Free report on #innovative #pedagogy, practices and use

The Open University of the UK has just published a new report on innovative pedagogy (37 pages). This is a yearly report (compare it to NMC Horizon report, but with a pure pedagogical focus). In this report they look at ten innovations in teaching, learning and assessment that are gaining influence.

I find the focus on social learning of interest, as the report states that "Education can be dramatically enhanced by social networks, a report from The Open University claims. Massive open social learning brings the power of social networks to people taking online courses, by recommending, liking and following the best content created by other learners. The so-called 'network effect' comes from many thousands of people learning from each other, but it needs careful management to reach its full potential. " In a way this is supporting the Utopian vision of the web when it first reached a multitude of people. So an old idea is now grounded, and I must say I like this idea of social learning. 

The report focuses on each topic and elaborates on it briefly (approx 3 pages), giving a description, some important issues related to the topic and resources. Nice.

Which innovations are described in the report:

• Massive Open Social Learning (a social learning view on mooc)
• Learning design informed by analytics (a productive cycle linking learning analytics to effective learning - Yeah Bart!)
• The Flipped classroom (inside and outside classroom learning, flipping homework and class interactions)
• Bring Your Own Devices (learners bring their own devices - smartphones, cameras - into the classroom)
• Learning to learn (a good focus on learning how to become an effective learner)
• Dynamic assessment (I like this one as it offers ideas on personalized assessment for learners)
• Event based learning (time-bounded learning moments)
• Learning through storytelling (ancient, and very effective learning format, now with new options)
• Bricolage (tinkering with all kinds of resources, kind of a mash-up for learning)

The lead author of this report is Mike Sharples, and he sees the social learning shift that is happening now as an educational parallel of the art shift that happened when file sharing became more prevalent. But if you look at the co-authors (Anne Adams, Rebecca Ferguson, Mark Gaved, Patrick McAndrew, Bart Rienties, Martin Weller, Denise Whitelock), you can see how all these great researchers ensure a good and well researched read.

Free book increasing access through #mlearning

The Commonwealth of Learning and Athabasca University just released a great free book on mobile learning, edited by the Mohamed Ally and Avgoustos Tsinakos. The digital book consisting of three parts, each filled with great articles all looking at mobile education, including a chapter written by myself on "using BYOD, mobile social media, apps, and sensors for meaningful mobile learning".

What to expect:
Part I describes considerations for, and approaches to, designing mobile learning materials. It is important for developers of mobile learning materials to follow standards so that the learning materials can be shared as open educational resources (OER). Delivered on mobile technology, OER have the potential to enable citizens all over the world to access affordable education from anywhere and at any time. Part II of the book discusses how mobile learning can be successfully implemented to maximise access to educational resources with minimum resources, and to maintain flexibility in the delivery process. Part III provides examples of how mobile learning can be used in a variety of settings, including schools, higher education institutions, the workplace and the field, and a variety of contexts, from formal programmes to just-in-time learning.

With over 200 pages of mobile learning wisdom, there is a lot to read and reflect upon.
PART I: Designing Mobile Learning
Chapter 1
A Diachronic Overview of Technology Contributing to Mobile Learning: A Shift Towards Student-Centred Pedagogies ..................... 7
Helen Crompton

Chapter 2
Educational Standards for Mobile Learning and Mobile Application Development ......... 17
Judy Brown, Michael Hruska, Andy Johnson and Jonathan Poltrack

Chapter 3
A Pedagogical Framework for Mobile Learning: Categorising Educational Applications of Mobile Technologies into Four Types ............. 27
Yeonjeong Park

Chapter 4
Why Open Educational Resources Are Needed for Mobile Learning ......... 49
Rory McGreal

Chapter 5
Design of Contextualised Mobile Learning Applications ............................ 61
Marcus Specht

Chapter 6
Interactive Learning Strategies for Mobile Learning ................................... 73
Anthony Ralston

Chapter 7
Mobile Learning: Location, Collaboration and Scaffolding Inquiry ............. 85
Eileen Scanlon

PART II: Implementing Mobile Learning
Chapter 8
Open Formats for Mobile Learning ............................................................. 99
Geoff Stead

Chapter 9
Using BYOD, Mobile Social Media, Apps, and Sensors for Meaningful Mobile Learning ............ 113
Inge Ignatia de Waard

Chapter 10
Supporting Mobile Access to Online Courses: The ASK Mobile SCORM Player and the ASK Mobile LD Player .......................................... 125
Panagiotis Zervas and Demetrios G. Sampson

Chapter 11
Mobile Learning Operating Systems .......................................................... 141
Christian Glahn

PART III: Using Mobile Learning in Education and Training
Chapter 12
Orchestrating the Flexible Mobile Learning Classroom .............................. 161
Chee-Kit Looi and Yancy Toh

Chapter 13
Mobile Learning in Higher Education .......................................................... 175
Núria Ferran-Ferrer, Muriel Garreta Domingo, Josep Prieto-Blazquez,
Cesar Corcoles, Dr. Teresa Sancho-Vinuesa and Mr. Francesc Santanach

Chapter 14
Mobile Learning in the Workplace: Unlocking the Value of Mobile Technology for Work-Based Education ........................ 193
Christoph Pimmer and Norbert Pachler

Chapter 15
Changing the Tunes from Bollywood’s to Rural Livelihoods — Mobile Telephone Advisory Services to Small and Marginal Farmers in India: A Case Study ........................... 205
Balaji Venkataraman and T.V. Prabhakar

Chapter 16
The Future of Mobile Learning and Implications for Education and Training ..... 217
David Parsons

5 steps to improve my #mobile #diabetic life

Since March 2011 I am a diabetic type 1. This means that my pancreas is no longer functioning and I have to take 4 insuline shots per day (Novorapid and Lantus (glargine)).

