 So, hello everyone. Today we are with one more interview with experts in the field of education because we are having Eden anniversary for 30 years and our aim is to hear from different people involved in Eden but also experts in their field about education and situation which is going now and how they can reflect it regarding the Eden role in these times. So, I'm very happy today to have Antonio Teixeira with us from Universitate Averta in Portugal who was also Eden president before and actually he was my role model to follow when I started to be Eden president. So, how are you with Antonio? Very nice to have you with us. I'm fine. Thank you. Well, it's a pleasure to be here with you and all the colleagues that will be following us. Well, I'm fine. I have already my shots, my vaccine shots, so I'm perfectly fine in this sense and it's really a pleasure to be here and let me also start by congratulating you as the president for the 30th anniversary of Eden. This is quite a remarkable feat for the association. Yes, can you imagine that we have already been 30 years old and I hope that next 30 years will be even more interesting than these ones. But let me ask you as a person involved in education with many experience from the position of the lecturer but also from the position of the person who was in the management and who made some topics. I cannot forget when I was in Lisbon and you and Tony Bates presented how you started the implementation, systematic implementation of e-learning at your institution. How do you perceive all these changes which are happening now and do you think that this COVID pandemic was really significant one in education? Well, it is. I do feel that it has been a milestone. I wouldn't say that it has changed dramatically the way that we think about education and technology has learning in particular. I wouldn't also say that it changed dramatically the models that we applied, the research in the broader sense as well, but on one hand it has dramatically accelerated the process of change that was already occurring. So these phenomena that we call the digital transformation of education had already started and it of course got a tremendous boost as a consequence from the impact of the pandemic. There's also something important on my view which is the widening of the field. So it dramatically widened the number of practitioners, but it's also widening the number of researchers. So there's a new interest of the research community on open education, on distance education, only learning online and digital education in general. And this is bound to lead, of course now we're seeing a lot of outputs which maybe are not too significant in terms of quality, but this will lead to an increase not just in the scale of research and practice, but also in the quality of research and practice. And so in this sense, it has contributed a lot to upscale in this sense the dissemination of learning. On the other hand, I would also say that it's also high, it had a very important impact in terms of public opinion, how society in general think of these topics, how also policy and government policy and well, being a national level, regional level, even institutional level, so this awareness of these topics has also increased tremendously. And in the end, I would say that our field has also gained from the experience in the sense that a number of problems that we, some of them were already identified, others are new, have been also, will of course, in a sense rearrange our agenda and will give us some new focus of interest as well. So, of course, I mean, I would say that, of course, there is not much new discoveries in the sense but the impact, the scale, the speed of the transformation has changed and that has created new opportunities and also new challenges in the sense. As you are right, number of issues that you have mentioned have been already existing for 20, 30 years, this is not a new thing that now we have moved online, we know lots of things about that. Michael, the issue of open education and you said public awareness. Do you think that now the open education has got the five minutes of glory to start to be much more present and much more knowledge in the society as I would say issue which can significantly contribute to the quality of education as such. Yes, I do agree. On one hand, we can also, we could already see that there was a wider movement of integration of the different open movements and being open access, open education and others open source, different kinds of openness, open movements in the sense in the field of educational related to education. And these under the big umbrella of open science, so in as the umbrella concept in a sense. So this movement was already developing. But what happened, and we could see of course with the pandemic crisis the importance of openness, open collaboration in this sense, not only in research but also in innovation and in practice. We've seen something that is really remarkable, which is the create the generation of a tremendous amount of networks of collaboration in education. And as it happened also in other fields of knowledge in, for instance in medical sciences, we've seen that as well so the emergency the impact of such a, well, and such an impact such a phenomenon has as a pandemic for which, of course society was not ready to tackle with as generated a tremendous amount of collaboration. And that is of course, fostered on one side on one side but also on the other, had also relied on openness. But I would also say something and we have seen how resources were open resources, open educational resources were shared and used and what even itself had a tremendous experience with the webinar series and all of this. And this of course is more, more than just something that we already knew what had an impact and effectiveness that we are not probably counting on. I would also point out something which it was important with this crisis, which is how we look at education as a process. I mean throughout times we can, we can go back to the, to the ancient Greeks and beyond. Education has always been thought about as a process of emancipation. And in that sense, the process of emancipation is, and education is a caring for that emancipation of others and oneself as well. And now it has become even more clear as we've been progressing in the last couple of years on the need for this emancipation be a global movement in this sense and be open to everyone. We've seen this with what we could call digital citizenship for instance, right? The awareness of the importance of having the right to access, having also the duty to learn online. So the understanding the digital citizenship as a right and also as a duty to act using this new media. This awareness is something that also will in a sense highlight the importance of opening up the education process. So this connection between open education and the digital transformation of education, I think it has become even more strengthened in this sense. Of course, open education and distance education have had a long connection, but this has in this, in this context I would say become even more important