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News and Background Information on the Conference | |||
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New Virtual Academy will improve European Civil Protection
Bit media's senior consultant, Onno Reiners, will outline the aims of the New Virtual Academy and the opportunities it creates for enhanced cross-border cooperation for civil protection and emergency planning at 'The Third International Forum on E-Learning for Defence and Security' at Online Educa in Berlin on November 28, 2007. "Europe is growing closer together," says Reiners, "also in the field of civil protection. Today, joint training, joint exercises and joint operations of member states are nothing unusual. However, the coordination of such activities across borders still requires a lot of money and effort." "Cooperation no longer means that all partners have to meet in a certain place. Digital media have removed physical barriers to a major extent. Why should it be necessary for people to travel or fly across the whole of Europe to meet in one place, thereby causing a major burden in terms of costs and personnel, if a working group is supposed to prepare an exercise's scenario? Why should it be necessary to hold weekly management seminars, constituting a similar burden, if in three days face-to-face Tutorial only those issues are taught which a person could easily study all by himself?" The European Commission hopes that its "Virtual Academy" will provide new solutions to these problems. A virtual campus is already operating at www.eva4cp.eu and, by the end of 2007, the full range of intended services will be incorporated into the project. The Virtual Academy is hosted by bit media, which has supplied a customized version of its learning management system SITOS as the "carrier" of the new online institution. The company was also instrumental in developing an online course on the EU mechanism of civil protection that is an integral part of the academy, supplying authoring tools and training civil protection teachers in instructional design and the development of online courses. Enhancing cooperation through technology assisted learning and online training will be a major theme of this year's defence and security forum. "The advantages that new forms of learning and information sharing can bring to the security sphere, particularly to civil protection, planning and emergency preparedness are enormous," says New Security Foundation Chairman, Dr. Harold Elletson. "The European Commission's support for this project is good news. It will certainly save money and it may save lives too." About the Project: If you want to know more about the project, you can engage in a conversation with the speaker at the Third International Forum on E-Learning for Defence and Security, on Wednesday, November 28, Hotel InterContinental Berlin. |
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The European Commission is to use innovative new communication and training methods to improve civil protection. Virtual classrooms, blended learning, e-learning, online forums and chat rooms will be part of the new "European Virtual Academy for Civil Protection," which is being developed by the European Commission and a core group of experts from several European countries. The project consortium includes the German Federal Office of Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance (BBK) and Siemens Business Services, together with their partner for the project, bit media e-learning solution.
