Annual Report 2015, Budapest
At this year's conference in Budapest we had 36 and presentations plus the Zero session and the network meeting; in total 13 sessions. Apart from that, we had one Symposium. Like other years we had a joint session together with NW 24, the Math network. Furthermore we had two posters participating in the Poster Session.
The number of participants in the sessions as usual varied a bit but most sessions were attended by close to 20 people and few were below 10 participants.
The themes covered this year was with a very strong focus on the cultural, social and educational aspects related to transition - core themes in our network, although it becomes obvious that ‘our’ core themes harbour an increasing number of ways to combine research issues. This was illustrated by some very interesting papers on art and new technology related to identity and innovative issues and presumably this field of research issues will ‘explode’ in the following years.
In the general picture of what happened this year it must be stated that again the overall spirit in the network activities was one filled with openness, curiosity and appreciation of research projects presented in the sessions.
This year the network continued the idea of a workshop named ‘Session Zero’ that aimed to offer a window into both the network issues and those who ‘works’ within it during the week. In ‘Session Zero’ we talked about the identity of Network 20 and someone suggested that our network could be seen as some kind of a gate, for, after attending NW 20 a couple of years, to continue in other networks. On the other hand there is a core of researchers participating in the network year by year.
The thematic focus of the 13 sessions were:
- Art and open innovative learning processes,
- Identity and religion in an Intercultural learning environment,
- Cross-professional collaboration promoting inclusion and intercultural learning,
- Creativity, research in internet games,
- Identity and learning in deaf environments,
- Intercultural issues in foreign language learning,
- Intercultural learning environments transforming professional identities,
- Identity and citizenship,
- Intercultural methodology and competencies,
- Using new technologies,
- Unusual visual methods in learning,
- Transforming intercultural teaching and learning and
- Intercultural learning for peace and identity.
Again this year the quality of the presentations by many was viewed to be excellent which was mirrored in the discussions which often were very exciting and hard to keep within time limits. The convenors did a fine and necessary job leading the sessions.
This year conference in Budapest was Zero Conference for the network with a new convenor after John Willumsen retired after last year in Porto. Hence new leadership had to be established in a 'learning by doing' process. All in all everything was more than okay the feedback to the conveners stated, so this 'new' start seems to have gone by on an OK level.
New this year was the context of the European refugee situation related to the civil war in Syria. As usual some of the papers dealt with the issue in an intercultural perspective, but suddenly the discussions were broadened out. We had a camera team participating a session and afterwards filming interviews with three presenters and the link convenor.
This year a meeting between Network 17 History in Education and our Network 20 was set up in Budapest as a continuation of close contacts and joint sessions through many years and an agreement made in April 2015 in Berlin to search out possibilities for setting up a joint project between conferences. The project is financed by Council and will take place at two seminars; one in Barcelona November 2015 and one in Riga March 2015. Then the results of this joint venture will be presented at next year conference in Dublin in sessions, symposiums,workshops, etc.
The tie to Network 24, Mathematics, also with a new convenor, continued with a joint session and with plans for wider collaboration next year in Dublin. At our joint session this year the National Hungarian TV News Section showed up, filmed and interviewed presenters at this session. This joint session was focusing on research on how to use iPads and new media to enhance learning in math and ways of working with narratives in teaching.
Another issue on the agenda this year was the Network 20 Web and Homepage, which, at the time of the conference, had been laid down. Ideas for a new Webpage was discussed and with the inspiration from the page set up due to the refugee situation and ECER/EERA, a new Network 20 webpage was created in the same template: WordPress. The new Webpage for Network 20 can be found here: <link https: network20eeraecer.wordpress.com _blank external link in new>network20eeraecer.wordpress.com/
At ‘Session Zero’ it was suggested that the network should be more active between conferences. By setting this webpage up a new, it will now be possible to make contacts and communicate about possibilities with other ‘link members’ or potential members for cooperation also in between the conferences.
The conveners of the network are now in 2015/16: Christian Quvang (Link Convenor), Raimonda Bruneviciute, Carmen Rodriques Carmona, Gyöngyvér Pataki and Hafdis Gudjonsdottir.