and significant for society in general. Well, yeah, I agree with you it's open education is now open education and well distance education as well have become part of the mainstream. So there on, it's not just something from the borders of the education systems, something that you'll have there's a kind of complimentary thing something that could help you to reach out for people who cannot access educational opportunities as the other so marginalized groups or groups at risk populations at risk things like that. So now it had become something of a need for everyone. And that was an important change I would say. Yeah, I agree with you, as you mentioned that we are now open more globally, more networking. As even president, you had the time when you decided on how and where should even go on. What would be your vision or some insight, where is even position now in the world in Europe, especially, and what should be our next steps. Well, you're the president. Well, I'm looking for some advice. No, I think if you look back at the at the history of Eden, Eden has managed also as an organization. Eden is basically an association. But as an organization, which is basically supported by all its members being individual members or institutional members, it has always understood the sense of time and how things were evolving in the field. And if we look at how Eden has progressed throughout these three decades, we can see also important changes in how the association has conceived about its mission, its portfolio of activities, how it connected with the field, how it acted as well. Looking ahead. And so I think that in the in the last decade, in a sense, even has prepared for this moment. And the role that Eden has played in this context, which has been significant, especially in Europe, has been, I think, a kind of natural conclusion of a process of rethinking and readjusting and preparing that the association has undertaken throughout this decade in a sense. Looking ahead, as as you were just challenging me to, I would say that this this pandemic crisis has also proven the importance of networking, but in a sense, in a new sense, even has a as a role, of course. But the role is not, I mean, it's not dependent only on the association. So we are part of a global network, in a sense. And if even understands how it can operate in debt in that system, better still. Eden is now has now a global outreach as never before. And in this sense, what do we do we, I mean, as as practitioners as researchers, what do you need, we need from in. I think, based on what has been the experience in the last year, even can play a very important and displaying a very important role in representation of the field. So, understanding what what is important in terms of legal framework, for instance, quality standards, all of these things that actually regulate in a sense, the field of practice, of practice. But it's also, it also had plays a very important role in leading trends of research, leading trends of innovation, leading trends of practice. Not just so in this, in this sense, it's it also plays more than just a representation role, also a role of inspiration. It should also inspire not only the current practitioners, but also the new practitioners that are coming in the new researchers that are coming in. Also supporting innovation, but supporting it, not only in terms of sharing knowledge, but also sharing their Eden has a tremendous amount of expertise, not only in terms of the output of the fits conferences or the output of its journals, but also the use of its members, individual and institutional, and how it can help, how it can facilitate sharing of that of that expertise, but also speeding up and supporting the connection which I think it's critical between research and practice, and to, and so supporting this knowledge and innovation transfer from research to to the change of the traditional practices. There's also a quality reference as well so we live now in a society that is well a network society in which we are living in an era, in an age for information abundance, and this has been also very clear in the context of a pandemic. All the information that we want sometimes too much information. So we need to have some kind of guidance in what is what what are the quality references, what is actually a good reference and not and even can help the community and not just the community, all the ones that are interested in in these topics to to actually understand to learn how to differentiate the end to validate in the sense even even can help validating and reference the good references. Well, that in practice is a research output and all of these so in the sense being a kind of a quality reference that can be important to the field. There are other important roles that even can play, but the important thing is to understand that the role of an association is even with its tremendous outreach is also to help lead others in other associations throughout the world in generating movements of change of positive change can also sometimes be negative. So in this sense, I think that even has a very important role probably even more important now than ever before, because also the outreach is much larger, much wider. And, and, but, but I'm really confident that the the organization and the association and all its memberships membership will will will push it forward in that direction. Thank you for such a nice words. And for the last for the last question, very briefly, if you can predict the future. So you're so safe now. What would be your ideal educational education system, which we should live in. Well, I mean, going back to the basics, the ideal educational system is the one that promotes the best emancipation. So in this sense, the best education possible is the one that allows everyone to to develop its its potential and to to develop its own autonomy. And in that in that kind of process. Of course, we cannot expect that everyone has the chance to opportunity to to learn from from the best, but we are all learning from the best which which is also the result of our own collaboration so we are also moving from a kind of understanding of knowledge and education as a very individual process to another understanding in which the inter can interdependence and interconnection between all of us is very important so this kind of collective intelligence this collective also agency that that is now, of course, probably the focus of education and in that process. Technology is very important, because it can help help this minute that those opportunities for everyone, it can help improve the processes it can in the way it's a tool that can also help you be more efficient in that in that for that goal, but the goal is basically to allow everyone. And I mean, everyone independently of its condition fits well, if it's context to be able to emancipate and to develop its soul, its full potential. Thank you really nice words and I hope Eden will contribute to the world and educational systems you have predicted and hoping for. So thank you very much for this interview and looking forward to see you soon. Thank you. Bye. Thank you, Sandra.