With just 6 weeks to go, the agenda for this year’s Media & Learning Conference is almost complete. This year’s event on 18-19 June is organised jointly with KU Leuven and will take place in the Provinciehuis Leuven right next to the train station and a short distance from the heart of Leuven.
This year’s keynotes include Tine Baelmans, Vice Rector for Educational Policy at KU Leuven who will be talking about how KU Leuven is adjusting to advances in AI across the campus. Thomas Espeseth, Professor in Cognitive Psychology, Neuroscience and Neuropsychology at the University of Oslo, will provide insights on Attention, Curiosity, and Memorability based on his research. Maarten Francq, Senior Researcher at the Belgian Royal Institute for Theatre, Cinema and Sound will be describing what impact we can expect on our work based on AI developments currently taking place in the audiovisual media and live entertainment sector. On 19 June, Thierry Koscielniak, President of France Immersive Learning will be explaining why he believes immersive learning to be a game changer while Ivana Juraga, from the European Commission’s Digital Education Unit will outline key policy developments that have an impact on the work we do. Finally, Nynke Kruiderink, Project lead for the Npuls national programme for Teaching and Learning Centers in the Netherlands will provide a snapshot of the status and concerns of these centres and explore opportunities for further collaboration. We are also delighted to host a special online session with world renowned educational psychologist Prof. Richard E. Mayer whose work on the role and design of video for learning is truly foundational in our sector.
AI and its impact on the work we do will be a thread running throughout the conference agenda with speakers including Sonia Hetzner, FAU, Germany, Hussein Dawood, University of North Texas, USA, Cornelia Amon, IMC Krems University of Applied Sciences, Austria & Jessy De Cooker, Fontys Hogescholen, The Netherlands talking about the ethical and innovative integration of AI. Practical inputs on current practice in this area will be given by Marco Toffanin, University of Padova, Italy, Khanyisile Twabu, UNISA, South Africa andKatrien De Waele, UCLL, Belgium.
We plan to debate the pros and cons of Lecture Capture in an effort to decide whether lecture capture still has a role to play in today’s Higher Education Institution. Joining this debate will be experienced practitioners including Jean-Marie Cognet, EdTech France, Carlos Turró, Universitat Politecnica de Valencia, Spain & Timo Nogueira, virtUOS, University of Osnabrück, Germany.
Media-driven assessment is a particularly popular topic this year with inputs from Klinta Locmele, University of Latvia, Ilaria Bucciarelli, University, Italy and Zeta Dooly, South East Technological University, Ireland amongst others explaining how they use media in their assessments from a very practical perspective.
This year’s agenda includes several sessions dedicated specifically to sound with sessions led by Lucy Kendra from Heriot-Watt University, UK and Carlos Turró, Universitat Politecnica de Valencia, Spain. Lucy’s session will explore the many affordances of sound for learning and engagement, through presentation, discussion and listening examples. While the session being run by Carlos will focus more on the practical side and how to ensure excellent audio in lecture capture and other settings.
Integrating immersion technologies in Higher Education can provide huge learning benefits, join seasoned practitioners like Maaike Compagnie & Bert van Uffelen from the Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences in The Netherlands and Alexander Vanhulsel, Thomas More University of Applied Sciences, Belgium to hear about their experiences.
As always, our agenda is jam-packed with workshops that will allow you to learn new skills. John Walker from Npuls in the Netherlands will be back with us to lead a workshop on Polder Perspectives XR, a game whereby participants can discover how to design and pitch XR solutions to real-world challenges, using unique Ethical Lens Cards and guided discussions. Raf Lehaen, Evert Binnard & Annelies Calmeyn from KU Leuven, Belgium will be repeating their popular workshop, ”Should I really make that video? How format selection can save time, effort and lives” and Markus Tischner, FAU, Germany will be sharing his know-how during a workshop on AI-Driven Video Production.
And there will be plenty of time for discussion. Julia Dawitz & Emma Wiersma from the University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands will lead one on the Ethical Use of Generative AI in Teaching and Learning while Jana Herwig, University of Vienna, Austria and Elke Van der Stappen, KU Leuven, Belgium will be leading the debate about what makes for good MOOC design.
In keeping with our usual practice, Media & Learning 2025 will also include showcases of the finalists in this year’s MEDEA Awards and everyone is invited to the MEDEA Awards Ceremony in our networking and exhibition space on 18 June when this year’s winners will be announced.
We are happy tp announce that our exhibition space is full to the rafters this year with companies that we have hosted in the past as well as several new exhibitors. This year’s exhibition will have dedicated stands from Biamp, UbiCast, X2O Media, Panasonic, Panopto, Catchbox, Epiphan Video, Kaltura, AMX/TrackingMaster and Extron. All will be showing the very latest services and tools aimed at our community.
As well as the full programme of scheduled events there will also be loads of opportunities for informal networking and exchange. This year we will even have our own dedicated hacker space hosted by Serge de Beer from LearningTour, The Netherlands where you will find a relaxed opportunity to learn how to use tools that allow you to clone your voice, to combine the power of programming with creative media manipulation and other delights!
And if you would like to get to Leuven a little earlier this year, KU Leuven and Npuls are organising a pre-conference workshop dedicated to maximising the impact and operational quality of Centres for teaching and learning (CTLs) on Tuesday 17 June which will feature a knowledge café on CTLs run by Alexandra Mihai, Maastricht University, The Netherlands. This workshop is open only to registered conference participants, check out the details.
