Call for Papers #CfP #AI #mLearning #MOOC in conferences #UNESCO @FedericaUniNa

January has started and three important calls for papers are coming up, all related to conferences. The three conferences are: eMOOCs2019 (on MOOCs), Mobile Learning week at UNESCO (focus on AI for development and mobile learning, and eLearning Africa (this year in Cote d'Ivoir), listed per deadline of the CfP.

Mobile learning week UNESCO (Paris, France): focus on AI for sustainable development

Call for proposals deadline: 11 January 2019
UNESCO Global AI Conference: Monday 4 March 2019
Policy Forum and Workshops: Tuesday 5 March 2019
Symposium: Wednesday 6 & Thursday 7 March 2019
Strategy labs & International Women’s Day: Friday 8 March 2019

Exhibits: Monday 4 to Friday 8 March 2019

More information: https://en.unesco.org/mlw/2019

UNESCO, in partnership with its confirmed partners – the International Telecommunication Union and the Profuturo Foundation – will convene a special edition of Mobile Learning Week (MLW) from 4 to 8 March 2019, at the UNESCO Headquarters building in Paris (France). The five-day event, under the theme ‘Artificial Intelligence for Sustainable development’ will start with the ‘Global Conference - Principles for AI: Towards a humanistic approach?’, followed by a one-day Policy Forum and Workshops, a two-day International Symposium and a half-day of Strategy Labs. On 8 March, towards the close of MLW, participants will be invited to join the celebration of International Women’s Day, particularly a debate on Women in AI to be held in UNESCO Headquarters. During the entire week, exhibitions and demonstrations of innovative AI applications for education and more than 20 workshops will be organized by international partners and all programme sectors of UNESCO.

eMOOCs 2019 in Napels, Italy

Deadline CfP: 14 January 2019.
Conference date:  May 20 – 22, 2019
More information: https://emoocs2019.eu/call-for-papers/overview/
Description
The Higher Education landscape is changing. As the information economy progresses, demand for a more highly, and differently, qualified workforce and citizens increases, and HE Institutions face the challenge of training, reskilling and upskilling people throughout their lives, rather than providing a one-time in-depth education. The corporate and NGO sectors are themselves exploring the benefits of a more qualified online approach to training, and are entering the education market in collaboration with HE Institutions, but also autonomously or via new certifying agencies. Technology is the other significant player in this fast-changing scenario. It allows for new, data-driven ways of measuring learning outcomes, new forms of curriculum definition and compilation, and alternative forms of recruitment strategy via people analytics.

At the MOOC crossroads where the three converge, we ask ourselves whether university degrees are still the major currency in the job market, or whether a broader portfolio of qualifications and micro-credentials may be emerging as an alternative. What implications does this have for educational practice? What policy decisions are required? And as online access eliminates geographical barriers to learning, but the growing MOOC market is increasingly dominated by the big American platforms, what strategic policy do European HE Institutions wish to adopt in terms of branding, language and culture?

The EMOOCs 2019 MOOC stakeholders summit comprises the consolidated format of Research and Experience, Policy and Business tracks, as well as interactive workshops. Original contributions that share knowledge and carry forward the debate around MOOCs are very welcome.

eLearning AFrica - Abidjan - Cote d'Ivoir

Deadline CfP: February 22, 2019.
Conference date: October 23 - 25, 2019
More information: https://www.elearning-africa.com/programme_cfp.php
Description
The 14^th edition of eLearning Africa, the International Conference & Exhibition on ICT for Education, Training & Skills Development, which will take place in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire from October 23 - 25, 2019 and is co-hosted by the Government of Côte d'Ivoire. 

A unique event, Africa’s largest conference and exhibition on technology supported learning, training and skills development, eLearning Africa is a network of leading experts, professionals and investors, committed to the future of education & training in Africa.

Read more about the eLearning Africa 2019 theme, The Keys to the Future: Learnability and Employability, and become involved in shaping the conference agenda by proposing a topic, talk or session here.
Register today to profit from our Early Bird Rate

About eLearning Africa
Founded in 2005, eLearning Africa is the leading pan-African conference and exhibition on ICT for Education, Training & Skills Development. The three day event offers participants the opportunity to develop multinational and cross-industry contacts and partnerships, as well as to enhance their knowledge and skills.
Over 13 consecutive years, eLearning Africa has hosted 17,278 participants from 100+ different countries around the world, with over 80% coming from the African continent. More than 3,530 speakers have addressed the conference about every aspect of technology supported learning, training and skills development.

Workshops worth attending: #storytelling, #citizenship and #mobile learning

Great workshops and seminars are open for registration, and gladly listing three that caught my attention: two in Europe (Germany and France), one in Maryland, USA.

Beyond Storytelling 2018: Re-Authoring Futures

When: 8 – 9 June 2018

Where: Hamburg, Germany

Cost to attend: 1000 EUR.

Early bird: 790 EUR (28 February)

Information: http://www.beyondstorytelling.com/introduction/

Registration: http://www.beyondstorytelling.com/bst18tickets/

Program: http://www.beyondstorytelling.com/program/ (Keynotes from: Joe Lambert (Chief listener and convener), Chené Swart (Consultant and trainer), Sohail Inayatullah (UNESCO)

Description (from organisation)

Futures are unknown and cannot be known. Yet, individually and collectively, we need an image and an idea how the future will look like to inform and guide our decisions and actions in the here and now.

At the same time, we are tempted, as individuals, organizations and communities to project what we know into the future. All too often, these imagined futures are constrained by what we think is possible or impossible to do.

