Network Meeting in Tel Aviv, 7th to 10th September

But thanks to our hosts CET it was a great success. It was attended by 13 publishing houses. Most of he presentations can be downloaded from the EEPG website.

The keynote was given by Beth Martin who talked about what works and what doesn't in digital developments. Her presentation: "Reframing challenges for success" can also be downloaded.

Before the actual start of the conference, the members had a chance to participate in a presentation of ed tech start up finalists from Israel. Sintija Buhanovska was part of the judges' panel and I participated in a panel discussion on the future of educational publishing, new players, disruptiveness, etc. Here are some impressions from the competition.

It will be interesting to see whether any of the winners will fare in the global competition and finally, whether they really make it as a start-up.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, we had presentations from the publishers as well as several presentations from MindCET (CET's R&D and innovation centre). Again, it became apparent, how different the situation in Europe (and the world) still is. On the one hand, you have the very conservative markets, which are partly regulated by government or simply lack the infrastructure, on the other hand you have the very advanced systems like in Israel or Denmark where digital materials have long become a matter of fact. You can see in the presentations, where the individual countries stand.

In this context, I'd like to quote Soren Peter Sorenson and Claes Sonderriis from Systime who in their presentation quoted Clayton M. Christensen: "You are either making a market or disrupting a market. Entering is usually the wrong way to go." Find out more about that here.

The conference showed again that many questions remain as yet unanswered. While we saw impressive developments in many countries, we still don't know whether we are really using the medium to its best (e-didactics). Do we pay enough attention to research into adaptivity and the use of the medium and its consequences?

Pictures from the actual conference and the wonderful excursion to Jerusalem will be added to the online version of this newsletter.