@Ignatia Webs: June 2015

Tuesday, 30 June 2015

A free book on changing #education in challenging settings #ICT4D

This lively report - well it is a free book consisting of 318 pages - on Designing and Implementing an ICT for Development initiative in a resource constraint environment is one of the most amazing mobile learning and technology projects I have read. This is a book that can be used in any challenging setting, as it combines participatory design, teachers professional development, open badges as milestones in the learning process, earn-as-you-learn incentives, strategies from the known reality to a wishful future, and scaling up from one school to 26 schools! ... and all evidence-based in approach. The report is edited by Marlien Herselman and Adele Botha.

It is simply amazing how this talented and inspired group of people turned a really challenging situation in deep rural South Africa (Eastern Cape province) into a fruitful, inspiring educational surplus in only 3 years time! It combines mobile learning, literacy,

From the forword: "The book aims to provide an overview of the design and implementation of an Information and Communication Technology for rural education development initiative in a resource constrained environment. Various frameworks, models, guidelines and tools were developed by adopting Design Science Research as the chosen methodology. Certain specific case study phases were applied within the Design Science Research process and lessons were learnt in each phase which was documented as the initiative moved from one phase to the other. Certain steps were followed during each phase. The book provides an overview of how each of the components, within the ICT4RED Implementation Framework (Section 2), were managed and how they were operationalised to provide specific deliverables or to reach certain aims.
What became evident from this initiative was that it was NOT about the technology, but about the PEOPLE who are empowered to use the technology in order to improve their lives and that of their learners!This book will guide readers through the journey of this initiative and it is hoped that it will inspire all new prospective students, teachers and academia to realise that the value of using technology does not lie in that it can ever replace the teacher, but that it can enhance teaching and learning and transform traditional teaching methods in a classroom. This transformation can only be successfully done where technology is earned and not just given away or provided free of charge."

Friday, 26 June 2015

Why are #IRRODL articles such a pleasure to read? New free issue

There are numerous EdTech related journals out there, but whenever I read the abstracts of most new IRRODL issues, I am intrigued. Is it my love for Canada which makes me more susceptible for possible news? Is it because I like the editors? Is it the determination to offer a platform to international authors that want to share research? Is it their website visuals using people from all ages, looks and combinations? Is it the mix between multiple EdTech options?... I do not know, but it sure happened again this morning while strolling through the abstracts and respectively some of the articles of this new IRRODL issue.

For instance: my first full read was an article entitled "Let's talk about digital learners in the digital era", an article reviewing all reference literature to 'digital natives' and concluding (not surprisingly, yet proving with fact and figures):
The so-called “Digital Native” literature demonstrates that despite students’ high digital confidence and digital skills, their digital competence may be much lower than those of their “digital teachers”.

Another read of this morning was entitled "Exploring intensive longitudinal measures of student engagement in blended learning" , where the following sentence from the abstract drew me into the full article: "We found that clarity of instruction and relevance of activities influenced student satisfaction more than the medium of instruction. Student engagement patterns observed in the log data revealed that exploring learning tools and previewing upcoming assignments and learning activities can be useful indicators of a successful learning experience."

And I have another couple of articles ready for reading... joy!
Here is the full list of articles of the new issue, all articles freely available and in HTML PDF MP3 EPUB formats... wonderful:

Editorial

Editorial: Volume 16, Number 3

Rory McGreal

Research Articles

Who studies MOOCs? Interdisciplinarity in MOOC research and its changes over time

George Veletsianos, Peter Shepherdson

Are the most highly cited articles the ones that are the most downloaded? A bibliometric study of IRRODL

Raidell Avello Martínez, Terry Anderson

Developing, using, and interacting in the flipped learning movement: Gaps among subject areas

Hsin-liang Chen, Kevin L. Summers

Exploring students’ intention to use LINE for academic purposes based on technology acceptance model

Willard Van De Bogart, Saovapa Wichadee

Learners’ goal profiles and their learning patterns over an academic year

Clarence Ng

The use of a mobile learning management system at an online university and its effect on learning satisfaction and achievement

Won Sug Shin, Minseok Kang

Exploring intensive longitudinal measures of student engagement in blended learning

Curtis R Henrie, Robert Bodily, Kristine C Manwaring, Charles R Graham

Let’s talk about digital learners in the digital era

Eliana Esther Gallardo-Echenique, Luis Marqués-Molías, Mark Bullen, Jan-Willem Strijbos