True change and innovation rests on our ability to re-imagine and re-author the futures we want to live into – to open new perspectives and new ways of thinking and doing.

At BEYOND STORYTELLING 2018 we want to explore the potential of narrative approaches and working with stories to support organizations, individuals and communities in exploring their futures anew.

UNESCO Mobile Learning Week 2018

When: 26 – 30 March 2018

Where: UNESCO headquarters, Paris, France.

Cost: registration mandatory. No cost to attend, but travel and stay at your own expense.

Information: https://en.unesco.org/mlw/2018

Registration: http://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/3517120/MLW-2018-Registration-Form-EN-FR

Description:

Mobile Learning Week is UNESCO’s flagship ICT in education conference. Mobile Learning Week 2018 is being organized in partnership with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the United Nations specialized agency for ICT.

The 2018 event will be organized under the theme “Skills for a connected world”. Participants will exchange knowledge about the ways governments and other stakeholders can define and achieve the skills-related targets specified by Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4).

The conference, consisting of four related sub-events, will facilitate actions to:

Defining and mainstreaming digital skills;

Innovating skills provision for jobs in the digital economy;

Closing inequalities and gender divides; and

Mapping and anticipating changing skill needs

The sub-themes and sub-events of the conference are explained in detail in the concept note. Overall, Mobile Learning Week 2018 will provide a platform to share exemplary practices in mobile learning, with a specific focus on blending ‘non-digital’ education approaches and mobile learning applications in order to reduce inequality, spur innovative approaches to teaching and learning, and bridge formal and non-formal systems.

Programme

Workshops - Monday 26 March

The Workshops will facilitate demonstrations of innovative policies, research, projects, and mobile learning solutions. Workshop presenters will be selected from wide range of international organizations, NGOs, governmental agencies, and academic institutions that are implementing digital skills development programmes. Sixteen workshops will be conducted.

Symposium – Tuesday 27 and Wednesday 28 March

The Symposium forms the core of Mobile Learning Week and will feature opening and closing remarks from UNESCO, ITU and other partner organizations, keynote speeches, high‐level plenary addresses, and over 60 breakout sessions.

Policy Forum – Thursday 29 March (invitation only)

The Policy Forum will offer a platform to discuss the different pathways that governments are using to support the development of the digital skills required in the digital economy.

► Download the Policy Forum agenda.

Strategy Labs - Friday 30 March 

Strategy Labs will be hosted by UNESCO and ITU partner organizations to help guide the conceptualization and refinement of projects for defining frameworks, assessing digital skills across groups and across time, and anticipating the changing needs for digital skills.

Seminar: Citizenship in the American and Global Polity: An Interdisciplinary Seminar for College and University Faculty

When: 15 – 20 July 2018

Where: Aspen Wye River campus in Queenstown, Maryland, USA

Information: https://www.aspeninstitute.org/seminars/wye-academic-programs/

Registration: 1 March 2018 at the latest

Cost:
Full participant = $2,975

Accompanying spouse/guest = $2,100 (shared room, all meals)

All costs include lodging, meals, group events, and materials. Airfare and transportation to and from the closest airport is not included; early flight booking is strongly recommended.

Description: 
Part of the Wey Academic Programs. The Wye Faculty Seminar is one of the premier faculty development programs. The seminar seeks to address what we believe is a central need of faculty members—to exchange ideas with colleagues from other disciplines and other institutions committed to liberal education, and to probe ideas and values that are foundational to liberal learning in a free society.

Modeled in the tradition of the Aspen Institute Executive Seminars, the Wye Faculty Seminar combines three essential goals:

to gather a diverse group of thoughtful individuals in intellectually rigorous discussions;

to explore great literature stretching from ancient to contemporary time; and

to translate ideas into action suitable to the challenges of our age.

Outcomes and Impact

Past participants have emphasized the following outcomes and impact of their participation in the Wye Faculty Seminar:

Personal and professional refreshment;

Deeper and broader knowledge of interdisciplinary approaches to classroom discussions;

Exposure to diverse academic and personal perspectives.

An example of past curriculum can be found here.

The Wye Faculty Seminar is offered to selected faculty members who have the honor of being nominated by their presidents and deans for their distinctive contributions to the quality of liberal education.

The Wye Faculty Seminar combines vigorous intellectual exchange with time to read, reflect, exercise, and socialize on the beautiful Aspen Wye River campus in Queenstown, Maryland. The seminar is supported jointly by AAC&U and the Aspen Institute.

(picture from http://blog.strategyzer.com/posts/2014/12/02/how-to-design-great-workshops )

#CfP eMOOCs call and UNESCO call for ICT in education prize

Two calls of interest: eMOOCs2016 and UNESCO

eMOOCs2016 call for papers: MOOC experience, research and institutional track

Deadline for submissions: 28 September 2015

More information: http://emoocs2016.eu/call-for-papers/ 

Call for Papers Experience TrackMassive Open Online Courses are often discussed as a new learning scenario. But from the field we know that they have many shades and facets. The experience track aims to feed the general debate on MOOCs by bringing together our shared knowledge and experiences. This includes experiences from experts who have been running MOOCs, supporting the production of MOOCs, involved in the selection of MOOCs, or analyzed data. It also includes experiences of using MOOC-related technology in different contexts (e.g. in-house training, k12 contexts, developing regions, etc.). The experience track aims to share experiences, results, solutions, and to document problems.

