#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...)

In search for #AI for critical thinking in #education #criticalthinking #language

Who knows of Artificial Intelligence (AI) initiatives being developed to support critical thinking in education, or based on data text analysis and cognitive language use? Please drop me a line (or message). To give you an idea of what proceeded this question, I am providing some AI background, including my thoughts. A good read is the paper by Yeomans, Stewart, Mavon, Kindel, Tingley and Reich investigating "the civic mission of MOOCs: engagement across political differencess in online forums", which adds to the idea of using AI as a way to stimulate debate across opposing viewpoints, thus enhancing critical thinking (for those willing). 

AI to help human thinking processes

AI is rapidly expanding its reach: you have initiatives of meaningful curated content generated by AI into elearning (e.g. Wildfire http://www.wildfirelearning.co.uk/ ), you have legal research analysed and organised by AI (e.g. http://www.rossintelligence.com/ ), you have multiple AI molding social media interactions based on factors such as friends, exchanging ideas, similar content (sometimes opinions) shared… basically, industry is looking at AI as a means to refocus on less-repetitive parts of their business or profit goals (https://insidebigdata.com/2017/01/29/amplifying-human-potential-towards-purposeful-artificial-intelligence-a-perspective-for-cios/ ).

But, I am wondering whether there is research projects taking into account AI using text analysis but including cognitive language use to enhance critical thinking (for instance: if you have echo chambers, why not use AI to pick up frequently used arguments from ‘the other side’ to generate more in-depth arguments for either side. Or for those looking to become dominating world leaders (devils advocate here): creating something which goes beyond fake news: using arguments that feel right but actually are built using persuasive language construction to trigger a feeling of ‘that is right’ and parallels what a person thinks is morally correct (I said it was a devils advocate example :D )

AI in education

With all the talk on the new citizens needing to be ‘creative’ mindset above anything else, the creativity does not seem to emerge yet in AI, the focus is still more on rehashing what is already there, but with more focus on the norm by using AI in education (I could be wrong, feel free to provide arguments on why creativity is indeed boosted by AI in education).

A couple of examples where AI is used to boost learning, but along the lines of existing norms, nevertheless of interest.

Deep Knowledge Training. One of the interesting strands of AI in education research is Deep Knowledge Training (a good read is the 2015 paper by Piech, Bassen, Huang, Ganguli, Sahami, Guibas and Sohl-Dickstein https://web.stanford.edu/~cpiech/bio/papers/deepKnowledgeTracing.pdf ) this allows a machine to model the knowledge of a student as they interact with coursework. It can be used to extrapolate student performance for instance. This seems to be good, but you know that this is based on ‘what we expect of students’, which is not necessarily what could be good for humanity or social thinking.

Assessing future scores. Another example is the algorithm built by Google and Stanford which relates to a students learning ability (well more specifically how a student would answer questions) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3380374/The-end-exams-Algorithm-predict-students-answer-questions-explain-questions-wrong.html . Here as well, the learning seems to parallel taking exams… which does not seem to promote creative thinking.

IBM Watson for education (https://www.ibm.com/watson/education ). Starts from the idea of personalised learning (and passion, so I really love that starting point), but when I looked at the videos, the definition of personalised learning seemed to be limited to personal interests (in educator video), which limits the concept of personalised learning. And though it is good to provide skill-level content, if the content base you pull it from is standard…. The standards will again be the norm, which does not necessarily result in creative ideas or insights.

AI based on language data

One example I found using AI in relation to natural language processing is NexLP (https://www.nexlp.com/ ) (quoting from their page: “leveraging the latest advances in Natural Language Processing (NLP), Cognitive Analytics, and Machine LearningㅡStory Engine turns disparate, unstructured data - including email communications, business chat messages, contracts and legal documents - into meaningful insight that can be used to act, as well as combined with structured data to create a truly comprehensive view of the entire data universe.) and the people behind NexLP state that they use cognitive analysis to add more context to the actual text analysis”.

But when looking at it, it seems more of an enhanced interactive dashboard at first glance. This means it feels more like a quantifiable AI implementation than a qualitive one. One of the solutions to filter meaningful content is wikification (where you link entities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entity_linking ) which seems to be an effective way to add context to text analytics technology (https://www.nexlp.com/blog/2017/12/26/nlp-technology-architecture )

Past fake news or beyond critical thinking

The term fake news is now a given in many politician’s speech, both in its originally intended definition, as well as in popular debate where it functions as a way to ridicule and diminish the truth or value of an argument by an opposing person. But maybe we can turn this around. Create algorithms that can be used to enhance our debating skills, our critical thinking by generating arguments that are most frequently used by groups gently opposing our views. I mention gently opposing, as persuasive arguments are rarely harsh, completely opposing arguments.

