The third ISTUS meeting was held in Vilnius, Lithuania on 3rd
and 4th May. Our hosts at Mykolo Romerio University included Giedre,
Viktorija and Jolita. Two busy days were to follow after travel from our partner
institutions across Europe.
Day 1 – The group was invited to participate in a
conference being held in the university ‘Social Medias: Challenges and Opportunities
for Education in Modern society’. This was the first time the group were able
to listen and learn about areas of particular interest and research from within
the group. A really interesting idea that left the group with much to discuss,
throughout the meeting there were frequent references ‘As X mentioned in
their presentation....’
The remained of our first day was predominately spent
discussing interview results the group had so far managed to record, the
direction results might be leading and participants yet to be interviewed.
Preliminary results include those from Students, Teachers
and Administrators. The group considered different criteria within the interviews
such as stages of social media adoption, critical incidents and stories. Each group applied a
different methodology, demonstration that:
- There is a lot of valuable information being recorded; there are many interesting thoughts and contradictions in mindsets, there are valuable policy documents being created by institutions, initial thoughts are that institutions appear to vary a great deal in expectations and adoption of social media.
- As well as; definitions of our own criteria would need to be expanded and final evaluation of the interviews will take time, a planned and agreed evaluation method is required.
On Thursday evening the group toured Vilnius old town in the
beautiful warm sunshine. The section of the city we saw was equally as beautiful and
interesting. A traditional Lithuanian feast was put on for the hungry group; it
included music, dancing, hunting quails and tales of the old days. Thanks to
our host for a most memorable evening.
Day 2- Back at the pristine university the group
participated in think tank discussion, developing ideas for a follow up Grundtvig
proposal for a multilateral project.
With so many valuable findings from our interviews and project work so
far, the group can clearly see many strands of further research and project topics around the use of Social Media in Adult Education. Some of the strands discussed
include a toolkit, links to career services, mobile learning, assessments and
virtual mobility.
As part of the ISTUS project work we have agreed to regularly self evaluate
aspects of our work. The afternoon of day 2 went by very quickly, with
the time we had the group were able to agree some important points in our work so far. Learning from our now 3 meetings, decisions were made about
how to proceed onto our next meeting in Finland. Actions have been recorded and
work has now begun.
Our farewell dinner was preceded with a trip to the National
Opera and Ballet theatre to watch Coppélia. The music and dancers were spectacular!
Although tired from our prior two days, the group enthusiastically made it to
our farewell dinner and ‘See you soon’s.
A lot of ground was covered in Vilnius, thanks to our hosts
and look forward to seeing everyone in Tampere in June.
