Supporting Outstanding Young Persons by voting #jcinews

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Participating in the challenge:

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

and follow the next steps

You can submit ideas through the month of May 2015.

free report on #OER evidence of success @OER_HUB

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

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

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

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

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

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

Big contest to enable reading for children around the globe

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

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

A tool for screening #gender and #ethnicity in #mobile courses

First of all a wonderful 2014 with lots of inspiring moments and growing wisdom!

To start this new year, I gladly share a short paper that describes an instrument I made years ago to screen mobile courses for their gender and ethnicity depiction/narrative before roll out. It is a simple tool, with a simple clicking system and systematic, but nevertheless it has provided me with many insights into my own repetition of the norm embedded in me by culture and habit.

The description of the tool can be read here via academia, in a short paper that was published in
de Waard, I., & Zolfo, M. (2009). Integrating gender and ethnicity in mobile courses ante-design: a TELearning instrument. Name: International Journal of Interactive Mobile Technologies, 3, 77-78.

This simple tool was initially build to construct interactive mobile courses for health care workers in different developing regions, but with the rise of MOOC, I figure it could be used for all global courses. Or for very local courses at that. Identity and empowerment are so fundamental to self-esteem, confidence and learning success that a conscious choice to use specific identities in an online course might push interaction, understanding, and self-reassurance.

How does it work: you take your course storyboard - or your course pilot content - and you go through. Every character (animated or real; visual or audio) is categorized or numbered. For example if a black colored woman animated actor is used in the course, the skin color is clicked, the gender is clicked, and her action is counted (an action can either be passive or active - for example a female doctor actively examining a patient). This counting is done for all characters and all narrative voices. At the end the tool tells you how each gender and ethnicity is depicted in the course, and that can be an indicator to redesign certain features to make the course overall more balanced (or focused on a specific identity if that is your wish).

Although this was made for mobile courses, the relevance for MOOC is evident. So I dare you to take this simple tool, and to go to a MOOC you are following and screen it for its gender/ethnic/active-passive representation. That will clearly show how 'global' the content is.
In the process of adding age more specifically as well. 

Durable, rural #mLearning with the Cofimvaba project

Rural learners, Indigenous people, refugees, nomadic travelers, ... all vulnerable learner groups in general still face a lot of challenges and one of these challenges always comes down to education. Education for all still has a long road to travel, but some of us keep on paving the roads to get everyone on board no matter what the challenges. One of my close friends, Adele Botha, has been engaging in a successful mLearning project that is the starting point for a nationwide roll out of mLearning to reach all rural schools in South Africa, the so called Cofimvaba project. She is part of a wonderful CSIR team that is determined to roll out an optimized, strong education for the whole of South Africa and ... they will do it! The first phase has been successful and has provided 26 schools (3000 tablets) with new educational opportunities, but ... it is the complete approach that really blew my mind.

One of the key elements in this project was a clear aim for sustainability and participation. Getting both the rural teachers as well as the learners on board. But also tackling what the team calls 'basic enablers', a set of necessary preconditions for learning. These enablers included adequate infrastructure (buildings, sanitation, electricity, water and access to information and communication). These basic enablers are not just put there, but they are embedded in a human awareness program, providing learner support through health, nutrition ( including agricultural know-how), transportation and social activities. This means making all the stakeholders aware, ensuring a strong, competent leadership at the center of the community based on the teachers, educators and informed parents. This combination lifts the project to a higher level, education is no longer a stand alone action, it is at the centre, and it embraces and lifts up the whole community.

This holistic approach does come at a serious investment cost as tablets are used throughout and infrastructure is set up, but instilling the idea of progress and opportunities into the heart of communities will give an undeniable return when today's young learners realize what they can do and transform their nation based upon stronger education and community capacity.

The picture shows the first teacher graduates, having gone through a whole set of courses getting them on to speed with the tablets, the installed eBooks, the wifi's, the installed applications ... and all the opportunities offered by the new, connected technology that is part of a complete community approach.

The testing ground of the project was based in Cofimvaba, Eastern Cape in South Africa and below you can see a short video of the project.