I see this as a possible way to tear down the echo chambers created by filter bubbles, and build bridges. Or at least get a conversation started.  

Feel free to share your thoughts or link to examples.

Picture from http://cdn.nanalyze.com/uploads/2017/08/mckinsey.jpg 

Call for papers, free online events and paper opportunity #CfP #elearning

In this post you can find three Call for Papers, two publication opportunities, and to start off multiple initiatives from EDEN (European Distance and eLearning Network) which has their online learning week (started yesterday, with free online seminars each day up until the 10th of November.

EDEN European Distance Learning week

An online, free event with daily seminars. The one for today is starting soon. More info here or look at the upcoming events below.
You simply need to provide your name and email to get registered, and also receive the link to the recording. 

Perspectives on Open Education

Tuesday, November 7, 2017, 13:00-14:30 CET
Format: Presentations and panel discussion
Moderator: Fabio Nascimbeni, EDEN Executive Committee member
Please click here for a more detailed description of the event
Click here to register

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Designing Learning Spaces in Open and Distance Learning

Wednesday, November 8, 2017, 13:00-14:30 CET
Format: Presentations and discussion
Moderator: Lisa Marie Blaschke, EDEN Vice-President
Please click here for a more detailed description of the event
Click here to register

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Re-considering Access, Quality and Flexibility of Education

Thursday, November 9, 2017, 13:00-14:30 CET
Format: Presentation and discussions
Moderator: Sandra Kucina Softic, EDEN Vice President
Please click here for a more detailed description of the event
Click here to register

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International Experiences with OER

Friday, November 10, 2017, 13:00-14:30 CET
Format: Presentation
Moderator: Antonella Poce, EDEN NAP Steering Committee Chair
Please click here for a more detailed description of the event
Click here to register

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EDEN Open Classroom Conference: Introducing Agenda for Open Professional Collaboration – Plenary broadcast 

Friday, November 10, 2017, 9:45 – 11:45 CET
Format: Plenary Session live stream – Live streaming of the plenary session of the EDEN Open Classroom Conference held in Kaunas, Lithuania. Link to the broadcast will be announced soon. Participants will be able to ask questions using the conference website.
Moderators: Kristijonas Jakubsonas, Elena Trepulė
Keynote speakers:

• Digitally competent teachers in the area of Open Education, Yves Punie, European Commission – DG JRC – Directorate Innovation and Growth
• The Joyous Voyage: situating open learning in a fractured world, Alan Bruce, Universal Learning Systems, Ireland, National Changhua University of Education, Taiwan
• National ICT Implementation Initiatives for Educational Openness, Vaino Brazdeikis, Ministry of Education and Science of The Republic of Lithuania
• Implementing recognition of open non-formal learning. Organizational perspective, Airina Volungevičienė, European Distance and E-Learning Network (EDEN), Vytautas Magnus University

Technological Innovation for Specialized Linguistic Domains (TISLID 18)

A conference on EdTech, MOOCs related to languages for digital lives and cultures.

Conference dates: 24-26 May 2018
Venue: Faculty of Arts and Philosophy, Abdisstraat 1, 9000 Gent, Belgium.

Call for abstracts deadline: 10 December 2018 (an 300 - 500 word abstract, more CfP info here).
More information: http://www.tislid18.ugent.be/

This conference offers a great opportunity to interchange knowledge and experiences, both in a formal and informal, creative way, regarding language-based digital realities. This event aims to promote academic debate on digital language technologies, with a special focus on their potential for promoting communication and (lifelong) learning.

The conference will include keynotes, paper presentations, posters, a roundtable debate (on Thursday and Friday) and workshops (on Saturday).

14th International Conference Mobile Learning 2018

Conference dates: 14 – 16 April 2018, Lisbon, Portugal

Info: http://www.mlearning-conf.org/

Deadline for papers: 8 December 2017

* Conference Scope
Mobile learning is concerned with a society on the move. In particular, with the study of “…how the mobility of learners augmented by personal and public technology can contribute to the process of gaining new knowledge, skills and experience” (Sharples et al. 2007).
The ML Conference seeks to provide a forum for the presentation and discussion of mobile learning research which illustrate developments in the field.
For more details and information about topics please check http://www.mlearning-conf.org/call-for-papers

* Paper Submission
This is a blind peer-reviewed conference. Authors are invited to submit their papers in English through the conference submission system by December 8, 2017. Submissions must be original and should not have been published previously.

