#ectel2019 #mlearn2019 keynote @GeoffStead on #informal learning at scale #languages #AI

Geoff Stead (@geoffstead ) takes the stage with a headset, a black shirt and walking like a fit Californian surfer (looking great).

As chief product person of the Babbel language corporation, he talks about informal learning at scale and will offer insights. 750 people all working on 1 app, fully funded by individuals willing to pay small amounts of money to learn languages. Mostly Euro-centric coming from the organic growth of the organisation.

5000 courses => 64000 lessons (unique language pairs), focus on communicative confidence, light-hearted, diverse topics. Well over 1 million subscribers (of which I am one - Spanish).

Digital = scale and reach
Team of 10 people can start the magic of the web.
How can we ensure Quality?
Learner centric, otherwise what is the value of the application?

Using a learner journey to unite efforts, to enable connections between learners. Conceptual flows of individuals that is used as the mantra to move the app forward.
See picture, where they also embed some spaced learning.
They work with patterns that are turned into fake persona's, which are designed and modeled (design thinking approach). Enabling developers and strategist to understand the different demographics. These personas are linked to learner journeys. Which enables to keep a focus on the learners.

Learning from the learners
What do they do? analytics, A/B tests, behavioral segmentation (showing what you did, signposting to what you did and worked...), interviews, intercept surveys, wishboard, market surveys, UX research (ask permission to video tape parts of the learner journey and ideas), customer service, market research. Not one is representative, but hoping that with enough different angles they are hoping to get closer to the actual learning in all it's complexity.

Dev at scale
20 different teams of people, a lot of independence, but only one product. So how likely it is that the releases are synchronizable as soon as they are launched by teams? Tripping over each other, contradictions, ...it quickly becomes chaos. So it is self-driven and autonomous, but potentially disastrous for the learners. Marketing and money was basis for scaling: stickers in planes and on poles in big cities, get people to pay a bit of money.

How do you trade off freedom versus working together
Teams organised around User Journey: Experience Groups (XGs) are clusters of teams across Product & Engineering, uniting tho enhance cross-functional collaboration around product ideas and speed up the development cycle: impressions, engagement, learning, learning media, platform and infrastructure (really interesting this!).

Product department 
Product is made up of many specialist teams. some teams are embedded within multi-function or engineering teams: didactics, product design, product management and QA, data engineering and analytics, quality and release management.

Towards "learning experience design"
Mixed multidisciplinary approach, but in larger companies most of the time they are not often set up as bridged teams in a multidisciplinary, cross-functionalness.

Babbel meetups in Berlin every 2 - 3 months, welcome to come and have a look.

LXD basics
digital learning is not content distribution, we are only a small slice of our learner's day, we never really know what is going on. Learning Experience Design, all about the multidisciplinary nature.

Learner engagement
It only works for them if they use it. What is the science of pulling learners back in?
Weekly active paying users: returners. One of the key drivers = 7 day return to learning (it is this that most of the dev teams use to validate short term impact of new features and refinements). If the people who try a new release, do they come back within 7 days to use this newly released option. This simplifies discussions on what is important.

Obsessive focus on interpreting events: Tableau, Amplitude (big fat data stream).
Mixing art and science to understand the engagement ladder (to help our learenrs focus - hooked (N Eyal) triggers motivation (Fogg), Nudge (Thaler, Flow state, spaced repetition, babbel qualitative and quantitative data....).

Gamification: treat with care, some very useful tools, often used for trivial impact.

AI to make Babbel more human
AI is a very broad umbrella term for a wide range of very specific disciplines. Babbel uses 'narrow AI' to focus on very specific problems/opportunities. NLP, CL, ASR...
Making interfaces more human (hybrid human-AI). Using NLP to give the automated feedback more human (eg "I understand what you meant").
Making guidance more useful: content recommendations, based on other, related topics and level. Still very much in beta. Optimising for speed, and identifying opportunities.

Rose Luckin's golden triangle is used.
Tutorbot corpus (Kate McCurdy, Dragan Gasevic...)

Hearables for learning combining #language, #AI & internet #edtech #informal learning

Hearables are clearly on the rise. After the screens (read & write web), learning on the go (mobile learning), the eyes (all sorts of augmented glasses), some kinetic learning (various motion controllers), other wearables (e.g. smart clothing) ... the next sense that is now ready to inspire new learning is: hearing (HLearning). "Hearables are wireless smart micro-computers with artificial intelligence that incorporate both speakers and microphones. They fit in the ears and can connect to the Internet and to other devices; they are designed to be worn daily. One form of specialised hearables are the earphone language translators that offer potential in language teaching." (thank you Rory McGreal for this wonderful description).

Learning with hearables is linked to other, more experienced forms of technology based learning: it is mobile (it is a wearable), it can be used in-context (e.g. in a refugee camp enabling dialogue), it can be implemented within informal learning (using it to increase language skills, or simply to move around in a country where you do not speak the language), hence it helps self-directed learning as you can use the hearables in contexts that you find interesting, and it augments the current information you have, by being able to provide audio feedback or information on a personal level by whispering it into your ear to augment the real world around and within you (wifi and sensor enabled). This puts hearables amidst the already complex learning supported by technology.

Rory McGreal has just given a great overview of hearables for learning, in his most recent CIDER conference. You can download his slides here and listen to his talk here. Or look around on the CIDER page which is packed with EdTech and distance learning talks:

https://landing.athabascau.ca/groups/profile/289790/cider/tab/359765/sessions 

Hearables will be quite a leap forward in translation and language learning (if seamless learning becomes feasable). And for those of us who like spy movies... yep, it has that special agent ring to it as well! 

My colleague Agnes Kukulska-Hulme recently pointed me to the Babel Fish option (referring to the ever inspiring The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy), that specific hearable called the Pilot, and build by Waverly labs. This particular device - the Pilot - supports 15 languages (a.o. English, Arabic, Mandarin, Russian, Hindi, Spanish, Japanese...), with male and female voices that translate the audio which is recorded by the microphone through a cloud-based translation engine. They even claim to have a low latency (which is kind of nice when you want to match what is said to body language). 

