El Dorado - European Learning Community for Regional Development

The main goal of ELDORADO is to establish a user-friendly- European Learning Community for Regional Development responsibles and agents, addressing their main leaning needs and aiming at familiarizing them with the use of ICT for learning. The Community is intended to become, not only an approach to support their own learning as a professional community, but also as a high potential instrument to accompany and accelerate regional innovation and socio-economic development programmes/initiatives. The objectives of ELDORADO are:

• To establish a Continuing Professional Development model (CPD model) for Regional Development Agents (RDA) based on an integrated and contextualised use of ICT for learning;
• To increase awareness and confidence of Regional Development Agents community and related policy makers on the potential of ICT for learning through promoting a direct experience of learning embedded in relevant project work ;
• To explore and collect evidence of the potential of ICT for learning to accompany and support regional development initiatives/programmes;
• To validate the model and plan its dissemination and sustainable development, upgrading and updating the model on a basis of a continuing flow of improvement.

ELDORADO mainly addresses the Regional Development Responsibles and Agents which will be supported by means of a collaborative learning approach influencing the level of attention of regional and local policy makers towards the innovative use of ICT to support learning. It ill also imply the active involvement of the research community and will aim at influencing the regional and local policy makers.

ElDorado activities are organized in several Work packages, namely:
1.- Regional Development Laboratory;
2.- Benchmark Analysis,
3.- Project based pilot learning ,
4.- Learning Community for Regional Development,
5.- Feedback and sustainability and
6.- Project management and evaluation.

ELDORADO main outcomes include:

• Map of main regional development priorities from a benchmarking analysis, identification of learning supply and related learning needs
• Activation of a collaborative learning environment and learning resources
• Continuing Professional Development model tested and running, including two learning initiatives related to Regional development launched
• Sustainability plan developed
• Coordination and quality management implemented.

The partners within the project:

• FUEIB: University-Enterprise of the Balearic Islands Foundation
• FIM: Friedrich Alexander University of Erlangen-Nuremberg
• Scienter Espana
• Eifel: European Institute for eLearning
• Scienter
• BME: Budapest University of Technology and Economics
• HUT: Helsinki University of Technology
• NADE: Norwegian Association for Distance and Flexible Education
• TEHNE: Center for Innovation and Development in Education