Speakers

O.M.T. (Odile) Wolfs (NL)

Mrs. Wolfs is a member of the regional Government in the Provinz Limburg. She is participating for a second term in the College of Gedeputeerde Staten (executive board). She is leader of the Labour Party in Limburg. She lives in Eijsden, a small village, the most southerly-situated village in the Netherlands.

Before her political carreer she was active as a schoolteacher.
In 1978 she was elected as a member of the Provincial Parliament (Provincale Staten). In 1999 she joined the executive board and is still  a member.

In the political coalition agreement for the next four years, she is responsible for the programm "investing in people"
The main subjects she deals with are rather diverse: education and labour; art and culture; sports; health and youth care; social affairs; media; wellness; disabled people; senior economy.

Rens de Groot, CWI (NL)

Rens de Groot is President of the Board of Directors ( CEO) of the Central Organisation Work and Income. He is a graduate in Political Science at Free University Amsterdam  and Planology at University of Amsterdam. After a career in the field of Housing, Renovation and Urban Renewal and as independent consultant, he joined as General Director the Temporary Institute for Coordination and Consultation. In 1997-2000 he was General Director of the  National Institute of Social Insurances before joining in 2001 Changemanager Reform of Social Security and Employment services ( SUWI), Governor Arbeidsbureau Nederland.
 

Dr. Helen Barrett, International Researcher and Consultant (USA)

Helen Barrett recently retired from the faculty of the College of Education at the University of Alaska Anchorage and is living in the Seattle area. She has been researching strategies and technologies for electronic portfolios since 1991, publishing a website (http://electronicportfolios.org), an Apple Learning Interchange exhibit (http://ali.apple.com/ali_sites/ali/exhibits/1000156/), chapters in several books on Electronic Portfolios, and numerous articles.

She was on loan to the International Society for Technology in Education between 2001 and early 2005, working as the Assessment Coordinator for ISTE’s National Educational Technology Standards and providing training and technical assistance on electronic portfolios for teacher education programs throughout the U.S.under a federal PT3 grant. In 2005, Dr. Barrett became the Research Project Director for The REFLECT Initiative, an international research project, underwritten by TaskStream, to assess the impact of electronic portfolios on student learning, motivation and engagement in secondary schools. She is currently working on several book projects on electronic portfolios. She is also an Apple Distinguished Educator and a George Lucas Educational Foundation Faculty Associate.

Darren Cambridge, New Century College (USA)

Darren Cambridge is assistant professor of Internet Studies and Information Literacy at New Century College, which offers integrative studies, first-year experience, and experiential learning programs at George Mason University in the United States. He is associate director of the Inter/National Coalition for Electronic Portfolio Research, facilitating teams researching the impact of ePortfolios on learning from 45 higher education institutions in the USA, Canada, England, Scotland, and Holland. His own research engages both social theory and empirical methods to examine ePortfolios as tools for lifelong learning and leadership development. As a technologist, he co-led the development of the the IMS Global Learning Consortium ePortfolio Specification, crafts functional requirements for the Open Source Portfolio, and directed development of the Learning Record Online ePortfolio system. Prior to coming to George Mason, he headed up academic technology initiatives at the American Association for Higher Education and was an EDUCAUSE National Learning Infrastructure Initiative fellow.

Kees de Schipper, ABU (NL)

Kees de Schipperis head of the department of social economic affairs at the ABU (Algeme Bond Uitzendondernemingen) for 1,5 years. The ABU is the main employers association in the Dutch temporary employment agency. Kees de Schipper has a background in consultancy on social security and the labour supply and labour demand. He holds an MBA degree and a master of science on environmental sciences.

Marij Veugelers, SURF NL

Marij Veugelers is Project manager Portfolio Implementation for the IT in Education Department at the Universiteit van Amsterdam (since 2000) and responsible for educational implementation at the nine schools that have been using an e-portfolio since 2001.

The UvA choose for the Open Source Portfolio system as the first university in Europe.

She was also project manager of the Digital University (consortium of 10 universities) Portfolio Implementation Instruments Project. The results are a toolkit for managers on the web with several new instruments.