Call for Papers Research TrackOpen Education and Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are nowadays used as an innovation format for educational institutions and they contribute to making (higher) education more accessible. By opening up their courses and infrastructure to new target groups open education gets a disruptive character which raises many question within the institutions and also from outside. These questions are related mostly to interfaces between formal and informal learning, certification and recognition but also to wider societal responsibilities for higher education. MOOC research has in the meantime matured and special intention is given to questions related to scalability of feedback and support, educational design of open courses but also on the integration of new technologies into open learning environments. The research track expects reports about solid research activities, which take into account the state-of-the-art and theories, and whose reports are based on an evidence- and data-driven approach.

Call for Papers Institutional & Corporate TrackMassive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and variations of them have changed education beyond the academic world. While universities are opening up education to leaners worldwide, the corporate, the institutional, and the non-profit worlds explore the benefits of training concepts for personnel, clients, and the public at large that harness the advantages of technologies based on the model of MOOCs. This track will consist of panel sessions and invited presentations. It will be set up by direct invitation, however suggestions might be sent to the track chair at <cdk@it.uc3m.es>.

UNESCO is pleased to announce that it is now accepting applications for the organization’s only ICT in education prize. 

Deadline for submissions: 10 November 2015.

Prize: individuals, instutes, non-gov organizations... 25.000$ 

More information: http://www.unesco.org/new/en/unesco/themes/icts/ict-in-education-prize/ 

To submit your application, please contact your National Commission or an International Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) maintaining official relations with UNESCO and working on the themes covered by the Prizes. The submission form can be downloaded.

Description:The UNESCO King Hamad Bin Isa Al-Khalifa Prize for the Use of Information and Communication Technologies in Education is awarded annually to encourage and celebrate the creative use of ICT to enhance learning, teaching and overall education performance.

The Prize rewards individuals, institutions, non-governmental organizations or other entities for initiatives which successfully leverage ICT for education. Every year two awards are issued to winners selected by an international jury. Each winner receives a cash prize of US $25,000.

Should you have any questions, please contact mlw@unesco.org .

Finally, we would like to remind you that the dates for Mobile Learning Week 2016 have been set. The event will be held from 7-11 March at UNESCO’s headquarters in Paris. The theme of Mobile Learning Week 2016 as well as the event's rationale and a provisional programme will be shared in the coming weeks.

Supporting Outstanding Young Persons by voting #jcinews

It is difficult to turn life around. We all know this in some form or another, either through big challenges that we need to overcome, or small changes that seem huge. 

Some of us come from humble beginnings, some of us face hardship in all sorts of ways but learn to overcome them, others pave their way towards a self-set dream with such energy that it inspires others.  And depending on the region you grew up in, or the supporting (or not) family background you got, opportunities are either vast or limited and opportunities to turn one’s life around are multiple or rare.

My friend Ronda Zelezny-Green took her fate in her own hands and turned it into something bigger (thanks to the support of just a few people, including inspirational teachers). Now, she – among twenty other inspirational young people – just got nominated for the International TenOutstanding Young People Awards, an award organised by the United StatesJunior Chamber (JCs or more commonly Jaycees) nominating people between the ages of 18 and 40 in areas of business development, management skills, individual training, community service, and international connections.

Every nation has its heroes. Inspirational men and women directing their own lives towards new horizons, helping themselves AND others while they are at it. So, vote for those people whose work you find inspirational, and give them an additional boost through your online vote.

Ronda Zelezny-Green is my favorite and I voted for her by clicking on the like button on her page (facebook membership is needed). But I admit to voting for some others too, as support is good energy to share. So please take a look at all of these 20 wonderfully inspirational people that are nominated here.

Ronda inspires me, simply because I know the work she does (combining educational technology and gender) and above all because of the person she is. She is one of those persons who take people as they are, no matter what age, schooling, background, connections … if you talk to her a dialogue develops that fills you up with energy and motivation. She inspires, listens and supports. She grew up in a tough region of Tampa, Florida and is now traveling the world improving education for all.

As a young professional she was a teacher guiding kids who faced rough conditions, now she researches and propagates educational opportunities to young girls (she started in Kenya) who’s educational journey faces regular interruptions and challenges.  She uses mobile learning options to create durable educational support among young female peers. To achieve this, she does not push those solutions onto anyone, no, she looks at how people develop their own solutions and then Ronda investigates whether these solutions can be used in other contexts, to help more youngsters… and it works.

She also created the Gender and Mobiles newsletter, which combines the latest international news on using mobile devices in gender contexts. Each issue provides me with new information that is useful, critical … in short food for thought. It is easy to subscribe via email here.

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."

liveblog #eMOOCs2015 collaborative MOOCs a challenging experience

This session is given by Sandra Soarez-Frazao and Yves Zech from RESCIF.
Very interesting as I can see parallels between other North-South course challenges.

The MOOC they talk about is about ‘Rivers and Men’, in the international (French speaking countries) RESCIF, a North South cooperation. This network has as an objective to focus on:
Water
Energy
Nutrition

Teaching support in this North-South context: lectures are organised in both institutions and teach each other’s. MOOCs can offer a different way of sharing teaching experience.

With the global climate change water is becoming an increasingly important commodity, which is at the basis of choosing to organise this MOOC.
Topic: dynamics of trained rivers from experience in Norther and Southern rivers. Designed for engineers that want to refresh their knowledge, or to understand all the basics that are needed for water measuring. And without intending it, citizens who had concerns about the environment came in as learners as well.

Welcome week, four week course, personal project (choice of a problematic and a related real case.