In the past 6 month I have bought a Continued Glucose Monitor (CGM) produced by Medtronic. The CGM enables me to keep an almost real-time overview of the glucose in my blood. This is great for me, as I have a various activities (so glucose use varies) and I have a small child (now 1 year old) which makes me more aware of my child his safety. I use the CGM without an insulin pump, so I just use the monitor to keep me informed on possible hypoglycemics (low blood sugar with a risk of getting in coma when too low).

The CGM has greatly improved my ease of mind. But, as a mobile learning adapt, I feel the CGM could be improved with some simple technical and training modifications. So this blogpost is in a way a call for action from Medtronic and all CGM building companies. And the model can in itself be used as a generic mobile health (mHealth) model. How, easy in 5 steps

1. The CGM is currently sending glucose information to a Medtronic monitor, but it would be an improvement if it would send information to a smartphone (BYOD type of development). Security might be an issue, but the CGM monitor has been hacked also, so well. Getting your blood sample info to an iPhone is already possible (see movie below), so getting CGM info to my/any smartphone is feasible.
2. Now add to this a carbohydrate smart scale that is connected to my smartphone or other mobile device (e.g. the wireless scale in combination with iPad/iPhone). This does require a scale that has options to choose from: buttons for different carbohydrate foods and fruits to allow the scale to immediately convert the weight into the right amount of carbohydrates. This way, the mobile device can calculate the amount of insulin you will need and add the meal information to a offline/online synchronized personal database. 
3. When the CGM sends encrypted information to a smartphone as mentioned above, additional health applications can be build. For instance one that keeps you up to date on how your glucose is changing throughout the day in relation to your food intake. For instance, which foods allow you to do a more strenuous workout, or are better at keeping your glucose stable when doing nothing (airplane, daylong meeting,etc). For this an algorithm must be build that monitors different variables and can indicate what type of food gave good results overtime (in my case brown pasta is always giving me problems, so I would love to know if it is linked to anything else). Of course there are many diabetes related apps out there already: Android based, iPhone based, other, or check out this one EndoGoddess which seems to give points for putting in your diabetes info an in exchange you can download iTunes music - interesting business support model. But these apps miss the personalized, more semantic type of algorithm.
4. Add to this a training application to inform diabetic newbies: YouTube movies, cause and effect information, food advice, workout advice (e.g. eating olives and avocado's helps in increasing good cholesterol levels because they influence the take in of bad cholesterol in favor of the good one). 
5. And finally, provide a newsletter URL or RSS feed that is mobile enabled. It is easy and promotes all that deliver information, so win-win situation.

So how would this improve my mobile diabetic life?

• It saves time in putting the information of weighing food into any paper notebook or smartphone app, because the scale is connected to the smartphone.
• I can work with the device I like to use and am comfortable with
• It saves time in calculating, as the smartphone can immediately calculate how much insuline you need for the amount of carbohydrates you have weight in relationship to the time of day.
• And it saves quality time as I learn continuously (or when I am willing). 

So if any of you Medtronic managers/developers would be interested, I will gladly share my ideas/tech knowledge to get this realized (no fee, just fly me to your headquarters and let the meeting begin).

For sure Medtronic is amazing at leading research to a fully closed, artificial pancreas. See for instance their latest news on the path towards an artificial pancreas in their newsroom article here.

Thanks to Domingo Liotta I am also a bit at ease about my night insulin that is glargine  (which has said to increase the cancer risk), but now three new study is out indicating that glargine would not increase the cancer risk (let's hope so, for long-term studies are still running).

And last but not least the linkup between blood level updates and iPhone.

5 ways to strengthen a #BYOD #mLearning community

When setting up a mobile learning course, it is not always easy to get everyone on the same page. There are a lot of factors that can vary from learner to learner. Nevertheless, any learning will benefit from a strong learning community that feels connected to each other. So I went through my mobile strategy notes and filtered out 5 ways that I have been using to grow the community spirit of a new mLearning group at the  beginning of a course. Feel free to share yours, I feel that there are much more ideas out there.

In my case the mobile courses are mostly developed for people already having a personal, mobile learning device (smartphone, tablet, internet enabled cell-phone...) and using them to access the course (BYOD). This pushes me to combine community activities that also increase mobile skills. BUT before asking newbies to get their mobile devices out and use them, I always stress the importance of WiFi for financial reasons.

So here are my 5 ways to strengthen a mLearning community:

1. Ask learners to take a picture/record a movie (e.g. Qik) of a famous landmark of their own country/region, or their front door (easy and fun) and load it to a central location via e-mail (I would recommend Posterous for this, easy and quick).
2. Asking learners to share their wildest mLearning dreams (a good way to stretch the possibilities and let them know the scope and opportunities of mLearning).
3. Ask them to share the URL of their mobile learning device details (this gets learners interested in the details of their own mobile device, it is techy, but will get them aware of the tech details and on how to choose future mobiles. A great step towards a general mobile device tech session: wifi, pixels, bluetooth...). This will also allow you to get some idea of the variety and most common mobile devices for your course.
4. Organize a fun contest (e.g. the first one to get 3 mobile media types uploaded gets a box of Belgian chocolate)
5. Set up a Crowdmap, this is an easy and mobile friendly (tweet, phone call, sms) worldwide map based on the wonderful Africa Ushahidi principle. It allows people to use their phone to simply add content to the map, which pinpoints their location at the same time. The only thing you need to ask them is to share something that is contextual to all: e.g. their favorite local recipe, the best mobile store in their neighborhood, ...)