* Important Dates:
- Submission Deadline: 8 December 2017
- Notification to Authors: 8 January 2018
- Final Camera-Ready Submission and Early Registration: Until 29 January 2018
- Late Registration: After 29 January 2018

* Paper Publication
The papers will be published in book and electronic format with ISBN, will be made available through the Digital Library available at http://www.iadisportal.org/digital-library/showsearch.
The conference proceedings will be submitted for indexation by IET’s INSPEC, Elsevier, EI Compendex, Scopus, Thomson Reuters Web of Science, ERIC and other important indexing services.

* Conference Contact:
E-mail: secretariat@mlearning-conf.org
Web site: http://www.mlearning-conf.org/

EDEN Annual conference on 17 - 20 June 2018

Subject: investigating the micro, meso and macro in digital learning landscapes
Deadline for submissions: 5 February 2018
Information on the call for papers/workshops: http://www.eden-online.org/2018_genoa/submission/
Scope of the conference:

The demand for people with new, enhanced skills is growing. The volume of information produced and shared in all fields is overwhelming. Building the data economy became part of the EU Digital Single Market. Powerful and sophisticated ICT is part of everyday life, and the world of learning is not an exception. Pressure is on all players of the online education community to keep up with new learning solutions, and better supply the skills currently demanded by growing economies.
Open Education continues its success, providing radical advances in knowledge acquisition, sharing, distribution, and improving business models. Digital credentials and open badges are the new currencies which are beginning to transform the economic models in education.
Social and economic tensions continue to raise the issues of scalability, the micro-credentialling of education, training and skill development processes. Practitioners and stakeholders are eagerly seeking right approaches to providing learning opportunities, and many scholars are researching holistic answers.
Micro, meso and macro aspects provide an interesting range of lenses for considering the problem. These aspects may be applied in a general sense, distinguishing between the learning of individuals (e.g through mobile learning), learning at the institutional or group levels through a meso lens, and the learning of organizations or societies directed through policies through the macro lens.

EDENchat initiative, using the twitter chat approach on subjects related to distance, open and eLearning

#EDENChat is an online discussion event on Twitter initiated by Steering Committee of the EDEN Network of Academics and Professionals (NAP). It is mediated by members of the NAP community and runs for approximately 1 hour. Anyone can join in and contribute to the discussion which is presented in a Question and Answer format, and focuses on current issues in distance, open and e-learning.
EDENchat schedule:

European Distance Learning Week #EDENChat	November 8, 2017
What is Open Web?	November 22, 2017
What are Open Licenses?	December 6, 2017
What are Open Degrees & Open Badges?	December 20, 2017

More information (and prior chat info):  http://www.eden-online.org/events/ and here http://www.eden-online.org/resources/edenchat/

Opportunities for publication: one on mobile learning, and one on launching at technology driven university.

IGI global: Handbook of Research on Challenges and Opportunities in Launching a Technology-Driven International University 

Publication edited byDr. Mehdi Khosrow-Pour, Executive Director of the Information Resources Management Association (IRMA).

Deadline for chapter proposals: 30 November 2017.
Authors of accepted proposals will be notified by no later than December 13, 2017 about the status of their proposals and will receive chapter guidelines. Full chapters are expected to be submitted by January 30, 2018. All submitted chapters will be reviewed on a double-blind basis. Contributors may also be requested to be engaged as reviewers for this project.
To view the full call for papers, with recommended topic areas, please visit the link here: https://www.igi-global.com/publish/call-for-papers/call-details/2913


The aim of this publication is to offer both empirical and theoretical research focused on the effective construction of technology-driven higher learning international universities. Themes such as: developing an accelerated and innovative curriculum, the recruitment and retention of internationally renowned faculty and researchers to lead courses, as well as the development of an on-campus and distance learning system will be presented. Also, taking into consideration the financial and economic impacts of launching a university – specifically, how to identify the appropriate locale for universities and/or branch campuses, which will ideally complement the local interest of business sectors within the selected location.

The target audience for this publication will be entrepreneurs, practitioners, academicians, instructional designers, administrators, government officials, and independent researchers and consultants focused on online education research and scholarship, educational leadership and administration, educational marketing, educational policy, course management, instructional design, educational theory and practice, human resources in educational settings, and curriculum design and management.