All the MOOC week topics are shared. They all build upon each other, so simple to complex.
Remark from Sandra: because the MOOC was in French less participants joined.
The participants were less African based then expected.
Learner participation was quite constant throughout the MOOC (for those participating actively).

Assets of collaborative MOOCs
· Extended resources:
· More people share the work
· The best practice of the various teams
· Extended network for advertising
· Opportunity for some teams to enter the MOOC world
· Various pedagogies (e.g. web references versus literature)

Teamwork
· Brainstorming
· Mutual incentive
· Mutual criticism
· Strong encouragement to hold the production schedule

Challenges of collaborative MOOCs
Heterogeneity of course team
Scientists and tech team might define concepts differently
Scientists of diverse disciplines (e.g. earth and life versus civil engineering)
Disciplines with diverse cultures
Vocabulary (uniform flow for example versus steady flow)
Empirical versus mathematical approach (also related to different jargon and ways of perceiving things)
Difficulty to define the target audience
Risk of a kind of competition (who’s presentation was best for example)

Heterogeneity of course itself
Each week with a distinct level of difficulty
Some reluctance to mathematics, even basic
Forums of discussion not in line with the course content

Required uniformity sometimes felt as a weight
Choice of templates
Constraints of uniform sequence schedules
Constraints due to the FUN platform

Problems of communication
Travels required to meet
Overloaded agendas of course team members
Weak efficiency of distance meetings.

Improve the teamwork effects
Systematisation of mutual (positive) criticism
Better links between lessons (avoid useless repetitions, and contradictions)

Real involvement of Southern partners
Using their study cases (partly done)
More open to teachers from the south
Organise adapted MOOC operations where required (offline versions, use as a support to local teachers, organise local evaluations)

Question: did you get remarks regarding the Northern tech that is used as a symbolic gatekeeper?

ict4d #mobile and #elearning challenge for refugees send your ideas!

The Refugee Education Challenge (by OpenIdeo a social innovation platform, and supported by the Amplify project) is a clear, worthwhile initiative that can be answered by individual EdTech producers as well as companies or groups (corporate, academic, ngo). The challenge is simple in description, yet very complex in planning as refugees face multiple challenges at the same time, look at the ideas here.

Participating in the challenge:

• imagine life in a refugee camp, the contexts, the infrastructure, cultures, priorities, realities....
• better yet, ask around whether you know any (ex-)refugees
• reflect on the knowledge and experience you have, and how this might solve some of the challenges faced by refugees
• sign up in the OpenIDEO platform (more information will appear)
• start designing a plan based on innovation (with or without pragmatism, but always keeping the refugee contexts in mind as guidelines) - there are some design principles available
• share your plan on the platform
• ....

and follow the next steps

You can submit ideas through the month of May 2015.

free report on #OER evidence of success @OER_HUB

The Open Educational Resources Research Hub (OER Research Hub) provides a focus for research, designed to give answers to the overall question ‘What is the impact of OER on learning and teaching practices?’ and identify the particular influence of openness.

The OER hub just released a free evidence report focusing on key factors related to Open Educational Resources. There are multiple hypothesis on OER tested in this report, and with clearly described outcomes and conclusions. Anyone working with eLearning or online resources will be interested to know what works and what does not, as OER are one of the cornerstones when eLearning marched forward. Especially in the developing regions (cutting costs, content for everyone...).

In the report the following topics were investigated and described (all put forward with their respective OER hypothesis): performance, openness, access, retention, reflection, finance, indicators, support, transition, policy, and assessment.

The results come from an intense collaboration with projects across four education sectors (K12, college, higher education and informal) extending a network of research with shared methods and shared results.

The project combines:
 – Targeted research collaboration with high profile OER projects
 – A programme of international fellowship
 – Global networking and expertise in OER implementation and evaluation
 – A hub for research data and excellence in practice

In conclusion: The OER Research Hub has found good evidence across each of the eleven hypotheses set out at the inception of the project in 2012. There are varying amounts of evidence identified with each of the hypotheses, and varying degrees of support. What is perhaps most significant is the overall weight of evidence. This represents one of the most complete pictures of the impact of OER in its current state. There is still much more work to be done, however. Acquiring comparative data which will illustrate that the implementation of OER has an impact on performance requires longitudinal studies and establishing excellent relationships of trust as this data is sensitive. In addition, the picture for some hypotheses will remain incomplete unless institutions can be encouraged to share information about the impact OER is having on financial performance and student grades.

presentation on eLearning and #mobile influences for #ICT4D

Sharing a presentation I gave for the Deutsche Welle Akademie in Bonn, Germany. It was a wonderful talk thanks to all the input and questions the attendees shared, and the wonderful facilitation provided by Holger Hank and his team.