Roles of course facilitators, learners, and technology in the flow of information of a cMOOC

Oleksandra Skrypnyk, Srećko Joksimović, Vitomir Kovanović, Dragan Gašević, Shane Dawson

A paradigm shift: Adoption of disruptive learning innovations in an ODL environment: The case of the University of South Africa

Blessing Mbatha

University of Toronto instructors’ experiences with developing MOOCs

Hedieh Najafi, Carol Rolheiser, Laurie Harrison, Stian Håklev

Conceptualizing and investigating instructor presence in online learning environments

Jennifer C Richardson, Adrie A. Koehler, Erin D. Besser, Secil Caskurlu, JiEun Lim, Chad M. Mueller

Exploring the interaction equivalency theorem

Brenda Cecilia Padilla Rodriguez, Alejandro Armellini

In abundance: Networked participatory practices as scholarship

Bonnie E Stewart

Research Notes

Massive open online course completion rates revisited: Assessment, length and attrition

Katy Jordan

Wednesday, 24 June 2015

Free report Continued Professional Development for teachers & #MOOC #CPD

Dianne Laurillard edited a report on "the Anatomy of a MOOC for teacher CPD" which can be downloaded here. In this 34 page report she looks at a MOOC that was provided by UNESCO and partners to enhance CPD of teachers by using a particular MOOC aimed at that subject.

The report provides an executive summary, describing the set-up, demographics, evaluation, lessons learned, and the pedagogical as well as financial value. It also provides a look into the approach to teaching and learning, design and development processes, various measures of success (more quantitative view and branding).

Quckly sharing the 10 take aways highlighted by the report:
1.The certification provided by these courses for professionals does have value (8.2). 2. The provision of collaborative learning functionality on the MOOC platform is an urgent requirement, via both the grouping function and the shared production activity (7.2). 3. Peer review is highly valued for activity of doing the review, rather than for receiving a review (8.3) 4. A pedagogic approach that orchestrates a default sequence of linked and focused collaborative learning activities is highly valued (8.3). 5. To maintain the value of peer review and collaboration within an on-demand environment it will be important to help academics continue orchestrating this process so that it continues to work (8.4). 6. We need flexible pricing to assist participants from emerging economies (8.4) 7. We need a less problematic technical authentication process to increase both reach and revenue significantly (8.4). 8. The term ‘registration’ is not equivalent to ‘enrolment’ in a normal university course; instead ‘engagement in week 1’ should be used as the only reasonable equivalent (8.5). 9. Fee-paying undergraduates are subsidizing free education for highly qualified professionals, and we need ways of ameliorating that situation (8.5). 10. We need further technical development to create learning analytics that will support automated or semi-automated assessment for non-scientific subjects (8.5)

And the report concludes with: "The overall experience of both course team and participants on this CPD course was overwhelmingly positive. The course team had the opportunity to learn a lot more about online teaching and learning in this new environment, and also learned a great deal from the participants. Their contributions on the Padlet wall, the Diigo site, and Scoop-It, for example, will be valuable additional resources for later runs of the MOOC. It has proved to be a true experience of the coconstruction of knowledge, as such courses should be."

Thursday, 18 June 2015

xAPI case studies available #xapi yeah!

In the last few months I have been trying to keep up with xAPI (in vain mostly due to phd writing, I admit, but still some blogposts and reflections did happen at my end). Luckily Aaron Silvers and Megan Bowe are keeping me updated by generously sending out all that is available for xAPI, including shared case studies.

This last batch of xAPI case studies offer short (average 15 min) videos covering xAPI in a variety of settings. So real stories on how people in EdTech are using Experience API in their context.

The videos were taped during the Orlando happening, and they include wonderful experts:

Art Werkenthin on tracking PDF annotations with xAPI
Andy Johnson as well as Mike Rustici on LRS (learning record store)
Ben Betts on enabling personal data ownership
Chad Udell on implementing xAPI in mobile learning
David Rogers on using xAPI in medicine
Marty Rosenheck on driving innovation in teacher education
Megan Bowe on designing analytics with xAPI
...

A great set of learning videos there, and of interest to everyone with an urge to dig into xAPI.

Monday, 1 June 2015

Call for papers and proposals #eLearning, #MOOC, #mlearning

A quick list with calls for papers (journals and conferences), workshops and events.