Mobile book looking for contributors, but it costs 350 Swiss Franks (approx. 300 EUR or 350 USD)

This looks like a good, yet paid, opportunity for those wanting to get a chapter in a research book on mobile learning. The publication is international and Open Access, but indeed the publishers demand a downpayment to get accepted (so, only when you will be published) chapters published.
Education Sciences (ISSN 2227-7102, http://www.mdpi.com/journal/education) is currently running a Special Issue "Mobile Learning" (http://www.mdpi.com/journal/education/special_issues/Mobile_Learning), which is guest edited by Prof. Maria Uther, from the University of Winchester, UK.
The submission deadline is 31 May 2018. You may send your manuscript now or up until the deadline. Submitted papers should not be under consideration for publication elsewhere.

This Special Issue, Mobile Learning, addresses the increasing popularity of mobile devices and their potential for developing learning. Articles are welcomed for inclusion in this Special Issue that:
(1) provide empirical evidence on the efficacy of mobile devices for learning applications; (2) showcase novel uses or technical developments for mobile devices in learning; (3) review pedagogical and user interface design considerations and develop theories around the design of mobile learning applications; (4) interface mobile technologies with other technologies to enhance learning (e.g., speech recognition, augmented reality, psychophysiological recording); and (5) offer examples of situated learning (e.g. using augmented/virtual reality technology) with mobile devices. The above topics are indicative and we would also welcome any papers relating to mobile learning that do not immediately fit into the above categories.

For further reading, please follow the link to the Special Issue Website at: http://www.mdpi.com/journal/education/special_issues/Mobile_Learning. We also encourage authors to send a short abstract or tentative title to the Editorial Office in advance (education@mdpi.com).

If the Special Issue collects more than 10 papers, it will be made available in printed book format. An example could be seen at http://books.mdpi.com/.

/Education Sciences/ (ISSN 2227-7102) is an international and open access journal, which is double-blind peer-reviewed. It is published by MDPI AG, Basel, Switzerland: http://www.mdpi.com/journal/education. Open access (unlimited and free access by readers) increases publicity and promotes more frequent citations, as indicated by several studies. Open access is supported by the authors and their institutes. More information is available at http://www.mdpi.com/about/openaccess/. If you decide to submit to this Special Issue, Article Processing Charges (APC) of CHF 350 is applied. For more information on APCs please visit http://www.mdpi.com/about/apc/

.
Education Sciences has been accepted for inclusion in ESCI http://mjl.clarivate.com/cgi-bin/jrnlst/jlresults.cgi?PC=MASTER&ISSN=2227-7102
For further details on the submission process, please see the instructions for authors at http://www.mdpi.com/journal/education/instructions.

Free webinar: language learning apps and MOOCs for refugees

This one hour free webinar focuses on language learning apps and some used within MOOCs for refugees. The idea is to increase social inclusion and enhance employability for new arrivals. However, the language learning apps can also be an addition to other formal learning (e.g. for students who recently came to live in a new country and are attending regular school but who can use personalised language support, anyone moving to another country where they need to learn another language (ex-pats, immigrants), to anyone simply interested in keeping up to date with a language they have learned (e.g. my French needs refreshing).

Free webinar link and registration information:
https://moonliteproject.eu/events/webinars/language-learning-apps-moocs-for-refugees/


When: Wednesday 25 October, 15.00-16.00 CEST (Central European Summer Time, to know when the webinar takes place in your timezone you can look at Time Zone Converter here: https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter-classic.html )
Where: Online via Adobe Connect (so check the link to the webinar once it is sent to you).
You need to register for this free webinar (link here), this means you need to add your firstname, name and organisation (if you are not linked to an organisation, simply put 'virtual network' or similar).  

The link to the webinar room will be sent to all registered participants one day before the event.

Speakers:
Agnes Kukulska-Hulme: mobile language learner by excellence, The Open University, UK
Timothy Read: computer languages and systems (also set up first MOOCs in Spain), UNED, Spain
Alastair Creelman: elearning specialist, Linnaeus University, Sweden.

What to expect
The question being considered in this webinar is whether such resources represent an effective learning approach for refugees given their changing geographical, sociocultural and technological circumstances?
An important part of social inclusion is having the foreign language skills necessary for day to day life. ICT, including mobile apps and open online courses, forms an important part of the way in which languages are learnt in our modern society. The improvement in communication networks and online tools, accessible from a range of mobile devices and desktop computers, facilitate activities developed to improve the four basic language competences (written and oral comprehension and production). Furthermore, the wide availability of free language learning apps can help to supplement the online learning experience, especially when network access is limited.