The questions were multiple, and gladly sharing those that are posed frequently.
One of the reoccurring challenges in every type of online learning (elearning, mooc, mobile...) is:

• motivating learners to take and keep up with the training (possible answers: use an 'earn as you learn' approach where you provide extra incentives for those who participate, only develop learning that answers a real need indicated by the trainees, build a learning community, enable offline or at least asynchronous learning - synchronous can demotivate for those learners living in unstable connected regions)
• how to attract your intended learner audience: that is difficult an in many cases (as Holger mentioned) also the case with MOOCs, attracting the right learners is part of providing a very clear course description, sharing the learning outcomes and the prior knowledge needed. The more specific the course description is, the higher the success rate for attracting the right learner profiles. And of course let your own network promote your course, they know who you are, they know your excellence. 
• the connected learner as superlearner: is it a myth or a reality? This is of course a difficult assumption to test, but there is a very natural way in which most of us connect to like minded, or professionally interested colleagues (connecting through old school face-to-face meet-ups). This natural flair to connect (if you are such a type of person) is reflected in the virtual environment as well. But this does not mean that the 'best learner' is indeed a networked, connected learner. It could well be that you only need to have very specific connections (limited) or even that you can be really good without having connections, but ... that remains to be proven (and yes, I intend to proof it with some of my research).  And when you live in a developing region, it can be quite tough to be a fully connected learner as well (infrastructure, life and reality), which would mean an additional digital dividing factor turns up. For me, the connected learner is a good thing to be, but then I do have specific personal traits that would set me up with favorable inclinations towards being virtually connected to attain my knowledge goals. Big Five personality traits makes up good reading for this. 
• what is a good way to plan and test new online or mobile trainings? Planning means: working on a need before anything else, get all stakeholders around the table (participation and knowing what everyone REALLY wants), define the learning goals and learning outcomes needed with everyone, involve strong, experienced instructional designers that know with which learner/teacher dynamics these learning outcomes can be reached (and still be creative and engaging), and test it in a similar, yet safe environment (e.g. in a flipped classroom approach prior to a workshop moment, enabling you to test what you have by people you know, and get feedback in real life enabling to see their expression as they give feedback). 

These were my shared slides:

Presentation eLearning and ICT4D changing realities and challenges from Inge Ignatia de Waard

#MOOC for development report #ict4D

Finally the inspirational and informative report of Massive Open Online Courses for Development (MOOC4D) is published by the Penn University, and it can be downloaded here (link I got at first was not working, so added a new indirect link. Once I have retrieved the official link I will put that one in). The panel discussions are also available online here. The conference on MOOC4D was held in April 2014 and it focused on the challenges and potentials of MOOCs in developing countries. The conference existed of panel discussions on various MOOC topics. And thank you to John Traxler for sending me the link!

The 18 page report gives a very nice insight into potential bottlenecks and the status of MOOCs in developing regions. The report also puts MOOC into a broader perspective, linking it to:

• Economics of MOOCs,
• Open Educational Resources (OER), 
• National and Global perspectives, 
• Online Distance Learning (ODL), 
• Expanding inclusion, and of course 
• International development. 

The educational challenges in developing regions are multiple:

• Teacher pro student rata 
• (Digital) Infrastructure
• Local content (and language)
• Global health issues
• k12 teacher development

The conference report offers a good deal of interesting reflections: the free model versus sustainability, using a blended learning model to combine what is best from online and face-to-face classroom teaching, ... and as the report mentions it is the start of the MOOC4D narrative as the new options are unfolding. 

Many questions that resounded during the panel discussions are mentioned in the report as well: "How MOOCs might or could fit in with Higher Education" (a global question and debate) and the ever reoccurring question: "how do we measure the impact of MOOCs". Where I feel the latter question is just a conundrum coming from an established order looking to calculate profit, where in fact profit resides in non-numeric and very qualitative profit. Education (in all its variety) works for everyone, whether you have self-taught learners, or kindergarden/primary/secondary/higherEd learners. Education is a primary human need, and should - in my view - not be pushed into boxes coming from production oriented analysis. And although I understand the need for benchmarks related to quality, getting education on the rails is the most important thing. Because let's face it, education in the Global North (and not related to MOOCs) still faces a lot of challenges. So any benchmarks based on a failed education in another part of the world, might not be the best structure to measure success. Produce education and rely on experienced teachers to provide content guidelines, they know. No matter where you live in the world, and experienced teacher makes a difference, knows her or his stuff and gets students inspired. 

Big contest to enable reading for children around the globe

USAid has just launched a contest for anyone willing and able to develop a software or tool that helps children in developing regions with learning how to read. Getting in the final will provide you with great feedback on your project, and how to improve it, with a bonus of 12.000$. The winner will get 100.000$ prize money, but ... this does mean extra creativity and understanding the challenges of native languages and mobile realities will be essential for this project.

A nice contest for a worthy cause, do not take my word for it, read the promo message from the organizers:
"All Children Reading:  A Grand Challenge for Development (ACR GCD) is hosting Enabling Writers, a $100,000 prize competition to spur the development of software solutions that allow authors to easily create and export texts in mother tongue languages to help early grade students in developing countries learn to read.
Three finalists will be awarded $12,000 each and offered feedback to improve their submissions for field testing. The technological solution that best enables local writers to quickly and easily create appropriate and interesting texts that follow tested reading instruction methodologies, and provide the optimum reading and learning experience for early primary school children, will win the $100,000 prize."  
The deadline for Enabling Writers is October 1, 2014. However applicants must register by July 18, 2014.  To learn more about the Challenge and to apply, go toAllChildrenReading.org or follow @ReadingGCD on twitter.

#OER on higher ed, corporate, personal & #development

Thanks to my new contact Vivienne Bozalek from UWC, I got redirected to ROER4D (Open Educational Resources for the Global South or for development). She shared an interesting talk with Cheryl Hodgkinson-Williams from the University of Cape Town, South Africa. And as I was listening to this 30 minute talk, another OER movie caught my attention: Using OER for workforce development which was presented by Una Daly from the Open CourseWare Consortium. Which led to the OER use in an open course, which is (among others) done and shared by the Tompkins Courtland Community College through the Kaleidoscope project. This in term reminded my of a talk given by Stephen Downes on the MOOC of one, which in a small (but to me relevant way) links OER to personal learning environments. And that made the circle full from my perspective: global, local / personal and institutional / higher ed and corporate ... you cannot deny that OER has taken up speed, and has grown in importance. This of course turns the internet into a global content that can be tailored by all of us, to result in learning paths (personally relevant learning paths).