A low-cost pay-as-you-attend educational model

As the West (or North, struggling to find the right description, but meaning the developed world) is looking for new ways to finance the shift that is taking place in education (MOOCs and Higher Education), it would feel logical to me that inclusive education will be born in developing regions, hopefully bringing along financial options that can help people in the developed regions that are increasingly fighting poverty and seclusion from educational resources. Low cost pay-as-you-attend courses paid via mobile banking are tested in African regions and those projects look promising (based on the article provided). The nice thing is that the model also takes into account accreditation across continents (tough job!) and is linked to regional or specific group infrastructures (e.g. mobile options).

The always inspiring Ol'daily from Stephen Downes got me on this most interesting African approach to tailored, affordable and possibly even all-including type of education based on the concept of 'taxi-brousse':
- you start when the car is full;
- you drive for as long as you need -- and can afford;
- if you don't like the ride, you can get out and find another taxi.

The current problem with the changes in Higher Education (and training) are that business models behind it. Everyone is looking for the goose with the golden eggs and ... probably it is just going to be some golden ideas spread about all the possible geese (all of us included). Nevertheless, this article from the worldbank on a new wave of educational efforts across Africa exploring the use of ICTs offers an interesting option that even fits existing durable trends (like the taxi-brousse or share taxi example. 

So what is the approach (in brief, simple terms):
Some of the World Bank staff teamed up with 2iE people to get an approach together that would allow low-cost tuition where the student/learner can hop in a module, and hop out again once either the money runs out (temporarily) or the content is not what they had hoped for, leaving them the option to go for a different training instead. Inevitably this leads to online courses, that have a pay-as-you-go/attend financial basis, including m-payment options as well as sms-based outreach programs. Of course the telecom companies were brought in to support via e-education based cost offerings and different pilots were launched to see which options worked best (feel free to read up on them in the article). 
This approach puts learning options into the hands of the learner, and does not put an immediate huge financial strain on the student. It offers economic planning based on knowledge needs (well, still I think education should be open to all, but any solution providing more access to education is very much welcomed).  

The nice thing about 2IE is that it is an international higher education and training institute which delivers courses and training that result in programs that are accredited in both the African continent as well as in Europe. Which is in itself already an endeavor. The 2iE offer courses in the areas of Water and Sanitation, Environment Energy and Electricity, Civil Engineering and Mining Industry and Management Sciences. 

#ict4D: the complex mLearning challenges for specific ethnic groups #mlw2013

Leslie Dodson from the University of Colorado on The mobile utitly gap and literacy challenges in oral-language communities: sms use by Berber women.

These are my live blognotes coming from UNESCO's mobile learning week enriched with tweets from Ronda (@glam_mobileleo).
Leslie used an epigraphic research approach and working in the field for 8 to 9 months.

For those interested in the number of challenges that can be encountered when diving into a mLearning project with very specific target learners... this is it!

Pressing issues
conventional wisdom assumes

• women with mobile phones can text
• illiterate women and numeration
• mobiles obscure gender

this is not the case

• many women are only able to use expensive voice services
• functions that rely on counting or nubmer sequences are confusing
• cultural restrictions on communication between men and women extend to mobiles

These issues are bigger than a community of Berber women (approx. 500 billion women are illiterate)

Population: women and work

• Berber communities: tribal, traditional, Muslim, conservative, rural, arid and poor.
• Women lack formal education
• women's livelihoods are tied to the Argan tree (oil production, or as a home lifelyhood). 

Unseco has designated Morocco's Argan forests.

The technology

• simple, broken, secndhand, counterfeit phones
• few smart phones
• relatively broad network coverage and available power

the goal of the project

• expand the use f available mobile phones for personal and instrubmental communicatoin
• explore the challenges of moving from oral communication (speaking and calling) to texting in a non-text based community
• avoid a  formal educational approach because of shame and fear

A complex language environment
2 spoken dialects
Darija: an amagamation of Arabic, French and Spanish words
Tachelhit: one of numerous Berber dialect

2 official written and spoken languages
Modern Standard Arabic and French

3 alphabets: Arabic, Latin script, Tifinagh script (Glyph-based, not widely used).