The webinar is organised by the Erasmus+ project MOONLITE in cooperation with EDEN (European Distance and E-learning Network), NVL Distans (Nordic Network for Adult Education) and the Swedish Network for IT in Higher Education (ITHU). The Moonlite project focuses on MOOCs for social inclusion and employability.

#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

Free multilingual MOOC opportunity for 1st time MOOC organisers #EUmoocs

This is a wonderful opportunity for anyone with a clear MOOC idea, but still wondering which platform to use. The EMMA platform supports multiple languages, which includes an automated translation of transcripts of your MOOC content to the other languages (English, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Estonian). 

The platform uses a wide array of learning analytics and survey tools, peer assignment options and a student toolbox.

20 MOOCs will be selected out of all the proposals that are sent in. To participate (= sending in your MOOC proposal), you only need to provide the usual contact information, a short MOOC description, your community of interested learners (for promotional purposes), and the languages you will use.
Deadline for submitting your proposal: 30 May 2016, although the deadline is close by, the information needed is doable in a short time span. Just do it, this is a great opportunity to have access to a great MOOC provider with multiple language options for free.

More information and the form to fill in if you want to participate can be found here. And quickly sharing some of their information:

What is EMMA?EMMA is a 30-month pilot action supported by the European Commission that provides an innovative system for the delivery of free, open, online courses (MOOCs) in multiple languages.
Hosting for selected MOOCs will be guaranteed for free until May 2017.
Benefits that you can have for free

• Free hosting of your MOOC on the EMMA platform.

• Use of the automated translation system for your videos and lesson texts (8 languages available).

• Use of tools for peer assignment and student toolbox creation.

• Use of learning analytics, tracking and ad hoc survey tools.

• Use of the Blog.

• The support of a professional communication service for student recruitment and institutional visibility.

• Access to a community of MOOC providers willing to share their know-how and experience.

What is expected from you

• Willingness to give feedback on the EMMA experience.

• Willingness to edit automatic transcriptions and translations.

• Willingness to collaborate on EMMA activities.

• Conformity to the EMMA quality standards.

Participate! Submit the Request for participation FORMEMMA evaluation committee will select 20 MOOCs from amongst those submitted within 7 days of the closing date of the selection period according to the following criteria:

1. Reputation of the teacher/expert/institution affiliated to a discipline.

1. Presence of an active community linked to the teacher/expert/institution.

1. Number of languages in which the MOOC will be delivered.

Only submissions received by the deadline will be considered.
Should your proposal be selected, our team will support you in the delivery of your MOOC.

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

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[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)

Keynote #CLIL Teresa Ting second #language learning challenges

Y.L. Teresa Ting from the Universitá della Calabria (Italy) has an Italian charm and looks fabulous as she takes the stage.  Today she focused on the question on how the CLIL format can answer the many challenges of educating pupils in a foreign language, especially if one takes into account that the outcomes of native language courses keep having flaws. She is also clearly a teacher, narrating, yet paying attention at our focus, and she makes us do things (takes me back to the classroom).I was following with pleasure, until the sentence "students need good textbooks more then ever, as you never know what they will find on the internet" - okay, just imagine my face when hearing that sentence! Fun though, and the full keynote was definitely of interest. .

Throughout her keynote Teresa used notes to illustrate how students and teachers think. She put these sources online for those interested, to be found (google drive docs) here.

She opens with OECD skills outlook 2013. Where she refers to the challenge of literacy … how can instruction through a foreign language help.

Visible learning and the Science of How We Learn

(Hattie and Gregory Yeates (Routledge publishing))

What makes up great learning? One thing occurred in all classrooms, if teachers help see learning through the eyes of the students, and students see their learning through their own eyes.

Nobody likes to learn content that they did not choose.

Teresa Ting started off with starting English in Italy, while actually being a neuroscientist. Around 2000 Teresa was given the opportunity to engage with CLIL.

Evolution is a very conservative process, as such the brains of rats are comparable to human brains (Teresa first researched rats and learning).

Brain Reward System: part of the brain where rats would feel really good. It is part of the primitive part of the brain. Rats will press the stimulus until they are dead, omitting eating, drinking… Similar with human brains. When brain surgery  is done, this part in the human brain is stimulated.

Motivation is already embedded in the brain, it is there, we (as teachers) only have to activate it.

The big question: the point is: can we activate these pathways of motivation?

C1 level English as foreign language => implications that might be a problem.

In 1980 in the Anglophone ex-colonies science was given in English. Teachers did most of the talking, but learners kept quiet and did not understand most of it.

So the risk of C1 competences means that teachers => transmissive education.