While in-ear translations are a straight forward implementation of augmented and language learning, the processing and AI behind is will also allow increased hearing range, audio information of any kind you choose (biometrics, recognizing a bird in the wild, communication between fish, use it as a recognising machine to get names right of those people you meet, look like a secret agent on top of whatever information which makes you look cool, ...). Of course, the usual considerations can be made: hearables will listen in on what you do and where you go, hearables are not yet a seamless learning aid (the name Pilot is clearly well chosen), battery life (as with all things mobile), connectivity can vary while mobile, and it risks to be another addition to distraction by tech. Nevertheless, this is cool and worth looking into. 

Report on Innovative #Pedagogy #EdTech #elearning #data @IETatOU

The new 48-page Innovative Pedagogy report from my colleagues at IET at the Open University, UK is published in collaboration with the Learning In a NetworKed Society (LINKS) Israeli Center of Research Excellence (I-CORE). And as always it is of interest for everybody looking for a quick overview of interesting innovative educational technologies, including practical examples and linked references (with the great PhD-researcher Tina Papathoma @aktinaki on the front cover).
The report was written by Rebecca Ferguson, Sarit Barzilai, Dani Ben-Zvi, Clark A Chinn,
Christothea Herodotou, Yotam Hod, Yael Kali, Agnes Kukulska-Hulme, Haggai Kupermintz,
Patrick McAndrew, Bart Rienties, Ornit Sagy, Eileen Scanlon, Mike Sharples, Martin Weller,
Denise Whitelock.

The 5 previous reports with themes can be found here.

This report proposes ten innovations that are already in currency but have not yet had a profound influence on education. A remarkable move is the insistance of looking at the learning from the learners' perspective, including emotions, self-direction in terms of learning analytics, values and communities.

1. Spaced learning: admittedly not that new, but functional and effective for more behaviorist content (including test preparation), includes 3 spaced learning resources.
2. Citizen science: I am totally in favor of more of these projects, as citizen science can benefit from all for all citizens. The three resources mentioned (which you can experience as much as you like are: Galaxy Zoo (yes! observing and adding star galaxies!), iSpot (identifying plants and animals!), nQuire-it (which lets you decide what you want to explore - android mobiles)
3. Open textbooks: in relation to OER, with links on the benefits of open pedagogy, for example a wonderful chapter by DeRosa and Robison entitles from OER to Open Pedagogy: harnessing the power of open.
4. Navigating post-truth societies (think critical thinking in action): with a focus on epistemic education and ways to stimulate epistemic growth. Including the very useful guide for web literacy for student-fact-finders.
5. Intergroup empathy (nice!): or understanding the perspectives of others. This connects with the post-truth society topic. A remarkable initiative is 'the enemy is here' (it is a mixed Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality experience where you meet persons at different sides of a war conflict and you get to 'engage' with them and their believes which comes down to the shared humanity on both sides (small critique: mostly male protagonists it seems, but okay that can improved in later versions). And a science game called to-be-education.
6. Immersive learning: or intensifying learning by experiencing new situations.
7. Student-led analytics: refering to the University of Michigan and their toolkit for students to direct their learning based on data, the Academic Reporting Tool.
8. Big data inquiry (thinking with big data):  wcith a nice link to Ocean Tracks.
9. Learning with internal values: more along the line of using students' interests to stimulate their learning. 
10. Humanistic knowledge building communities: helpint learners to develop knowledge (now that is a lifelong mission :)

Liveblog from university to continued professional learning #educon17 #lifelonglearning

Frank Gielen talks on innovation adoption and transformation. This talk is part of the pre-conference talks of the Educon conferencein Athens, Greece. The talk looks at how to organise learning (master, professional, phd…) to gradually move towards lifelong learning.

Skills gap between what the companies want and which human resources and innovations are available.

The human capital is missing frequently, which means that education is increasingly important.

If you want to transform your ‘old’ energy approach to sustainable or renewable energy approach(es).

So education is core in the innovation process, as you need to train all stakeholders (senior management, workforce on the floor, mid-management…).

Education linked to innovation has two main factors impacting it: speed of adoption (graduates need to be skilled), timeliness (skills need to be used within 2 months at least).

So innovation speed is equivalent with training need. Learning needs to be adapted to speed of innovation.

Personalising learning

Starting from the knowledge triangle: education, industry and research as a baseline for higher education goals which needs to be combined in order to create an employable highly trained workforce coming out of higher ed.

What learning trends are important to stay competitive in the market: Continued Professional Development, become power learners. This means that the human factor needs to be continually developing, in order to be on top of a high turn-around field.

No one size fits all, so in education this means personalised learning, the role of the teacher changes that instead of having a lot of lectures, having online resources which students are knowledgeable to use to create a constant base-line, adding mentoring e.g. the Socratic approach where the teachers are in close contact and support learners.

Solving a challenge also includes having an effect on society.

Merging masters with professional learning

Contemporary learning consists on average of: 70 percent informal learning, 20 percent social learning, 10 percent formal training.

MicroMasters (short online format 10-15 ECTS and commonly project based), in many cases complimentary for the campus teaching, but enabling a blended master. This is something we need to consider as InnoEnergy. But in many cases microMasters are linked to deepening learning in a specific field, and is frequently based on a general foundation (so need for clear learning paths). 

We are shifting towards lifelong learning, blurring the boundaries between master schools, doctoral schools and professional schools.

Learning architecture: MOOCs or microMaster, certified microMaster, blended microMaster with coaching, blended-in-house microMaster with coaching and Bring Your Own Program (BYOP).

A new learning paradigm: personalised, just-in-time learning.

Education is going through a digital transformation. This means that more data is available, which we can start using as a means to support learning. Based on this personalised learning will become available, and lacking skill sets can be found. Data driven education comes a bit closer to enabling personalised learning.

Feedback and coaching has the highest learning impact. This means that teachers need to be prepared to become a guide-on-the-side or a good coach.

Learning entrepreneurship

Learners need to learn it. But not all of the students need to be entrepreneurs, but all of the students need to understand an entrepreneurial skill set: see opportunities, motivate people, drive change, find scarce resources, deal with the uncertainty of innovation. But … then how we measure this, and assess it?

This means being an early adopter, and being a catalyst for educational innovation.