Learning paths for sharing 
One of the learning paths is to provide customized, or better yet curated content, but there are easier/quicker options as well, and one that sticks to mind (I saw this while I visited Quallcom in Cambridge) was Pathgather, a nice piece of software that enables people to map where they found/find useful content for their purposes, and which they can rate. From there other colleagues/networking peers can check out those shared learning paths and rate them in turn, to indicate how useful the path is for their own professional or personal development. But ... Pathgather is not an open educational resource or OER, nor is it Open Source, so it cannot (yet) be used in the open. Would like to see something similar in the open though. If anyone knows of such a tool, feel free to share.

OER, the movies, with brief focus
Here are some of the movies I have been listening to, and brief ideas or interests from each (there is much more content of interest in every one of those movies of course!). And a brief wrap up at the end, on why I find this interesting.

ROER4D
ROER4D started (2012) as a project to see whether the claims being made by OER were actually true and could help the global south (increasing access to Higher Education, reducing costs, improving content quality in education, due to a shortage of teachers in the global south and lack of resources). And as most work is being done in the global North, there is a gap of proof and testing those claims. Another objective to look at ROER4D is to get a network going (next to testing the claims) in order to bridge the isolated spaces the current OER academics are in (for the global south, miles from conferences), and build a research capacity on OER in the global South. A wonderful thing about ROER4D is that they want to open ALL data, not only results, but the full process in order to provide this research capacity and insight (NICE!). Cheryll also mentioned some of the challenges and issues on ROER4D on global South: increasing amount of students, financial constraints and resulting pressure on educational institutions. Part of the challenge is about also keeping the research capacity inside of the global South (stop braindrain) and at the same time offer real insights into methodologies, analysis... and possibly allow the global South to develop contextualized methodologies from there.



Moving from ROER4D to corporate use of OER in training
Important focus on community colleges from which students need to enter the job world, and need to understand how to be able to keep up with workforce development. From the labour department (US) they did push the agenda to create more OER for US based workforce development. There are increasingly more entrepreneurial schools, and they develop OER. Una also covers IP and copyright licensing options, as well as cost reduction options by using OER. Una also shares some good OER coming from government resources in the Public domain : NASA, Department of Labor, department of energy (all US). But she does mention that not much is known in the public about these high quality OER provided by government. She also shares the Saylor.org resources site (how to present yourself, where to search for jobs...), they currently have 23 courses on workforce development.



And then moving to OER for personal learning environments
The interest of this talk by Stephen Downes (INTED2014) is about the selection each learner makes when following online education that offers a big amount of content (OER). And to look at organic learner dynamics as a space that can be used for OER. Stephen also focuses on the learner, but specifically the process that becomes ever more important to learners to understand what they need to do/have in order to become critical learners using OER (and non-OER). A nice concept launched is the semiotic approach: the learner trying to make sense of the world (meaning, context, representation), and in addition the critical/digital capacities being made by the learner for personal use (trying to make sense of our own experience, knowledge). And in sharing among all of us, concepts are constructed, OER take shape. Multiple viewpoints to create meaning, but looking at it from the personal perspective.



The open course
This short (5 min) video shows the process and adoption of an open course, as it was experienced by the Tompkins Courtland Community College through the Kaleidoscope project.



My thoughts on why this is interesting
Now why do I find all of this of interest? (aside from the obvious benefit of OER being there for all of us). I find it interesting because it is an evolution that affects or will affect all of us, in a strange - come together kind of way. If all of us develop OER, or curated content, then we are all recreating the internet by populating it with meaningful content built on the shoulders of giants (which means all of us with our expertise in our own contextualized environments). That is a sweet thing. For this also means that all that ever matters is no longer in us, but outside of us and each of our living space, it is in a layer build by shared meaning. Following an online course, is by definition open (as not all the material is sent to you, and as such a closed content package), and becomes part of a discussion by all interested parties (positive and negative). The interesting tension is between the individual and the joint-us, I have my own needs and contextualized expertise, but the built upon content is from the collective. No longer of the one singular institute, corporation... 

free book #OER integration in #k12 for #ict4d regions

While exploring OER with an edge options, I came across this free book published by the Common Wealth of Learning, edited by Ferreira and Gaultier, entitled Perspectives on Open and Distance Learning: Open Schooling with Open Educational Resources (OER): opening doors, creating opportunities. A great read which features OER cases from six countries — Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, Seychelles, Trinidad and Tobago and Zambia — participating in this ambitious, ground-breaking project to train educators to create a bank of OER that could be used in both conventional and open schools by both school-age children and adult learners. Each country based its OER on its country curricula, but built in enough cultural and pedagogical flexibility to allow the OER to be used and adapted by other countries — epitomising the essence of OER. In addition, the training equipped the participants with the knowledge and skills to train current and future colleagues, thus contributing to the sustainability of the OER.

The project presented many challenges — technical, personal and logistical — for the participants and these are discussed openly and honestly in the country reports. It also brought a real sense of professional and personal achievement, and those who participated can be proud of their contribution to the development of OER for open and distance education. If we can continue to develop and maintain OER, we can continue to educate and to open doors.