In Italy the teachers do not speak, so they have to come up with different learning activities, AND the material will become easier, though aimed at reaching the learning goals.

At a given point during the presentation, Teresa gives us exercises to illustrate what learner-centered teaching with little input from the teacher is like (Inge note: very similar to cMOOC).

Then Teresa also illustrates the complex language use that occurs when learners are left to their own devices (or at least, when they are given more freedom).

Teresa refers to Lexical Density (Inge note: look up the tool you used for easy English, you used in MobiMOOC the Fog or something scale?).

With disciplinary expertise, the disciplinary literacy needed increases. Bourdieu and Passeron, 1977: academic language is no one’s mother tongue.

But disciplinary discourse is the most precise way of speaking (community language).

But the language of the community must be mastered. (disciplinary discourse), if you cannot do it, you have not learned the content yet (not mastered it).

The challenge: the discourse student should output to show they have learnt cannot be used as input for learning (Ting, 2015). Because if the language is too difficult (difficult), this is not picked up.

Working memory scans the environment to see what kind of information you need to pay attention too (short term memory). In a classroom you want to move from short term to long-term memory. But working memory is volatile, limited capacity (5-7 digits), limited duration (only seconds). To get into long-term memory, it needs to get attention, it needs to be attended to.

Working memory overload even in the mother tongue, good teachers are aware, but must be aware of this risk of disciplinary language for 50 minutes.

This is why Teresa creates tasks: transforming texts into task, which follow a learning progression.

(Inge note: parallels contextualized learning ).

Learning content always embraces two parts: the content itself, as well as the language which describes the content. If content is difficult, the language must be easy; if content is easy, the language can become difficult. Which is a way to be aware of working memory.

An option is assessment of learning for learning (see exercise 3 of the prints provided)… seems like cMOOC.

Inge note: In the CLIL-MOOC: Big macro content –learning is cut into little content pieces (eg. What are the elements of MOOCs, and what can we do with these elements, and do it). This is assessed, and based upon feedback, new iterations are provided, as well as reflective moments (progress diary).

Problems provide dilated pupils with those humans solving the problem, as soon as the problem is solved the pupil undilates: so it is a physiological response.

The brain likes solvable problems.

Haptic tasks: proprioceptive feedback also stimulates synaptic grounding.

Semantic incongruency: this alerts the brain, but it is not positive thing. Such information generates "distraction" and therefore is not easily processed. This points to the message that academic text is full of semantics which are incongruent with how we usually use our mother tongue. Which is why academic text is not a good source of input for learning - but an essential source for reference.

Priming: is a way to prepare humans for what is to come, and orient the brain (eg, being able to think whether what follows will be difficult or easy – cfr advanced organiser).

Important factor for language learning: we need to use a whole language approach to increase academic language and disciplinary discourse. Providing holistic language to increase contextualised grounding of the language.

Input must be whole language, tasks must be whole thoughts to make an impact. 

Teresa said: students need good textbooks in this day and age to increase their core concepts and details, as well as academic discourse. 

#MOOC use in secondary school (k12) for non-native English/French speakers

The last couple of weeks I have been working on a project with a secondary school (GUSCO school in Kortrijk, Belgium). Which resulted in some first explorations, shared in a previous post when I was still looking for a sound method. By now the direction, three teachers and 42 students have launched a class (well, three classes, but one sort of class) in which they combine MOOC with CLIL (Content Language Integrated Learning). This means that all participating students are non-native English/French speakers (most of them speak Dutch, some have another mother tongue due to migration history), and they explore content provided in MOOCs on a voluntary basis to train their language skills and learn more about a topic of their interest.

Status of the project: today is the second class of this first year roll-out. The class takes up 2 hours per week throughout the academic year, lesson-plan is made (with room for adjustments throughout the year), instruments are active, teachers have been exploring MOOCs (continued professional development through autonomous action).

In tomorrow's post I will highlight some of the instruments used (still translating some), but listing them here:

• an adapted scale for measuring skills and capacities, focusing on language and learning skills;
• a logbook kept by the students to reflect upon their present week, and providing feedback; 
• a self-regulated learning questionnaire to monitor self-esteem and motivation as the course moves along the academic year. 

While discussing this project, potential challenges came up, some of them felt more pressing then others. Here are three of the challenges and the responses those challenges (not necessarily evidence based at this point):

1- Will the target group of 16 - 17 year old's be capable of following and interacting in a MOOC?