She had organized the first expert exchange meeting Portfolio UK-NL in
April 2004. Since September 2004 she is community manager of the Dutch Special Interest Group NL Portfolio of the SURF-Foundation for the Higher
Education section in the Netherlands.

The last five years she has published and presented several times in the NL and abroad (ALT 2004, EUNIS 2004, Eportfolio 2004,2006,2007, AAHE-CRA London 2005 ,2006, EDUCAUSE 2005, Sakai 2006,2007, Handbook of Research on ePortfolios USA and in Online and Distance Learning: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools and Applications USA) about portfolio implementation aspects.

Marij's background is educational consultant, career/student counsellor and biologist.

Serge Ravet EIfEL (FR)

Serge Ravet Chief Executive of the European Institute for E-Learning (EIfEL), a cross-sectoral professional body whose mission is to support the development of a knowledge and learning society. EIfEL is at the forefront of the ePortfolio movement in Europe, setting as objective that in 2010, every citizen will have access to an ePortfolio. He is also Vice-President of the European Foundation for Quality in E-Learning (EFQUEL). Combining both technological and pedagogical expertise (20 years experience in training and human resources development) with working experience in Europe and the US, he is retained as an expert and a consultant in learning technology projects. He has published books and articles on eLearning, competencies, quality, learning technologies and ePortfolios - "Technology-based Training" (Kogan Page, 1997) "Valider les Compétences avec les NVQs" (DEMOS, 1999); a Guide to e-learning Solutions (2001).

Lisa Gray, JISC (UK)

Lisa Gray is a Programme Manager within the e-Learning team at JISC. She manages the HE in FE project strand of work and the new Curriculum Delivery programme. She is also responsible for the co-ordination the teams activities around e-portfolios, and has commissioned and led the development of the new ‘Effective Practice with e-Portfolios’ publication and accompanying online resource launched in September 08.

Previous to joining JISC Lisa has worked at the University of Bath on a research project investigating the use of e-learning by mental health practitioners in the region, and the University of Nottingham managing a JISC-funded service providing access to high quality Internet resources in the health and life sciences.

Paul Messer, Careers Wales, (UK)

Paul has worked for Careers Wales Association, implementing Careers Wales Online, CWO across Wales since its launch in 2004, working closely with colleagues and partners across Wales to plan the strategic direction of the site and its impact on clients, service delivery and administration. Paul currently leads the ESF supported re-launch of CWO including: site architecture review and new interactive content projects within the new site and mapping the existing data and content within the new site.

Careers Wales Online, CWO (www.careerswales.com) is an innovative interactive service, which provides bilingual information, tools and resources to support all-age, life-long learning and career planning. Users are able to create their own e-portfolio to record, review and reflect on their career and learning journey throughout their life-time. Since its launch in 2004, CWO has continued to utilise progressive technologies to provide information in an accessible and supportive approach, winning a BAFTA for technical and social innovation.

Paul’s background includes web design, development and site architecture and previous to his current role has led on system, print and product design projects in the lighting and gas industries.

Kirstie Coolin, University of Nottingham (UK)

Kirstie Coolin works for the Centre for International ePortfolio Development at the University of Nottingham, primarily focussing on technical work for the Lifelong Learning Network project (a regional network of educational institutions and employers) which mainly involves rolling out hosted ePortfolio trials with these partners in a work-based setting as well as pulling together regional data sharing projects using current XML standards. She is also involved in other JISC related work in the areas of ePortfolio, standards and IAG.

Kirstie's background is mainly in Further Education and Higher Education in a range of areas including database driven application/web development, VLE rollout, eLearning, design and management of intranets, websites and business systems and project and team management. She has also been involved in teaching and training.

Shane Sutherland, Pebble Learning (UK)

Shane Sutherland is the Development Director at Pebble Learning. He is an active contributor to the eportfolio community being a member of the Becta ePortfolio Experts Group; the International Coalition for ePortfolio Research and the JISC-CETIS eP SIG. Shane has contributed to, or managed, a number of JISC projects including ePISTLE; LIPID; eAPEL; MeLAS and Flourish.

Shane previously worked as a Principal Lecturer at the University of
Wolverhampton with roles in staff development and teacher education. This earlier work brought him into intimate contact with IWBs, VLEs and PDAs -ePs are the perfect two-letter antidote.