42 or why one college does not wipe out previous options #education

When the BBC reported on the French/US college named '42', which is build around the idea of peer learning, without the interference of teachers. This new educational initiative (and yes, I do choose 'educational' to be in the description) was once again propagated as a unique solution to education.

Although I am not a product of traditional formal education, and I do acknowledge gaps in the formal education system, I also think there is no single educational or learning solution. This fits in with the idea that I do not think Human is the single species on earth, nor that Earth would be the single, life creating planet. Evolution is seldom based on single solutions, it is the complex and ever changing dynamic of different elements. MOOCs and 42 are not the solution for education, just as humans are not the solution for peace (clearly). It is a positive, engaging combination of elements that makes things happen, one where ethical considerations are discussed and used as guidelines for next steps, or - in case of nature's evolution - options are tested out in a natural equation that is aimed at keeping a balance, a mutual beneficial equilibrium. So at best, each element is a timely part of the overall equilibrium to move us forward, or simply to keep us moving.

Admittedly this no-teacher solution does have benefits, as peers learn from each other, which increases problem based solutions, collaborative efforts... etcetera. Yes, this works for those reasons. But do have some side remarks: coding lends itself to peer-to-peer learning as it is already set up as Lego building blocks in many cases (not all, I admit). This means that although no teachers are present at that moment in time, others (which could be seen as teachers as they choose content, made combination of coding combinations) did provide the basic foundation. Having said this, this approach also risks of duplicating what exists (true, could also happen in traditional schools, but that is why philosophy is in many cases part of any curriculum to have the hope of critical field thinking triggered). Coding does not start from scratch, just like language... but critical thinking does review language (gender capital embedded in words, sayings that divide society...) and this should happen for the coding language as well, while it is coded. This enriching historical context is something that is not something you learn early on in life (exceptions noted). Which is why it is a real positive addition to any type of learning.

The 42 college seems to work and I am honestly glad that it does. All initiatives resulting on getting more people educated get my vote. But I do hope there is room for a critical thinking influx that will enable critical thought. In the article Dan Butin already points out the benefits of having professors/teachers present to provide thought frameworks. But critical thought is necessary in all tech-oriented subjects, just like it is necessary in less-tech fields. Creating code, possibly adding algorithms, inside of Northern context made technologies to promote this coding... it risks to flatten diversity, which in the long-term slows down evolution. Or at least that what I think, but I admit I am trying to figure out how much diversity is good, and if there is such a thing as too much diversity. But still... any education and learning should at least try to be critical in order to at least ponder on possible effects of any chosen process.

For those who wonder about the name of the college '42', it is a reference to forty two as being the answer to life, the universe and everything (according to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy written by Douglas Adams).

Yes! #PhD written... looking for joyful bliss once more

So, this is it. My thesis is submitted and it will now be wrapped and sent out to my examiners. For anyone interested, you can read the thesis here. The full title: self-directed learning of adult experienced online learners enrolled in FutureLearn MOOCs

Emerging from my last two months of seemingly living in total isolation, it looks like the world has changed while I was reflecting, discussion, investigating the studies for my PhD. I have grown wiser, and become more aware of the fact that the more I learn, the less I know. Unfortunately, it also seems I lost some of my playful self… I am hoping it will come back as my mind rejuvenates after having typed for weeks on end. John Traxler commented on that seemingly loss of joyful bliss, and he was right. I have become less joyful, less open these last few weeks. Ciska found out the hard way yesterday. She opened my thesis looking forward to what I had written to thank her… and only found the briefest of dedications at the beginning of my thesis (I admit shamefully). My justification was that I wanted to keep it ‘formal’… I was wrong, of course, formality never helped anyone. I should have know better, as research is not void from passion. Indeed, I think no meaningful research can be done without passion being at the root of it. So I vowed to make it up to her and put in a full dedication in the final open to the public version of my thesis (for those interested, you can read it in the first pages of my thesis). If you have a family, and any member is starting a PhD, you can rest assured that all of the family is enrolled in this reflective journey, and I am truly grateful that Ciska and Isaak are on my side, ready for any adventure.

"Any thoughts?", asked a friend while I was off to submit my thesis…. Yes, these: a PhD is in a way a socialization. I now know what it means to make words look like evidence and not only use the evidence, but deliver it in a way that is agreed upon academically. It is good that no facts are facts, but only free for interpretation, and that these interpretations demand rationales. I learned a lot along the way: building and evaluating methods, grounding emerging facts in theories, writing, structure, deepen understanding by discussing data, theories and wild options. Researching in a strong academic institute such as IET certainly helps to become a mentally enriched academic. But above all, I think that academic excellence is vastly improved if you have strong, experienced supervisors. I was lucky enough to have two inspiring, intellectually tough and constructive supervisors: MikeSharples (the visionary academic lead of FutureLearn) and Agnes Kukulska-Hulme (renowned mobile learning expert).

And now… off to find a new challenge. While reviewing as well as writing some papers, giving some talks and getting back in touch with playfulness.... oh wait, quickly adding the abstract to my thesis below:

This research investigates the informal learning journeys of 56 experienced adult online learners engaging in individual and/or social self-directed learning using any device to follow a FutureLearn course. Literature from MOOCs, mobile and informal learning is provided as background, as well as literature clarifying the rational for choosing self-directed learning compared to similar learning concepts (self-regulated, self-determined and self-managed learning).
The participants of this study voluntarily followed one of three FutureLearn courses that were rolled out for the first time late 2014. The data were collected at three different stages: an online survey (pre-course), self-reported learning logs (during the course), and semi-structured one-on-one interviews (post-course). The data were analysed using Charmaz’s (2014) method for constructing a grounded theory. The analysis included memo-writing, and involved open coding, line-by-line coding, and focused coding in order to construct a grounded theory that provided insights into the self-directed learning experiences of FutureLearn participants.
Based on the experience of the FutureLearn participants five main learning components emerged: individual & social learning, context, technological and media elements, organising learning, and learner characteristics. Further analysis revealed two key enablers/inhibitors for the FutureLearn experience: motivation and learning goals. Motivation was mostly intrinsic in nature, and the learning goals mostly personal. Although these components, and the two key impacting factors, are common to most types of learning, the informal nature of the FutureLearn courses together with the FutureLearn platform characteristics provided specific differences in the actions undertaken by the FutureLearn participants to self-direct their learning.
By getting a better understanding of the self-directed learning in FutureLearn courses, additional insights are gained regarding informal learning, instructional design, continued professional development with MOOCs, and on how to contextualize or personalise course content in order to obtain increased learner engagement.