When looking at secondary data coming from MOOCs that have been running, and focusing on those age ranges that participated in these MOOCs, there is a clear indication that 15 - 20 year old's are participating actively. Granted, many of those might be native English speakers (or natively speaking the language of the MOOC: Spanish, Chinese, Russian...), nevertheless non-native English speakers are also interacting, they do exist and as such that group is of interest. Furthermore that age group has been participating from early on in the MOOC roll-out. Additionally, in Belgium 8 out of 10 schools use online learning tools (e.g. Bingel, a learning platform provided by an book producer, and combining methods used in the books for learner activation outside of the classroom, either for remedial purposes or diversification. This means that in primary school those young pupils are already being exposed to online interactions, which makes MOOCs a potential next step once they move into secondary school. By then some of those options need to be researched for better understanding and guidance, to enable it to be embedded in school settings.
The first picture represents those MOOC participants that posted in MOOC forums (blue = full time occupied, red = not full time occupied). This demographic comes from a collection of Stanford MOOCs running on the Coursera platform in 2013. The second picture provides the age demographics of a more recent MOOCs from FutureLearn (from Simon Nelson presentation).

2 - What is the risk of those students becoming demotivated, and even loose their learning self-esteem by being exposed to following or at least interacting in a MOOC that might have content that is too complex for them at this moment in their lives?
On the issue of the content of MOOCs being too difficult. Will the average student aged 16-17 be able to complete complex assignments which are incorporated in MOOCs? My guess would be: no. But that is where the teachers come in. All three teachers are experienced language teachers, and they have a knack for for finding the Zone of Proximal Development that might just leverage the knowledge of the students that is existing in their mind to the level needed to understand (a selection) of the MOOC content. This does of course reflect in the type of grading that can or cannot be done: in this project the students will be graded on daring to speak and interact, on going through some of the MOOC content, and interacting with peers in class and in the MOOC. In a way these grades will be more generic, then content-related.
But, it is fair to say that the student motivation and self-esteem must be monitored in this case (or in any type of new class). In order to see what the impact is of each MOOC-CLIL phase (a groupMOOC phase - strong support from teachers and one MOOC is chosen for classical training in MOOC actions, a EigenMOOC (ownMOOC) phase, where small groups of students choose which MOOC they want to follow, Evaluation phase: where students produce an introduction about the class for next years students). In order to monitor the effect on student learning, a questionnaire is provided to the learners. That questionnaire looks at their self-regulated learning capacities, and monitors their motivation (extrinsic, intrinsic) and their learning self-esteem (questionnaire consists of 50 questions). By monitoring motivation and self-esteem before the full course, after the groupMOOC phase, and at the end of the OwnMOOC, we hope to get a picture of the impact of the course on the actual learning process.

3 - The fact that Content and Language Integrated Learning is combined with MOOCs that are selected by the pupils, how does this relate to the Content factor mentioned in CLIL? 
It is true that CLIL by definition demands a fair focus on content, as the language is learned via content related context. Nevertheless, we think that by letting the students select which MOOC they want to follow, they will inevitably choose a type of content that is of interest to them (more motivated?). This will (we assume) make that content more relevant for their future interests/work/plans as well, and thus the uptake of the language will be more intense. The fact that they choose which content to follow also relates to a more learner-centered approach, which is applauded at this moment in educational history (and by myself personal, as learning is personal). 

Ideas on methods or instruments for CLIL and MOOC learning?

Help and thoughts welcomed. While planning a small research which combines Content and Language Integrated Learning or CLIL, MOOC and lifelong learning options, I am calling out for any help that you might be able to offer in terms of suggesting methods, pointing towards useful research instruments (either as they stand or to build on) or simply helping with the project (either this one, or setting up parallel project and that we share experiences).

An abstract and overview of the theoretical ideas behind this project can be read here:

https://www.academia.edu/14990931/Increasing_LifeLong_Learning_Skills_for_upper-secondary_students_by_combining_CLIL_and_MOOC_with_teachers_as_guides_on_the_side 

This call for help comes after some work has been done, so feel free to read up where I and my colleagues from the secondary school GUSCO school in Kortrijk, Belgium are at.

Challenge and brainstorm to plan research and build research instrument(s) to be used by 15 – 16 year old secondary students to measure whether or not their language and online learning skills (in terms of self-esteem and motivation) have increased by using a teacher/classroom supported step-by-step approach where the teachers gradually step back to increase the students autonomous learning skills and competencies.

This is a small, exploratory study and as such I expect to have between 10 - 15 students volunteering (with informed consent of all parties: school, parents, students) for this research.

Potential central research question:

How does the CLIL MOOC project influence the learning readiness of secondary students voluntarily engaged in online learning courses which are delivered in a non-native language.