Ingo Dahn; University of Koblenz (DE)

Dr. Ingo Dahn, the CEO of the Knowledge Media Institute, has a habilitation in Mathematics from Humboldt University Berlin. Being trained as a specialist in Mathematical Logic, he moved in 1998 from Humboldt University Berlin to the Artificial Intelligence Group at the University in Koblenz. He has developed Slicing Book Technology which used AI methods for the semantic search and aggregation of legacy data. Dr. Dahn is a member of the IMS Technical Advisory Board and one of the authors of the IMS Application Profiling Guidelines.

Erwin Bratengeyer, Danube University (AT)

Erwin Bratengeyer is currently affiliated with the Department for Interactive Media and Educational Technologies at Danube University Krems, Austria. He was head of the Research Center TIM-Lab and head of the Center for Education and Media at Danube University. Earlier he has been Director of Research and Development at Focus electronics Ltd., Vienna. He received his doctoral degree from Vienna University of Technology. Erwin Bratengeyer is researching, consulting and teaching in the area of eLearning, He has a special interest in ePortfolio work and is engaged in several projects. He founded the E-Portfolio Austria Initiative.

Roelien Bos-Wierda, University of Applied Sciences (NL)

Roelien Bos-Wierda (Leeuwarden 1955) works as a senior lecturer and curriculumdeveloper for the Noordelijke Hogeschool Leeuwarden, University of Applied Sciences in the North of the Netherlands. Her special fields of interest are : activating ICT didactics, especially the role of social software in secondary and higher education, and the role that e-portfolios can play in personal development planning of students.

She has been involved in several projects concerning the development and implementation of a competency-based curriculum both within her own Institute and in other Universities; implementation of an e-portfolio has always been an integral and self-evident part of that process.

Ron Barendsen, University of Applied Sciences (NL)

Ron Barendsen (Heerlen, 1959) works as a senior lecturer and curriculum developer for the Noordelijke Hogeschool Leeuwarden, University of Applied Sciences in the North of the Netherlands. As a former teacher and owner/manager of a company that produces educational software he has a keen interest in e-learning, e-competencies, e-portfolio and their implementation.

He has been and is involved in the development of a generic ICT core curriculum for teachers, he has been projectmanager of the NHL E-portfolio-project and he is involved in Worldbank-funded project in Vietnam which has as its main objective to make Higher Education in Vietnam more profession oriented and up-to-date.


Ros Smith, BECTA (UK)

Having worked for Becta, the UK government’s agency for the effective and innovative use of technology in learning, Ros set up her own consultancy in 2005 as a writer and workshop facilitator in the practice of e-learning. She has subsequently written a number of well received staff development publications for national organisations in the UK. These include for JISC – the UK-wide organisation promoting use of ICT to support education and research– ‘Effective Practice with e-Learning’ (JISC 2004), ‘Innovative Practice with e-Learning’, (JISC, 2005), ‘Designing Spaces for Effective Learning’ (JISC 2006) and ‘Effective Practice with e-Assessment’ (JISC 2007).

In the last 12 months, Ros has synthesised outputs from recent JISC-funded project work in e-portfolios into a further Effective Practice guide – ‘Effective Practice with e-Portfolios’ (JISC 2008).

Ros has been a frequent speaker at e-learning events on themes relating to the pedagogy of e-learning, with a special interest in the promotion of quality in e-learning and the enhancement of practice through skilful integration of e-learning and multimedia technologies.

Samantha Slade, Percolab (CA)

An avid lifelong learner, with a diverse background (anthropology, teaching, distance education, research and development, and the online world), Samantha thrills in sharing and mixing innovative practices across cultures, borders and sectors.  Co-founder of percolab, a Montréal based social enterprise, Samantha works locally and internationally in human development innovation for individuals and organisations and the shift to a collaborative work culture.  Accomplishments: ePortfolio for the Learning Citizen (report for the Québec Ministry of Education), Conversations on Competences - 8 ePortfolio Projects for Lifelong Learning, Employability and Learning Organisations (a Montreal event).  Her ePortfolio is public: http://samanthaslade.ca/wiki