#CALRG methods & findings on Self-Directed Learning in FutureLearn #MOOC #SDL

This morning, during the CALRG conference, I shared some slides describing the methods and main findings on informal self-directed learning inside FutureLearn MOOCs. In hindsight, I had better added extra information on my findings, less on the rationale behind the methods. So to balance the presentation, I added a couple of slides related to each of the 5 learning components comprising the FutureLearn learning experience as perceived by the participants, and as their data was interpreted by me.

My study looks at adult learners with at least 3 years of experience in online learning (could be actively using social media, having engaged in online courses (elearning or mooc or spoc...)). And I wanted to understand how these learners self-directed their informal learning inside of FutureLearn MOOCs. The initial findings pointed towards five components influencing the learning process: context, individual & social learning, technology, organizing learning and individual characteristics. However, once each learning component was investigated to see which were the most influential inhibitors and enablers of learning, two main inhibitors or enablers of learning emerged: intrinsic motivation, embedded in the individual characteristics of the learner, and personal learning goals, which influenced how the learner organised their learning. Although motivation and learning goals were categorized to one specific learning component, each of these inhibitors/enablers of learning influenced each of the other learning components as well.

Informal self-directed learning in FutureLearn MOOCs from Inge de Waard

Free Informal language & MOOC conference call #CfP #MOOC #Language

Consider joining (by attending and/or presenting) at the International conference on MOOCs, Informal Language Learning, and Mobility. It offers FREE registration for all, plus a potential 200 EUR to cover travel cost if you are coming from outside of the UK.

Deadline for submitting: 27 May 2016.
Notification of acceptance: 10 June 2016.
Conference dates: 20 - 21 October 2016
Location: The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK.
Conference page.

Most of the time academic conferences require considerable fees to attend a conference, so take advantage of this one being internationally oriented, yet free. They even serve free coffee and tea!

Abstracts are invited for a 20-minute presentation or a poster in a titled attachment of not more than 300 words in length, with name, address and affiliation.  Email the abstract to: Hannah Leicester hannah.leicester@open.ac.uk. All submissions will be peer-reviewed and we will notify you by 10^th June.  A selection of papers will be published in a peer-reviewed and open access online journal: research-publishing.net. Full paper submission date is 30^th October 2016.

The Department of Languages at The Open University (UK), in conjunction with the Erasmus+ MOVE-ME[1] project, will host this joint conference

Call for papers 

In addition to MOVE-ME project presentations, we welcome research-related papers, presentations of case studies and projects as well as posters on MOOCs, Informal Language Learning, and Mobility. Topics included but not limited to:  

·       - MOOCs - design, learning, teaching, quality assurance, etc

·       - CALL and its normalisation

·       - Mobile-assisted language teaching and learning

·       - Informal language learning

·       - Learning to learn languages

●      Student mobility

●      Virtual classrooms, eLearning, and ePortfolio

Confirmed keynote speakers are:

Professor Agnes.Kukulska-Hulme (The Open University, UK)

Dr Jeremy Knox (Edinburgh University, UK)

Registration: Download the registration form from here. Email the completed form to Hannah Leicester hannah.leicester@open.ac.uk by 31^st July 2016

---

[1] Six project partners are: Università per Stranieri di Siena, (Italy), The Open Unversity (UK), Federazione Nazionale Insegnanti Centro di iniziativa per l'Europa (Italy); National University of Ireland, Galway (Ireland), Computer Technology Institute & Press Diophantus (Greece) and Nstitutul De Stiinte Ale Educatiei (Romamia)

Learning amidst globalisation, solidarity, collaboration, & violence #brussels

Yesterday Belgian got his share of violence, and as it unraveled it struck me how much of the actions that are undertaken by all citizens, are similar to informal learning actions (but then I am a learning geek). And of course I do realize that being in an attack is by no means to be compared to learning... but still there is something that triggered my pro-learning mind. I lived and worked in Brussels, I am Belgian, and I hope peace can be achieved at some point. So this is my completely laymen view on some of the actions undertaken by people after the attacks on Brussels airport and one subway carriage. For it is clear that all violence is futile, and there is hope to see how people seek ways to help each other.

Over the recent years the European continent has had its number of violent attacks on civilians, no matter what age, background or religion. These terrorist attacks are carried out as a result of globalised violence, just like any other element of globalisation which reaches all of us. It would be strange that only 'good' facts came out of globalisation. At this point in time there is too much of a divide between regions to talk about effective, positive globalisation. Even primary education for all, a simple goal uttered for decades is still not realized, even though there is enough money in the world to put it into place.

Coming back to the Brussels attacks, the actions taken by people after the attacks struck me. It might be that I am too deep into my learning research mind at the moment, but it seemed as if people's actions paralleled learning actions: solidarity, using their network, collaborate... And maybe that is what is going on during those events. In order to get to grips with a new devastating fact, each one of us relates to what they know, and move forward based on their experience of what is perceived as efficient. People help people out, the government is only part of the solution, or to put it into learning terms: peer learning is in many cases more efficient, while the central curated content is delivered by recognised institutions.