Or in  more hypothesis kind of formulation:

The participation of students in a CLIL MOOC project increases their language and online learning skills.

The CLIL MOOC project has three potential learning pillars:

1.       Language skills: learning or enhancing communication skills in a foreign language

2.       Increasing digital literacy: critical thinking, conscious use of educational technology and increased interaction in a foreign language (good paper on multiple literacies https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Maria_Pinto12/publication/249750716_Thirty_years_of_information_literacy_%281977--2007%29_A_terminological_conceptual_and_statistical_analysis/links/0f31753a074649c07e000000.pdf and a critical note on literacies http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/fss/organisations/netlc/past/nlc2012/abstracts/pdf/gourlay.pdf )

3.       Lifelong learning skills: learning to learn more autonomously in view of personal learning interests

There are several challenges:

• Whether or not these three pillars can be measured amidst other learning advances (to keep out indirect influences, e.g. learning skills coming from other courses)
• The meta-cognitive level of the students: whether any instrument can be made that uses the right language for the processes the students can identify (any instrument used must be transparent in terms of concepts and vocabulary used)
• Keeping the surveys limited while having all these areas to monitor
• 10 – 15 students hardly make up a representative quantitative target population, it can be enough for a study with a main focus on qualitative methods (this means combining quantitative with qualitative, where the qualitative elements clarify the potential indicators provided by the quantitative results)
• Building on previous learn-to-learn instruments that focus on self-regulated or/and self-directed learning (this is a new combination of factors, but still any research instrument used might be linked to previous research projects)

 Existing instruments related to self-directed/regulated learning. Four options:

1. Use the self-directed readiness test pre- and post-course to see whether this has changed over the academic year (key researcher Guglielmino, see background here http://www.lpasdlrs.com/ and nursing training example implementation here https://www.researchgate.net/publication/11788963_Development_of_self-directed_learning_readiness_scale_for_nursing_education )
2. Use the self-regulated learning opportunities questionnaire: to see whether the students can identify learning, and how it fits their own self-esteem and motivation. The Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (key researcher Pintrich, see here for overview and manual http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED338122.pdf )
3. Use a mix of the self-directed readiness test and the self-regulated learning opportunities questionnaire (with focus of the latter on self-esteem and motivation, as these are key lifelong learning skills), add language-related indicators - at the moment this is my favorite
4. Build a new instrument from scratch, combining both language and MOOC skills, as well as learning to learn options.

It might of course also be a mix of self-regulated and self-directed instruments, provided to the students on different moments during the academic year. The SDL test pre and post, the SRL on 3 occasions, after each term but without meddling with the exam periods.

Question: which methodology would be best?

Attention for: limited class time, not to be too intrusive.

In view of the size of the target population, and the fact that this is a new combination of fields, I am thinking of using a mixed methodology, where attention is paid to choosing methods that are not too intrusive (as this might be difficult to combine with teachers as well as students).

Option in consideration:

Action research: The basic action research procedural routine involves four stages: (1) identifying the research question(s), (2) gathering the information to answer the question(s), (3) analyzing and interpreting the information, and (4) sharing the results with the participants. Action research follows a kind of spiralling progression, rather than the more traditional linear one (see p. 180 https://mthoyibi.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/qualitative-research-methods-for-the-social-sciences__bruce-l-berg-2001.pdf )

So any ideas are welcomed, you can either mail me or tweet (@ignatia) or connect through comments... 

We will go live with this project on the 1 September, so a nice solid deadline for the actual project and I hope by then I will have my instruments and documents ready (I will). 

Practical, free report on #mobile pedagogy for English #language teaching and learning

The 46 page research report on 'Mobile pedagogy for English language teaching and learning: a guide for teachers' is a practical and informative report. The report was written by experts (Agnes Kukulska-Hulme, Lucy Norris and Jim Donohue) in the field that combine a strong theoretical background with experienced practical projects, this combination clearly adds to the relevance of the report.

The report addresses the challenges of English teachers, a framework is offered which points towards all the dynamics and interactions that are part of the overall language interactions between teachers and learners, once the framework is described a practical example of the application of the framework in a real lesson.
Because the report offers a range of practical activities with clear links to learning goals that are addressed by these activities as well as suggestions for implementation, the report enables a clear and immediate understanding of the mobile opportunities that are suggested (e.g. actions: feeding back after task or class (Learning-Oriented Assessment), or  another activity: the ‘ideal self’ language user; reflecting on learning and motivation - which encourages learners to be more active and reflect on real language performance).

A great and practical read.