Leonardo-da-Vinci-project „European Arboriculture Online“

The LVG Heidelberg, Germany has succeeded in obtaining a grant of 517.000 € by the Leonardo-da-Vinci programme of the European Commission for a pilot project to create a platform of blended learning for arboricultural professionals in Europe. The LVG Heidelberg is responsible for the project management. Project partners are the German Landscape Contractor Association (BGL), the European Arboricultural Council (EAC) from Sweden as well as arboricultural training institutions in Great Britain, France, the Netherlands, Latvia, Hungary and Germany.  The project products will be multimedia learning materials written in the various languages of the project partners and accessible via a learning platform. The first stage of the project consists in the development of screenplays which will serve as a base for programming multimedia learning materials. The production of screenplays is effectively supported by the open source learning platform OLAT, installed at the LVG Heidelberg. With OLAT it will be possible to create international learning groups of aboricultural students. In this way, the project will contribute to boosting the mobility of European arboricultural professionals.  During a three-day kick-off meeting in Heidelberg in March 2007, staff of the LVG Heidelberg started to train the partners participating in the project in writing screenplays, handling the learning platform and producing their own digital learning materials. Each partner may contribute with comments and their own materials and has insight into the results of the whole working process. The partners thus work together in producing the screenplays to be transferred into learning programmes and will use for this purpose the open source learning platform OLAT. Discussions between partners are possible by using the chat-function. The door is now open for an intensive transnational exchange between European arboricultural training institutions. 

LVG Heidelberg