In association with the 25th Anniversary Conference of ESP, held in 2011 in Helsingør, Denmark a book was presented highlighting the History of ESP
The book was edited by Kirsten M. Anttila and Mogens Eriksen, who both served as Denmark’s National Coordinators of ESP from the initial engagement of Danish educators and researchers onwards. It contains 25 chapters sketching a richness of experiences and narratives.
For this site we gratefully used parts of the book. You can download the complete book here.
Under the header of History we will present a Timeline, a list of Conferences, and an introduction of Persons that have had an impact on the birth, blossoming and eventual closure of the ESP-community.
The influence of ESP
The work of ESP has influenced policy, other initiatives and the personal and professional careers of persons in different countries.
At the level of European policy the European Schoolnet (www.eun.org) built on the experiences of ESP, especially with regard to the focus on collaboration and transformation of education.
Different European Research & Development projects on new technology in education built on experiences collected in ESP. Examples: CL-net (Computer-supported Collaborative learning networks in primary and secondary education; 1998-2000; see pages 106 and beyond) and ITCOLE (Innovative Technology for Collaborative Learning and Knowledge Building; 2001-2003).
The CIAO project —short for Computers in het Amsterdams Onderwijs—was a pioneering initiative in the 1990s aimed at integrating ICT into Amsterdam’s primary education system, and played a key role in shaping early digital learning environments in the Netherlands. One article from 1998 described how even Prime Minister Kok was learning to send emails from a student at the Dr. Rijk Kramerschool—highlighting the symbolic and practical significance of the project in democratizing digital skills.
Some of the school leaders and ICT-coordinators in the CIAO-project became involved in ESP and other international networks (like iEARN) as well. The result was that Internet-based collaborative learning projects were introduced in Amsterdam primary schools on subjects like ‘Playing in Amsterdam’, ‘Bears in Amsterdam’ and ‘Your future in Amsterdam’.
These projects all dealt with learning to write e-mails, to send them to the ‘Other’, a pupil of an other Amsterdam school, to receive, read and interpret the e-mail from their partner, and to compose a reply. And then start another round. The effects of reading and writing were researched. Read the report (in Dutch) here.
The ECOLE-network (2001-2004) was the name of a Comenius3 network. ECOLE stood for European COllaborative LEarning network, and of course Ecole is also the French word for School. It aimed to systematise the work of ESP with funding of the European Commission.