This is a report we are writing together in the Wiki Way about our visit to An Cosan, our Irish partners in the MIR learning partnership. The visit took place in the last days of March 2007, shortly before we submitted the application for year 2 and 3 of our learning partnership. The meeting was an extraordinary one, because it made us realize and see the potential of our learning partnership beyond of what we had allready assumed. It also brought us closer to each other in heart, it let us understand each others roots and each others ways. It brought us in touch with Ireland and many things it has to offer.

If you are not bold enough to co-edit right away you can also discuss this page.

everybody is invited to contribute to the documentation...

Sunday 25th of March

Monday 26th March

• Transportation from Kippure to An Cosan
• Presentation on An Cosan - a model of Community Education

Child care as an essential condition and base for adult education for young mothers...

Our discussions with involved actors...

Tuesday 27th of April: Connect project

Presentation from South Dublin County Council & their Connect Project

Quote from Connect Website: "The Connect Project were delighted to host the recent visit of The Grundvig Transnational Project involving projects from Ireland, Austria, Cyprus and Germany. The Mayor of South Dublin Cllr, Eamon Maloney proudly presented each delegate with a gift on behalf of South Dublin County Council. A meeting between all the partners, including An Cosan, Tallaght took place at County Hall where idea’s in relation to developing technology in Communites were exchanged. The projects main objective is to integrate the main functions of education in regional development, by motivating people to become involved in the process of local development and to provide resources of knowledge and experience, in order to promote social and economic development for better social inclusion and equal opportunities."

see Photo gallery at

http://connect.southdublin.ie/connect/index.php?spgmGal=Grundvig_Visit&spgmFilters=&option=com_mambospgm&Itemid=103

Wednesday 28th March

Visit to Tallaght IT to review their current projects

FranzNahrada:Discovered an innovative VideoBridge project where least expected... during my visit in Dublin in the framework of the MIR learning partnership, I met Terry Maguire, coordinator for Life Long Learning at IT - Institute of Technology -Tallaght, a higher education facility with strong focus on professional education. Terry Maguire had worked before at the UHI (University of the Highlands and Islands) in North Scotland and therefore is very familiar with the relation between extremely underserved adult education facilities in rural areas and outreaching universities. The UHI (to be precise: Frank Rennie at Lewis Castle) was recommended to me as the ideal partner for the idea of Open Learning Infrastructure by my colleague in and president of ECOVAST (European Council of Villages and small towns), Phil Turner.... but due to project overload I was not able to build that connection on time. When I met Terry Maguire in South Dublin, she presented to us - together with her colleague Susan Sweeney - a fascinating project in Castletownbere in the southwestern pensinsulas of Ireland, a world-famous natural harbour which is a real hub for fishery. The Irish Sea fisheries Board and IT Tallaght have set up an innovative new course called BASS - Building Advanced Supervisory Skills. This course allows people in the fishing, aquaculture or seafood business from Beara to undertake a third level course without leaving the peninsula. The course takes place very week in the Regional Fisheries College in Castletownbere. It was a very familiar look to me: it was almost the same educational setting as VideoBridge in Kirchbach and the Biological Farmers education setting that is envisioned by Michael Narodoslawsky and BioAustria. In addition to that they had the same aspiration to document the material for later use and I could present ProWiki to the head of the IT department of IT Tallaght. More: in the press I read that many additional uses have been found for this "videobridge", like connecting people from Castletownbere to relatives and friends in America, or deliver educational content to schools. So all these little crossover opportunities that are the harbinger of a new and powerful local education system that we tried out in Kirchbach seemed to be present there, also.

an then... we do the application form again. What a challenge.

Thursday 29th of March

FranzNahrada: We learn something unexpected about Fire Alarms, which makes for an adventerous night ;-) so it keeps some of us awake and makes sure we do not miss our planes.

Summary

Franz Nahrada: What has most impressed me, was the fact that each and every activity in Ancosan starts with an Opening Circle, assuring that there is connection between the hearts before the mind starts its work.