The great part of this is the collaboration to get OER centralized across nations, and using it inside of a curriculum based system (which makes the OER open to qualitative evaluation, redistribution, cross-cultural affinity...). Just looking at the table provided by the Namibian OER team got me excited: a clear timeline of what has been done, how and what the main focus was.

Free report durable Technology Enhanced Learning #Telearning

The Beyond Prototypes report provides a UK-based in-depth examination of the processes of innovation in technology-enhanced learning (TEL) with a special emphasis on building online learning solutions that are durable. The focus is also on design-based research.

In order to do this, the report looks back at some long-running programs (one going back to the 80's), and their follow-up projects. The report also looks at challenges and misconceptions of TELearning: e.g. MISCONCEPTION: Most of the TEL innovation process takes place within universities.

It is a nice, 40 page report describing three cases: 

The microelectronics education program 

The £23 million Microelectronics Education Programme (MEP) for England, Wales and Northern Ireland was established by the Government in November 1980 and ran for six years. The aim was to support schools in preparing children ‘for life in a society in which devices and systems based on microelectronics are commonplace and pervasive’. To complement this work, the Department of Industry made £16 million available to help local education authorities purchase computers for schools.

MEP took into account areas as diverse as curriculum development, teacher training, resource organisation and support. It promoted change at national, regional and local levels, encouraging collaboration and cross-fertilisation of ideas. Plans for evaluation and field studies were incorporated from the start. Although there was relatively little emphasis on pedagogy, the programme did note the potential to ‘add new and rewarding dimensions to the relationship between teacher and class or teacher and pupil’ [8].(curriculum, teacher training, infrastructure provision to schools. A 6 year program, which afterwards gave rise to EU projects building upon that expertise and changing education as a result)  

This project had follow-ups in European projects tackling education innovation. 

the Yoza cellphones project (mobile): 

The aim of the Shuttleworth Foundation funded Yoza Cellphone Stories project (Yoza), formally entitled m4Lit, was to promote leisure reading by the distribution of m-novels to mobile phones in South Africa – a country where less than 10% of public schools have functional libraries but 70% of urban youth have internetenabled mobile phones. The project began in 2009, taking inspiration from work done in Japan, using an existing mobile chat platform to release content and advertise, and publishing in local languages, including Afrikaans and isiXhosa, as well as English. Yoza considers the key innovation in this process of bricolage

not to be the use of phones, but the provision of really engaging stories (some published in episodes), available easily and affordably, with readers able to comment and see others’ comments in near real time.

In early 2013, Yoza won the Netexplo Award in Paris and had a catalogue of over 50 openly licensed m-novels, poems and plays, some of which deal with difficult subjects such as living with HIV. Use of the service has been strong, with over half a million completed reads and 50,000 user comments recorded in

the 17 months to December 2012. Securing further funding has proved challenging. However, content has been reused elsewhere, including by Young Africa Live, and the model has helped pave the way for other initiatives in South Africa such as the FunDza Literacy Trust.

iZone driver performance (corporate case)

iZone was set up in 2009 to address a change in Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA)

regulations, which reduced racing teams’ testing time. While test equipment and simulators for the testing

of cars and components were already used, nothing was available that could replace track time for drivers.

Sophisticated simulators with video screens had been developed over the previous 35 years, but much more

complex systems, able to provide physical feedback such as g-forces, were required for the development of

elite drivers.

iZone addressed this problem by interlinking physiological systems and electromechanical systems. It uses

eye-tracking technology to enable coaches to analyse drivers’ performance and assess their control during

the simulation. This technology was developed by the company’s simulator designer, John Reid, who was

inspired by an article about the use of eye-tracking systems in helicopter gunships.

iZone has links with Cranfield Aerospace that stretch back to the 1980s, when company chairman Alex

Hawkridge used the wind tunnel at Cranfield to develop the aerodynamics of Toleman F1 cars. The

company now uses the g-force technology from Cranfield’s helicopter trainer and also has PhD students

from Cranfield working with the company on aspects of the project. A similar long-term relationship with

the Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of Sheffield has also helped with the development

of the simulator.

Based on work with racing drivers prior to setting up iZone, the team has created a training regime developed

by sports scientists and sport psychologists to offer a complete driver development programme that includes

the use of the simulators. The sport psychology input came from Dave Collins, who had developed a name

for coaching and mentoring in athletics and football as well as in motorsports.

Most technology businesses are concerned with the protection of intellectual property (IP), but Alex

Hawkridge’s view is that, ‘the things that are patentable, we don’t think it would be wise to patent, because

you then tell people exactly what you’re doing.’ He considers that the most important way to protect the

business’s IP is to keep developing the simulator business. The potential for iZone to run a similar operation

at every major racetrack in the world is a real opportunity; a future way forward might include franchising

the model in order to maintain its speed of development

The report also makes recommendations for researchers, government and policy makers. Just mentioning a few,, the recommendations feel rather intuitive:

• The interim and final results from design-based studies should be systematically shared with other researchers so that the process of innovation can be compared, expanded, and continued over time. They should also be widely disseminated to policy makers and practitioners, through events such as ‘what research says’ meetings. 
•  Research institutes should set up long-lasting collaborations and consortia, involving schools, museums and other educational settings as test-beds, to support large-scale comparative and crosscultural investigations.
• Policy and funding should support innovations in pedagogy and practice, as well as the technological developments that will support these. This should recognize the need to fund professional development of practitioners and evaluation of the innovation in practice.
• Policy and funding should recognize the importance of extended development and provide support for scaling and sustaining of innovations, beyond prototypes into educational transformations.
• Policy and funding should encourage the development of skilled, multidisciplinary teams that are able to complete the TEL innovation process. Recognition and support should be given to visionary thinking and experimentation, to generate fresh insights and achievable visions of educational developments.