Listing some actions:

• Connecting to your personal network: after each attack, I take a look at those I know live/work in that city, just to see if they are alright. The same happened now, people tried to get in contact with those they know, and of course those they love. Social media got set up, e.g. Facebook Safety Check. It is simple and useful, if you are in an area struck by a disaster of any kind (and if the network is still working), you can 'check-in' to let others know you are alright. 
• Press communications from government: the first official press releases took some time to get aired. A bit like lectures, it takes more time, and it is more of a general update on what has happened, less on what is happening at that particular time for specific people. 
• Citizens helping all victims: on each occasion there are people who jump in and help others. For some it is part of their background to be able to help, for others it is simply helping people, acting upon a drive to get everyone to safety. The same with learners, some simply jump in during discussions, as they feel that what they have to share will help others. Even if that is simply being supportive in some way. 
• Governmental structures get rolled out: there are known options that can be taken to relief the chaos after any attack or disaster. Which is part of the governments readiness to roll-out help. In this case all hospitals and medical personnel got sent out, together with the security people. These roll-outs are based on evaluations of prior disasters, otherwise they would not have been in place. 
• Reacting to real-time needs: while people were being evacuated, thousands got stranded across Brussels. Once Brussels was in lockdown, trains, metro's, public transport were shut down, and all the people without a car were stuck in and around Brussels. The government let people know where the evacuation points were, but also informed everyone NOT to come to Brussels, as it was already completely chaotic. However, grassroots solidarity started to happen: people who were in Brussels by car, got word out through twitter that they had X places in their car heading to city Z. People who did not know each other helped each other out. Others simply picked up people with destinations written on cardboard on the side of the road. 
• Get news out in real time: again twitter was mainly used to get the latest updates out to the public. A bit like a back-channel in education. It was not the government, but the twitter operators of the institutes struck by the attacks (e.g. brussels airlines), and most of the time people learning from each other, and sharing it asap. 
• Personalisation, collaboration and solidarity: people organised themselves and others, those left to their own devices in Brussels, got word out to people in their communities to pick-up children after school. Those who were safe took action after hearing how they could help, even in a small way: e.g. giving blood as the blood reserves were rapidly depleting. 
• Mobiles as primary communication: all along mobile devices were used, as these allow the quickest response time to actual events. Of course the amount of content shared is smaller: real time actions are shared through twitter, instagram, ... while news articles are read to get an idea of the overall situation. 
• Societal action to safeguard children: one of the first strategies shared on the news was related to children. As a society, it seems that we care about the effects of atrocities on our children. Strategies on how to talk to your children about these attacks were sent out around midday, only 3 hours after the initial attacks.  
• Societal solidarity: just like in any other city struck lately (e.g. Ankara, Istanbul, London, Madrid, Paris) actions depicting solidarity and non-violence through joining hands emerged. People gathering at central locations in the city to share their fear, and build on the solidarity which they want to show. Similar people join hands, those who believe a new world is possible. The same happens in online learning, similar people come together, feeling at ease by connecting to those who they can relate to, with (mostly) similar views. 

Learning is of course a very soft version of surviving. But whether we like it or not, it involves others, even those we do not know. The learning goal might be different from the goal for survival, but nevertheless goals are set, and the motivation is central to any action taken.

Learning is difficult to capture in frameworks, but it can be captured in its human capacity, as part of most of us, in a natural setting which always pushes us forward. I do not quite understand why I needed to fit the attacks of yesterday in something that I could understand, or at least from where I could start to see new hope... but then again, that might just be the reason itself.  But I do belief hope, and solidarity needs to be kept alive at all times, for we - as humans - can. 

Video reflection on my #CoP lifelong learning experiences #discuss

Chahira Nouirra, aka CosmoCat, asked me to share some reflections on my own Community of Practitioners (CoP) experiences, specifically in relation to my own lifelong learning, so these ideas could be added to the EU Discuss platform. I took her up on that, as I recently had a new (new to me) insight on this. The video is shared below. Warning, it is a really low-tech video, as I am in a bit of a state (strained my back, which resulted in having to take medication to dim the pain, so my brain is a bit numb, but ... I had to jump to help out my friend Chahira - I hope the video is in some way helpful Chahira).

My ideas on CoP are the following (abbreviating them here for ease of reading):

My experience with CoP:
in my previous job I needed to connect to other eLearning, social media and mobile learning experts around the world, simply because I was the first one with eLearning expertise in the organisation. This meant I needed to connect with more knowledgeable people, and build my own network of experts.
CoP provide new ideas, tools, processes, frameworks, evaluations...and of course meaningful discussions.
Shifts in professional areas, means shifts in CoP.
You keep those with most impact (not necessarily consciously), and most affinity, and add to those the experts with new knowledge.
As my own expertise changes, so does the body of knowledge and expertise that is out there (just look at the boom of mobile apps, where I used to be on top of it somewhat being part of those building the first iphone Moodle app, only 6 years ago). The same with exploring mobile options in MOOCs, while by now all major platforms are mobile oriented.

What do I feel as the most relevant effect a CoP for lifelong learning should offer?

• Knowledge, just like softwares, should be accepted as being in perpetual beta, it changes all the time, in the opportunities that are created, as well as priorities it shapes. 
• New, relevant knowledge that I feel I am missing at this point. 
• Answers to new challenges (e.g. I would have the mobile and eLearning expertise, but looking for new MOOC expertise, by now looking for new tech expertise fitting in with MOOC, social learning, mobile learning knowledge).
• Dialogues that result in mutual strengthening (inevitably varies based on prior knowledge and new insights).
• But to me the philosophical stance on openness, sharing, and what education/learning should look like also makes me choose who I connect with most frequently, and how I value the input from those people/experts.

Why?

• Organically reshaping my network is important to keep it fresh and useful. Connecting to people I like, keeps me in touch and willing to return to my CoP. 
• The old, the new...Sometimes I reach for those who I feel closely related to, sometimes I reconnect to those I lost contact with to get refreshed on their current professional/personal interest, and sometimes I reach out to new people based on their interests or the 'feeling' they send out. 

Some of my lessons learned: always realize that there are new topics and experiences to learn from, and add to my existing expertise/knowledge. I am at best a part of the sum, as such my additions to that body of knowledge should be as authentic as possible, to make my life's experience rich and true. Always connect to people that are authentic, and that I feel I like. I am first and far-most a human being, as such I need to feel a connection with the people I connect to in order to learn.

6 International Leverhulme #PhD scholarships for Open World Learning

Just received word that there are still open places for the 6 Leverhulme Trust Doctoral Scholarships (£14057 per year) focusing on research related to Open World Learning. These are additional PhD scholarships to the one's I posted last week. Learning in the 21st century is undergoing subtle and radical transformation as a result of the impact of digital, networked technologies. Open learning gives unprecedented access to information and education and provides support to learners across the globe. However, it is not the technologies themselves that represent the biggest change, but the opportunities for openness that flow from their thoughtful application, in the form of availability of and access to formal and informal learning. Without research, these changes in learning may exclude the very people who most stand to benefit from them.