On the verge of submission: Online Educa Berlin 2015
One of the top online learning/training conferences in Europe. This year’s OEB will be addressing this question by looking at the challenge of modernity for education and training. If you have ideas, projects, solutions or findings in this area, we invite you to take part in the event and become a speaker!
Conference location: hotel Intercontinental in Berlin, Germany
Conference date: 2 - 4 December 2015
Deadline for proposals: 1 June 2015 (today, but worth writing it up)
Submission page here.
More information: http://www.online-educa.com/

Workshop proposal for MOOC: MOOC based models for Hybrid Pedagogy From the website: "Since the Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) phenomenon started to take off, Higher Education (HE) institutions have been facing a revolution. This revolution is challenging, not only HE business models, but also the established teaching and learning models. Although many scholars have seen MOOCs as a threat, others see in these courses an opportunity to propose and explore new models to transform residential education. These MOOC-based models propose hybrid pedagogies, such as flipped classrooms or blended learning, that benefit from the strengths of both online and face-to-face learning. However, and despite the fact that there are already studies reporting the promising results about the benefits of these MOOC-based hybrid pedagogies, the number of cases reported in the literature is still small. Moreover, more of these cases still need to be defined to help researchers, scholars, and institutional policy makers exploit the affordances of MOOC technologies, pedagogies, and formats to enhance on-campus education. Participants from the different domains and roles (students, scholars, researchers, or decision-makers) are welcome to participate in the workshop. In this workshop, we will follow up on the discussion about innovative MOOC-based models for hybrid pedagogies that has just started. The idea is to offer an open space for sharing and learning about the experiences of the different participants in order to identify the variety of models that have been investigated and propose a taxonomy of concepts that could serve as a reference to others."
This workshop is part of the EC-TEL conferenceConference location: Hotel Beatriz in Toledo, Spain
Conference date: 18 - 20 September 2015
Deadline for proposals: 15 June 2015
Submission page here
More information: http://educate.gast.it.uc3m.es/hybrided/

Call for proposals for 'Envisioning Enhanced Wearable Learning'
To enter this EC-TEL 2015 Design Challenge, submit a 500 abstract (approx. 2 pages) as PDF via EasyChair and design samples of own work (e.g. mock-ups, videos, prototypes) via our YouTube channel, by creating design requirements using the Requirements Bazaar or by simply pasting a link to your design sample in the abstract. Design samples help the reviewers to understand the solution, the design approach and visual presentation skills of participants. Design samples may be submitted as either PDFs or links to a web site. Submissions may include work from past, current and future projects or may just represent creative ideas independent of any project scheme or research program.This workshop is part of the EC-TEL conferenceConference location: Hotel Beatriz in Toledo, Spain
Conference date: 18 - 20 September 2015
Deadline for proposals: 12 June 2015
Submission page can be found here (Easychair)

More information: http://ht.ly/NoumG

Call for papers motivating students with mobiles - mLearning

International Conference on Interactive Mobile Communication Technologies and Learning,

The special session “Motivating Students with Mobiles” (MsM’2015) invites original papers
(full/short/poster submissions) focusing on mobile learner motivation and engagement, self-
regulation, perceptions, attitudes and acceptance, emotion and affective issues along with
mobile learning performance. Special focus will be given on motivation issues in game-based

mobile learning and wearables-based learning.

Conference location: Mediterranean Palace Hotel, Thessaloniki, Greece
Conference date: 19 - 20 November 2015
Deadline for proposals: 24 June 2015
More information here: http://imcl-conference.org/imcl2015/documents/msm.pdf

Workshop Colombia University, New York
This workshop plans to bring together educators, technologists, researchers, learning scientists, entrepreneurs, and funders of MOOCs to share their innovations, discuss the impact on education and to answer practical questions such as: How can we best support student learning in MOOC environments? How can MOOCs be successfully integrated with the traditional classroom experience? For which students and in what contexts are these courses most effective? What can we learn from the rich data streams generated by these platforms? How do we structure the learning activities to produce data streams that better support research and learning?

Workshop location: Teachers College, Colombia University, New York, USA
Conference date: 2 - 3 October 2015
Deadline for proposals: 20 July 2015
Submission page here
More information: http://lwmoocs2.weebly.com/call-for-papers.html

@Ignatia Webs