Free report on #teaching to reach education for all

Reaching education for all has been on the lips of many developing regions and their policy makers, but the pace of that race is slow. As a distance learning researcher and specifically into mobile learning, I often support technology as an important factor to reach learners all around the globe. That fact gets disputed regularly at home as my partner is a teacher who pulls my feet back on the ground saying: in order to reach all students, you need to support and talk to all students. She is right, the only way to reach everyone and ensure education for all is to invest in teachers. Technology is only an instrument, and believing technology will help us all is as silly as saying that when everyone would have a spoon, we would all be eating. Without a fruitful soil, without teachers, without available content, any progress will only happen at low speed.

UNESCO is right on that train of thought and has recently published an extensive report entitled: Teaching and learning: achieving quality for all. I must admit I like the addition of 'quality' to the 'education for all' concept. The report is available in two formats: a 50 page summary (available in English | French | Spanish | Arabic | Russian |Chinese | Hindi | Portuguese) highlighting findings and strategies, and the full report (just under 500 pages as an  English Full Report | French | Spanish (pdf.s)) for all that really want to dig in the details.

The report is divided into three parts. Part 1 provides an update of progress towards the six EFA goals. The second part presents clear evidence that progress in education is vital for achieving development goals after 2015. Part 3 puts the spotlight on the importance of implementing strong policies to unlock the potential of teachers so as to support them in overcoming the global learning crisis.

The report summary highlights some urgent goals that need to be obtained and reading the shortlist certainly got me thinking:

• Goal 1: Despite improvements, far too many children lack early childhood care and education. In 2012, 25% of children under 5 suffered from stunting. In 2011, around half of young children had access to pre-primary education, and in sub-Saharan Africa the share was only 18%.
• Goal 2: Universal primary education is likely to be missed by a wide margin. The number of children out of school was 57 million in 2011, half of whom lived in conflict-affected countries. In sub-Saharan Africa, only 23% of poor girls in rural areas were completing primary education by the end of the decade. If recent trends in the region continue, the richest boys will achieve universal primary completion in 2021, but the poorest girls will not catch up until 2086.
• Goal 3: Many adolescents lack foundation skills gained through lower secondary education. In 2011, 69 million adolescents were out of school, with little improvement in this number since 2004. In low income countries, only 37% of adolescents complete lower secondary education, and the rate is as low as 14% for the poorest. On recent trends, girls from the poorest families in sub-Saharan Africa are only expected to achieve lower secondary completion in 2111.
• Goal 4: Adult literacy has hardly improved. In 2011, there were 774 million illiterate adults, a decline of just 1% since 2000. The number is projected to fall only slightly, to 743 million, by 2015. Almost two-thirds of illiterate adults are women. The poorest young women in developing countries may not achieve universal literacy until 2072. 
• Goal 5: Gender disparities remain in many countries. Even though gender parity was supposed to be achieved by 2005, in 2011 only 60% of countries had achieved this goal at the primary level and 38% at the secondary level.
• Goal 6: Poor quality of education means millions of children are not learning the basics. Around 250 million children are not learning basic skills, even though half of them have spent at least four years in school. The annual cost of this failure, around US$129 billion. Investing in teachers is key: in around a third of countries, less than 75% of primary school teachers are trained according to national standards. And in a third of countries, the challenge of training existing teachers is worse than that of recruiting and training new teachers.

The one fact that strikes me the most is the lack of progress in adult literacy. It is all good and well to advocate free online courses, but if literacy is not reached, no matter what type of content we put out there it will not engage all learners (unless we make it non-textual and available in local languages, which would be a real bonus for all). And literacy efforts demand intense teacher and learner efforts as well (time, money restraints).

New #gender & #mlearning news mobiles to end violence

The Gender and Mobile Learning Newsletter is a great read and is now available. There are links to mobile learning events such as the upcoming mobile learning week at UN headquarters in Paris France (17 - 21 February 2014), and the mobile learning workshop 'saving lives through mobile' organized in Barcelona, Spain on 25 February 2014.

If you have any gender/mobile related projects or events planned, make sure to let Ronda Zelezny-Green know and she will get your projects highlighted in upcoming newsletters (do remember the 2-monthly frequency of the newsletter).

Synopsis of other topics mentioned in the newsletter
How mobiles can help stop Gender-Based Violence 

The past three years – and more pointedly the past 12 months – have laid witness to monumental, if not heartbreaking, incidents of gender-based violence. The gang rape of a 23-year-old woman in New Delhi last December; the gang rape of a 16-year-old girl left for dead in a pit latrine in Western Kenya last June; the mass sexual assault of women in Tahrir Square during the 2011 revolution in Egypt and since; all were high profile atrocities that ignited outrage around the world.

In the aftermath of each of these, mobile technology solutions and internet-based advocacy campaigns surged. It’s almost like clockwork: violence happens, a technology response follows. And 2013 has seen an explosion of new efforts.

Winning mLearning projects:
The GSMA mWomen Programme is delighted to announce that Accion Internationaland the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) are the latest recipients of its Innovation Fund grants and the first grantees outside of Africa.  They join current grantees Tigo Tanzania, Etisalat Africa, Orange Mali and Airtel Uganda in developing innovative offerings designed to address the gender gap in women’s access and use of mobile in their respective markets.