The call will make you part of the Centre for Research in Education and Educational Technology (CREET)
at The Open University, UK. You will need to reside in the UK, but you can have your research location/context situated anywhere in the world (regarding it is part of your research study). 

If you have a PhD research idea on Open World Learning, and you want to quickly discuss your ideas to see whether they fit in with the Open World Learning concept, feel free to drop a line to Bart Rienties (bart.rienties@open.ac.uk). For detailed information and how to apply for the studentships in general go to www3.open.ac.uk/employment, or call Anne Foward, on 01908 655364 or e-mail CREET-student-enquiries@open.ac.uk. 

In 2016, the Open University is offering 6 three-year, full-time Doctoral Scholarships in Open World Learning fully funded by the Leverhulme Trust. Candidates should have, or expect to gain, a 2.1 or above in an undergraduate degree or a Masters degree in education, language studies, psychology, computer science or another appropriate discipline.

Funding is available for UK, EU and International students. Full funding for the Leverhulme Trust Doctoral Scholarships includes fees and a living allowance for three years, depending on satisfactory progress. The living allowance is currently £14057 in 2015/16.

Deadline for application is 9 March 2016, with potential interviews starting April/May 2016. A quick overview of how to apply can be found here (= filling in the application form (is found in the link), and write a 600 - 1000 word proposal; I put my proposal here as an example). What I did (but not sure whether this approach made a difference), was to start from my research idea, and then see whether people with a OU background had done research in the same area. Then I put that research also into my proposal (not only, just a bit to indicate that I did know OU research). I also contacted a person I knew who worked at the OU, to get a better understanding of what a PhD is like at that institute. Then I referred to that person in my application, just by name to indicate that I was truly actively getting information. Do it, I did it and it is really worthwhile (strengthening knowledge, great research environment, multiple TEL-laboratories available). Sending a proposal does not take too much time, and it is really worth the effort as this is a worldclass institute for those investigating online learning in all its aspects.

To apply, write a short research proposal and explain how your proposal fits the overall theme of Open World Learning and how you intend to conduct research on the topic. In generating your proposal please refer to the additional information for each topic available athttp://www.open.ac.uk/creet/main/postgraduate/phd-studentships.
Please indicate explicitly in your application that you are applying for Leverhulme Doctoral Scholarships in Open World Learning.

The Open University is one of the UK's leading Research Institutions. In the 2014 REF 72% of its research was rated as "world leading" or "internationally excellent". The Open University is ranked 2nd in the UK for its Education research based on quality and breadth (Times Higher research power).

The Centre for Research in Education and Educational Technology (CREET), at the Open University has an international reputation for the quality of its research. Providing postgraduate students with a supportive environment and excellent facilities ensures a future supply of first class researchers. CREET offers you a unique opportunity to study for a PhD in areas such as Technology Enhanced Learning, Learning Analytics, Open Educational Research, International Education and Development and Language and Literacy Studies, guided by world experts. 

A vibrant international community of students is currently studying our MRes and PhD programmes. The Open University provides excellent support for students and offers a full range of training in computer, library and presentation skills. The studentships are full time at the Milton Keynes campus and students are normally expected to live within commuting distance of Milton Keynes.
If you feel that the challenge of research in these exciting and interesting areas is for you and you have the drive and intellectual curiosity to pursue postgraduate research, then we look forward to hearing from you!

Further information, including more details of CREET research, can be found athttp://www.open.ac.uk/creet/main/.

Natalie Panek on Learning without Boundaries #devlearn

This keynote by Natalie Panek (she is a real rocket scientist, NASA Mission Systems Engineer, MDA Robotics and Automation Learning) will only be available for one week through the ELearning Guild's archive. Natalie gave the closing keynote at the DevLearn conference in 2015. She describes her journey on how she came to work for NASA (perseverance, keep on knocking on that door). The nice thing is that she focuses on getting more girls, women into engineering and science (if they are interested) by being a role model, mentor, active professional out there. 

The video is available here (in the archive of the eLearning Guild). 

It is definitely worth half an hour, for all of us dreamers and actors in learning technology. 
"She sees everything in life as an opportunity to demand the most of yourself: To commit to a goal and develop intellectual fortitude. Natalie Panek is passionate about lifelong learning through experiences removed from your comfort zones. As learning professionals, we have the challenge of igniting this passion in others. In this inspiring session, Ms. Panek explores how the ongoing pursuit of knowledge should take place throughout life and across an array of experiences. You will leave this session able to encourage yourself and others to be drawn to the rewards of challenge and learning, because the incentive is the fulfilment of our dreams, and our dreams are what will transform the world."

You do need to register for the eLearning Guild, but you can do it as an associate member (free). Once you are registered, you get access to the video (this week). 

Power Learners, #DavidBowie and Creativity

There is so much power in Learning. In the ongoing quest for creation, trial, error, and renewal. There is something mystic in those of us who keep on creating (learning) and exploring the new on top of the old. Heightened creativity inevitably leads to estrangement, and at the same time getting closer to pure understanding. Going out of every comfort zone, building on the immense knowledge and experience one has gathered during a lifetime, and then mold it into what only the minds eye can see, beyond the known. The learning process, in its full power leads to unknown territories, it makes us want to do, want to keep doing it, until the end of time.

The first time I saw personal, power learning, was when I was at a Picasso exposition in Spain. My mother has introduced me to Picasso's work early in life (we went to his atelier in Antibes, as we stayed nearby during our summer vacations), but I did not really feel related to much of his work (some exceptions). But then, in the attic part of the exposition, there were these seemingly endless erratic drawings of bulls.... just chaotic drawings. Again and again, trying to depict the perfect multiple viewpoints of a bull in a two-dimensional piece of paper. As I moved slowly passed these drawings (and at first with little interest) ... I suddenly was drawn into them. So I stopped. And started to look again. There it was. The master at work, for himself, by himself, relentlessly seeking something, sketching viewpoint upon viewpoint (those drawings were made at the end of his life). It suddenly became clear that this was not a drawing, this was a man at work. Dedicated to finding something, following a quest. For this to happen, fame, artistry... all of that was not necessary. Simply a dedication to a topic, for decades. Trying to find a clue in detail, that would explain the bigger picture. Power Learners seem to move beyond themselves, could it be said that they become the medium? Is there such a threshold, from where the personal learning journey for enrichment suddenly turns into the medium itself? Many artists have said at certain points that some work gave them the feeling of being more then themselves. They became the object of something invisible.

