#ic_moveme Janesh Sanzgiri on Critical reflections on MOOCs in India @janeshsanzgiri

Fabulous critical talk on MOOCs by Janesh Sanzgiri. In 2013 MOOCs were suggested as the silicon valley salvation of education, including the developing world. But the reality is that most MOOC participants are not the  underprivileged class, not really open anymore (movement to pay for assessment and so on). More importantly the current research is heavily skewed to Northern regions. The voice of the global south is being missed in research. 

In India MOOCs are used by 15% of Indian learners, MOOCs provided by North.

NPTEL (http://nptel.ac.in/ )was first an OER platform. In India the most privileged universities put their content online in 2006, mostly stem and technology courses. Another Indian platform is SWAYAM (https://swayam.gov.in/Home ) a government initiative to support the remote universities with MOOCs for credit. In india lack of infrastructure, lack of university systems to cope with the demand for educators. Looking at MOOCs is a way to look at high quality formal education beyond the high brow universities, who do not have access to many high quality professors and institutes. Challenges for accreditation, up to 20% of all the credits can be done via SWAYAM. The western elite institutions create content for the global south. But the fact that many countries are providing MOOCs to create solutions within their country and educational challenges.

Digital literacies and skills are needed for lower economic learners of these countries. Despite the increase of MOOCs, the South will work out solutions with supply and demand of MOOCs. MOOCs are not solving the poor and down trotted, therefor there is still the lowest layer of socio-economic society that is not reached, although more people are reached. 

Question why a lack of voices from the South? Answer: combination of issues, academic system in India is different, and journal issues (many Indian journals, but not always meeting the mark), global cohort is difficult to make transparent in terms of data, Indian MOOCs do not have access to the costly learning analytic options the North has. 

#ic_moveme Agnes Kukulska-Hulme mobile learning applications for newcomers in a city @agneskh

Agnes Kukulska-Hulme shared thoughts about informal mobile learning in cities, embedding her talk in the contemporary fabric of society with all it’s changes. A really refreshing talk with lots of knowledge and useful tech aspects.

We live in an increasingly mobile workld. The experience of traveling or moving between cities is increasingly common. Some people do this by choice, others are displaced by circumstances, but all need to find their feet. It is a newcomer is a universal experience: new job, new region, new social group… we all have these experienes to draw on when we meet a newcomer.

Agnes herself is moving to another town, to a new region, which makes this also a personal experience. What does it mean to be a newcomer: obtaining information, finding places and people, learning abut a place and its  people, learning how to be, feeling welcome, socialising, belonging, being understood, how to behave, discovering… feelings  about what it is like to be a newcomer. A lot of aspects come into play, depending on your personality some of these aspects are more important than others. Increasingly a newcomer can become a contributor. So at the end you can welcome others as well in this process.

Sociological, economical, literary, psychological perspectives enter the equation. We move from this broad perspective to the more narrow options of technology. Mobile phones are mostly personal tools. But you also look up similar groups, so it is in some respect also a social experience.

Resources: traditional media and social networks, internet media and onine social networks. Relevance of smartphones apps: easily available, easy to find, inexpensive or free, targeted to specific requirements and places, tailorable to individuals, integral to ‘smart cities’ and Internet of Things.

For newcomers there is a challenge to find the right app for your own needs.

Salsa http://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/salsa/

Sensors and apps for languages in smart areas. Salsa app use beacons positioned in locations anround the Milton Keynes to trigger language lessons on the phone. Used by English language learners form the adult continuing education centre. This app takes us to a future where learning is taking place outside of conventional classrooms, but in the world. The idea is that you might be hanging around at the council office of MK or something similar, and you can optimise this time to learn.

Maseltov project http://www.maseltov.eu/

The project consortium designed, developed and evaluated a complex suite of tools and services accessible from a single context-aware mobile app. The Maseltov project was a combination of useful services: finding volunteers nearby, social forum, information resources, translation of signes, cultural game, navigation guides, language lessons… the services were developed in participation with migrants. A lot of thought went into the dynamics between these services, and underpinning that was a contextaware element in the app that will use context at contextual triggers. Elements of context can than be used the design of the app and its resources. The app also uses the personal profile of the user, and had options to opt out of specific tracking that could be used or changed by the user. 

Mobile pedagogy for English language learning

This project was aimed at teachers. How they can use mobile apps, selecting and mobile activity design to be used for learning beyond the classroom. The whole design of the mobile activity =

Mobile pedagogy for English language teaching a guide for teachers. Online free manual. https://englishagenda.britishcouncil.org/research-publications/research-papers/mobile-pedagogy-english-language-teaching-guide-teachers

State of the art:types of apps for newcomers

Tailored apps for new arrivals: targeted information eg. FAQs, rights, citizenship tests, language learning, translation for specific situations.

Smart city apps: making use of big data, Internet of Things.

Apps for civic engagement: transforming local citizenship, particularly for immigrants, improving access to local services, better understanding the needs of the populations they serve.

Challenges apps: quality, availability, the effectiveness is not always clear, but changes are happening to let citizens be aware of the availbable resources and how to use these resources efficiently. 

Publication of interest: Smart inclusive cities meghan Benton migration policy institute (2014). 

What is missing: 

• information about diverse comunities and languages spoken in the town/city
• Audio content and hearing different accents and announcements
• How newcomers can be a help or a resource for others
• preparation for emergencies and unusual occurrences
• Support for passing through a place on the way to another country
• personal choice of content and interaction. 
• psychological and emotional support for newcomers

Great book for researchers: Traxler and Kukulska-Hulme, Routledge, 2016. 

For decision makers on personalisation: kukulska-hulme, cambridge university press, 2016

#aufgs2012 Viviane Vladimirshi Exploratory study of cross-cultural engagment in the community of #inquiry: instructor perspectives and challenges

Viviane Vladimirschi has finished a thesis on the subject of Exploratory study of cross-cultural engagment in the community of inquiry: instructor perspectives and challenges April 2012 and you can find the full thesis here:
 http://hdl.handle.net/10791/15

During the Athabasca University conference she gave a talk on her research and used methodology (also part grounded theory).

The purpose of this study was to explore how instructors of online courses accommodate and make provisions for culturally diverse learners in an online community of inquiry. Ten instructors from two Alberta higher education institutions participated in two phases of research. To explore this phenomenon in the CoI model, intercultural competency indicators were created to test how they could develop and expand teaching and social presence in a cross-cultural environment. In the first phase, analysis of the open-ended survey questionnaire (AMEQ) revealed that in the absence of any cross-cultural design, instructors use facilitation and open communication strategies to foster learning and prevent conflict. The second phase, informed by the first phase, involved augmenting the original 34-item CoI survey instrument. Additional roles that relate to instructor cross-cultural efficacy were incorporated into both teaching presence and social presence elements in the CoI survey instrument. The revised 37-item CoI survey instrument was then administered to the same respondents for face validity. Findings revealed that the incorporated cultural indicators correlated highly with the teaching and social indicators, indicating their usefulness to measure multicultural efficacy in the CoI model.

The cultural indicators Viviane used were very interesting. So a good read if you are interested in the content.