviews focusing on gathering trans-national data on the topic of best practices for video conference teaching and on how to engage students during live online teaching using Microsoft Teams. To comment on the matter, the project had invited Henrik Bang-Andersen, Higher Education Segment Lead from Microsoft, Denmark.

The objectives of the conference were firstly to disseminate and discuss the R1 State-of-the-art (SOTA) result on the video conferencing tools, methods, principles, and good practices. Secondly, to facilitate workshops for collecting existing scenarios and best practices of using video conferencing and didactics for portable VC-mediated teaching. Thirdly, to be introduced to EdTech tools for engaging students online.

The first of the conference was held internally for partners and was initiated with a project status, partner perspectives and reports on the administration, the different management roles, and the communication of the project hitherto and for going forward into the second year. Presenters rehearsed the presentations of their findings to each other to prepare for day 2 of the conference that would be joined by invited and inspired stakeholders. The last subject of the day revolved around the protocols of R4 ‘Educational Materials’ and R5 ‘Competence Matrix’.

The second day was kicked-off with a workshop, where the seven partner universities presented their outcome for R2.1 ’EdViCon Best Practices: Collection of existing scenarios and best practices of using video conferencing’. The deliverables of the presentation were focused on the question of “What tools and pedagogical training should be provided to teacher?” with an emphasis on cultural differences and considerations. The EdViCon project as an international Erasmus Plus+ project indeed proved its value in a diverse and qualified discussion around developing educational video conferencing with consideration to cultural challenges.

The second workshop of the day focused on an impending survey of training needs to adopt the good principles and practices that the project will be conducting. Followingly, UiTM and DTU facilitated an ideation session around didactic use of online tools. 

Partners who participated in-person had traveled from Universiti of Teknologi Mara (UiTM), Malaysia, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), The Danish University of Technology and EdTech Denmark. The conference was hosted by Aix-Marseille University on campus led by Maria Antonietta Impedovo. Our partners at University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh (ULAB) and Mae Fah Luang University (MFU), Thailand, and An-Najah National University (ANNU), Palestine participated online.