Power Learners have to keep creating: carpentry, engineering, programming, sculpting, writing, thinking, ... and of course making music. David Bowie seems to have done that, learning, power learning, and then moving beyond the sum of his learning. What a thrill that must be. Starting from a passion, and then becoming it. (picture: http://sloannota.com/blog/drawing-and-writing-with-light-2/ )

#DigiWriMo #Future from humans as micro-brains to Artificial Intelligence (part 2)

In my last post which paralleled neurons with humans, and which drew a parallel between curation and giving rise to new forms of being, I ended with the question what the next step into evolution from curation could be. It seems there are some nice new realisations which might possibly look into this. Enhancing learning into the next era.

While I was looking at another episode of Through the Wormhole (clip a bit further down), on quantifying consciousness (or the math of consciousness), an interesting similarity between the discourse on connected learning or networked learning, and consciousness arose. When I also added the hive mind, or swarm theory to it… all of a sudden I thought: this is a fun parallel if you look at the evolution of learning and plug it into an evolutionary, physics/math perspective.

Community of experts parallel specialized brain regions

I am part of online educators group, and I frequently reflect on what that means. In a way it means that my direct family does not always know what I am doing, I talk, but to them it is often gibberish as they do not have similar backgrounds and interests. On the other hand, because I am a firm believer in educational freedom (and Star Trek Society), I am also only part of that type of online learners. Although I can enter into conversation with people who are more of the powerful

This also means my endeavors and experiments are on the outskirts of the educational powerhouses. Yet, I do find that my research has been picked up by some of these powerhouses (I can see it the data stream, and sometimes in some of my reappearing content which is either attributed, or sometimes is not).

If you take the brain and zoom out, you can see areas of expertise. And within these areas you have very strong connected neurons (like the group of online educators I feel I belong too), and lesser connected neurons (eg. other areas of expertise). In between the brain regions, there are bridges and communication often moves from one region to the other, even on specialized tasks. The same happens if you look at interdisciplinary research, the field experts come together, build bridges, but at the end reinforce the new interdisciplinary knowledge that is assimilated into their own more specialized discipline.

So, looking from outer space, and visualizing the inter-connectivity of field experts, with an overlay of interdisciplinary researchers… what might you get? I would imagine a new type of consciousness will arise. The next evolutionary step. Admittedly, sometimes I feel this could be scary: if we humans are put in isolated spaces because of this (or become fertile fields that grow stem-cells for artificial beings who harvest us…. Mmm, should probably stop reading SciFi), or it feels comfortable, if we humans would be kept as ‘fun organic life’ and we humans were provided with endless leisure time in which we could learn whatever and from whoever (yes, my ideal world there).  

We learn at increasing speed

Each of us who loves learning has the potential to learn at bigger speed than ever before (Internet, MOOC, the shoulders of giants and peers). This results in stronger and more paths to more knowledge. Each one of us that has an interest and a cognitive capacity to use and add to the area of robotics can now do this (mentioned in a previous blogpost) which means the chances of someone in that group of practitioners being able to lift that field into a much higher level of expertise also becomes a reality. 

Then at what level does the next spark of consciousness appear? What level of information must be distributed across a network before it leaps out of the network to become the next level of consciousness?

Calculating Consciousness

When Integrated Information Theory came along (Integrated Information theory

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_information_theory), all of a sudden the mechanisms of consciousness were being quantified (article From the Phenomenology to the Mechanisms of Consciousness: Integrated Information Theory 3.0

http://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1003588

), Phi (consciousness) became a formula, and all life on earth could be calculated for its amount of consciousness. A thrilling bit of research. The University of Wisconsin has done some pioneering work in that area (to that extend that I had a look at their job applications). In the series of Through the Wormhole,Season 5 Episode 8, they look into making consciousness quantifiable

Moving beyond the human brain

The way each of us evolves throughout life feels natural to us. We know we start out as babies, we then learn the basic human actions throughout our childhood, and eventually – if all goes well – we become adult with a place in society. In a way we know the path of raised consciousness each one of us passes throughout life. But this feeling of knowing how consciousness evolves is of course – up to now – not been reproduced in an artificial setting. We do make impressive progress, but none of us humans knows when the next leap in consciousness, the next leap in cognition will happen with artificial intelligence. We just move forward, and once it does happen we will observe this birth of autonomous artificial intelligence.

Referring to A network of artificial neurons learns to use human language

An interesting step along this way towards autonomous artificial intelligence was recently described in research from the University of Sassari (Italy) and the University of Plymouth (UK) who have developed a cognitive model, made up of two million interconnected artificial neurons, able to learn to communicate using human language starting from a state of 'tabula rasa', only through communication with a human interlocutor. Taking some info from an article in the NeuroscientistNews: The ANNABELL (Artificial Neural Network with Adaptive Behaviour Exploited for Language Learning) and it is described in an article published in PLOS ONE and described in this article.
ANNABELL does not have pre-coded language knowledge; it learns only through communication with a human interlocutor, thanks to two fundamental mechanisms, which are also present in the biological brain: synaptic plasticity and neural gating. Synaptic plasticity is the ability of the connection between two neurons to increase its efficiency when the two neurons are often active simultaneously, or nearly simultaneously. This mechanism is essential for learning and for long-term memory. Neural gating mechanisms are based on the properties of certain neurons (called bistable neurons) to behave as switches that can be turned 'on' or 'off' by a control signal coming from other neurons. When turned on, the bistable neurons transmit the signal from a part of the brain to another, otherwise they block it. The model is able to learn, due to synaptic plasticity, to control the signals that open and close the neural gates, so as to control the flow of information among different areas

How many humans does it take to spark AI?

It could be the start of a future joke, but at present it is something which interests me. Because if the brain sends out electric currents between interconnected neurons, then what happens if humans – working on the same field – connect using the electric currents of the Internet? Something to look forward to. 

(Image credit Bruno Golosio)

#DigiWriMo Curation and Consciousness #Future AI, neurons and humans (part 1)

One afternoon while letting my mind flow freely, it came to me that it is easy to see a parallel between the way humans seem to group together, and the way synapses strengthen each other while creating specialized regions in the brain. A fun analogy. In this blogpost I explore how to move from stem-cells to curated humans, to artificial neurons becoming conscious. Using references to Information Integration Theory, a selection of Through the Wormhole (mathematics of consciousness), and free creative thinking. And always stepping from micro, meta to macro-levels. Warning: this post is longer than usual. And although this week is Working Out Loud week, I am WOL fairly throughout the year, so I thought it would be fun to share Think Out Loud for this DigiWriMo-post.

Stem-cells and learning individualsIt is still amazing to think that we – as humans – come from stem-cells. Cells that can become anything (within the human body). At the start these cells seem similar, at the end they are differentiated, embedded in a web of equals, with bridges and communications to other groups of neurons. This reminds me of how humans evolve within their lifetime evolve from being fairly similar at birth, to being highly specialized depending on their surroundings, context, capacities… and at the end to fade away ready to be replaced with the next best thing (slightly adapted).

From each of our conception we are stem-cells, from their our bodies are formed. Once we are becoming more conscious, we start to filter information and people: we learn from our environment, our parents and peers, and from the guidelines embedded in our culture and the food which we have access to strengthens our physical being. All the while our mind expands, it becomes part of a group of people which we tend to ‘like’ and move towards, or ‘dislike’ and move away from. There is an active movement of us, as individuals to become part of a group which (seems) to fit the idea of where we belong to.

Curation in micro, meta and macro towards consciousnessThis situating of the self within a society (whichever society) can be seen as a curation. I wrote about curation in a previous post on how all of society and learning seems to be the result of some curation. But after having written that post, I got some comments (Laura Gibbs, Geoff Stead) and those comments triggered further reflection. Curation happens on several levels, but it can be simplified to be happening on three levels: micro, meta, and macro-level.

Micro-level: individual selection of each person screening information they come across. E.g. Stephen Downes, with his self-developed (written software) and self-sustained OlDaily/OlWeekly. This newsletter provides insightful information on a variety of open learning related topics (including magazines, individual bloggers, institutional interviews…. Another wonderful individual curation initiative is the selection of books covered and described by Maria Popova in her brain pickings, again solely possible thanks to people supporting her in her writing/blogging endeavors.
Meta-level: social curation (a topic covered to great extent by Julian Stodd) where networks of people in their connected world select information from the group and for the group. A bit like conferences and journals (from formal options), and knowledge clouds created inside of organisations or fields of experts. There are people who manage to deliver a course build upon content that is chosen and organised by learners/participants. I feel that is also part of meta-level curation. Dave Cormier manages to do this with his Rhizo-MOOC, which I guess is one of the most influential MOOCs out there (possibly together with DS106 and one of the MOOC that started the concept: CKK). What Dave manages to achieve is to start from a blank canvas, the MOOC is nothing. The topic will be chosen by the participants, then get populated with information from theses participants, and suddenly the dialogues move towards creating more knowledge within each of the participants, including Dave himself. Why do I feel this is one of the most influencial MOOCs? Because, looking at the vast outputs of that MOOC, the high level of expertise of participants gathered in those yearly MOOCs (with multiple influencial bloggers), it is hard to underestimate the impact of that MOOC on online educators across the world.
Macro-level: this level is being impacted the most by the society in which it is created and institutional symbolic capital, together with its gatekeepers, and accepted cultural norms. Where the micro- and meta-level still have some autonomous freedom, on the macro-level that freedom is becoming increasingly pressured by those in power. In a way each one of us individually adds to this power bastion, due to money being part of the sustainability of the macro-level (eg. Leading research institutes, leading magazines…). Whereas on the micro- and meta-level some autonomy can be kept no matter which societal philosophy is guiding or allowing the Way Forward.

A bit like Bourdieu’s concept of symbolic capital. Eg. Where people mention an experts/artists name as a way to heighten their own importance (yes, mentioning Bourdieu would be part of that :D But on a macro-level this means that the symbolic capital is also pushed by the gatekeepers (those who are keeping in eye out for maintaining and reproducing power). This means at that level the government and recognized (or established) institutes make the selection of information that will be disseminated.

How does this translate from humans into neurons?As individual neurons, it does not seem to matter at first with whom we connect, but once a communication is set up, those neurons with multiple communications throughout time are being reinforced. A preference of communication is happening, and that repetition is creating stronger bridges between the neurons. On a meta-level, the groups of neurons are specializing, becoming more important for specific tasks (eye sight, feelings, deductions…). Impulses from contexts are influencing the strengths of these connections. (eg. Western society pushing linear thinking, Eastern society emphasizing horizontal thinking).
On a macro-level the full human is becoming apparent. It is no longer the connections of the neurons, but the result of these connections as drivers of the bigger neuron temple: the body and externalized mind of that particular human. The body and mind of us humans is the macro-level of neuron activity, just like our institutions seem to be the drivers of our society.

In search for the spark into consciousness
So I wonder, when does consciousness happen? In a way, I feel, that Rhizo-MOOC has created a higher consciousness in terms of what online education is like. All of its participants have become more than the sum of their parts (in terms of previous knowledge).
Could it be that by putting people together, you have the same effect as putting neurons together. Given a communication is actually happening. I think heightened communication does indeed result in higher consciousness. But if neurons linked together manifest life (or in the above-mentioned paragraph, result in manifesting the human), then what happens if humans are put together for a long period of time, and at such a momentum that they become more and more connected across the globe? Will this evolve into a superhuman or into an artificial intelligence which relies on humans, yet is more than all the humans put together? Maybe even to the extent that we as humans will become just another step into evolution. Redundant once a more accurate, speedy evolutionary step is reached.

In my next post I explore moving from Consciousness into Artificial Intelligence, while comparing communities of people to regions in the brain, "#DigiWriMo #Future from humans as micro-brains to Artificial Intelligence (part 2)"

(Image credit Bruno Golosio)