The texting utility gap
due to the complex literacy and language environment, women's mobile use is basic ("What is literacy when u have 2 spoken dialects?")
they are unable to benefit fro many phone features ("My phone only speaks #French but I dont speak French.")
they face socio-cultural and psycho-dynamic deterrents to learning
illiterate women are paying a tech tax because they cannot text
they are forgoing service benefits

• unable to take advantage of mobile bonuses
• cannot access development initiatives
• missing out on training opportunities

coping strategies: high visual literacy

• many users identify words and numbers as visual packets of information (Berber women in #Morocco use small pieces of paper to identify words/numbers on phones)
• they rely on pattern recognition to identify phone numbers
• they memorize keypad sequences
• they use paper to assist in phone use
• they identify contacts with icons, names and numbers
• they rely on scribes

personal communication: mobile support for literacy in the Coop

• informal education
• situated learning
• adult women get to choose the literacy they want
• highly motivated to learn latin alphabet
• the mobile provides the alphabet at their fingertips
• multimedia use ("Multimedia includes chalkboards, alongside other tools we use..." )

If you do not have common devices, it can be very hard to collaboratively learn. There was a lot of struggle with directions to enter letters, some mobiles have capital and small letters which felt like different alphabets to the women.

#mlw2013 m4d report on Global Mobile on the Move

While attending UNESCO's mobile learning week in Paris, I will disseminate some of the information that comes up and might be off use. One of the publications linking to mobiles for development are two publications mentioned by Martine Koopman of IICD: Mobile on the Move and a publication focusing on a step-by-step ICT for social innovation publication.

The Mobile on the Move one shares some mobile projects from around the world, it is a short 12 page publication ranging from teacher-to-student projects to increasing farmer income via sms. The report can be downloaded for free here.
The step-by-step publication focuses on how to get a project going, embedding all the stakeholders and built upon regional needs. A nice, brief overview. That publication can be found here.

South African #mLearning projects and calls for collaboration

If you are looking for ways to connect to South African researchers engaged and passionate about mobile learning. Look at the people mentioned in this post and connect with them. They are wonderful mLearning experts and … open to collaboration.

As mobile learning gets more broadly accepted, meeting inspiration people around the world gives rise to new ideas. Here are some ideas I encountered in South Africa. The University of Pretoria invited me to exchange some notes on mobile learning and innovative educational technologies and the meet up was simply amazing.

El-Marie Mostert and Linda Venter are experts in eLearning and using new technologies in a University setting. But in preparation of the future of learning, they are now in a team to look at how mobile learning can fit within their curricula, where new initiatives can be taken (based on needs, availability of people and willingness of already fully booked teachers to engage). Quite a challenge as we all know. As a result of their quest, I am writing up some practical mLearning options to create easy mLearning options to add to the overall curriculum (I will share them later in the next few weeks).

As I was down there I was amazed by the technology already being embedded in daily live:

e-Tags that scan your car for highway toll calculation (a chip that sits on the window shield, and opens the gate as your car approaches the toll booth).

A solar oven (cooking water in a big kettle in less than 10 minutes, 25000 watt of heat!)

Computer rooms on wheels

… it was amazing to see how mobile is quickly becoming part of normal life.

Adele Botha and Ronel Callaghan are setting up mobile living labs in rural areas that have no connection, mobile living labs. They want to team up with all of us that feel mobile education can make a difference. If you are interested in the project, join Adele and Ronel, or look at this video down below to see what vision Adele has on mobile learning.

Dennis Kriel has something completely different going: a simulation game aimed at teachers to understand the options that mobile learning can offer. If you want to help him out with screening the game or adding educational screenplays to add to his game, give him a tweet. He is very open on how the game is developing and looks for extra scenario’s to get the game ready for roll-out. He is also an OER believer, so ready to share. What he does is use Articulate Storyline to get a game together that is based on energy and learning outcomes. So sometimes if you choose to go for a mobile development option, it takes a lot of energy (energy level goes down), but if you finish it it can provide optimized learning results so the learning percentage goes up. If the learning level percentage is up to a specific point, you get extra treats (relaxing on a couch, sight seeing…). It is still a work in progress, but it already looks really nice.So if you feel like adding to his project, or simply exchange ideas, look at his project as it develops here:

http://mlearn.denniskriel.me/art/mLearningSim%20N%20output/story_html5.html

 

Darryn Knobel has a facebook project going on veterinary health and diagnostics. In this facebook based peer-to-peer interactive course for veterinary students, the students go out to remote farms and screen cattle for parasites or other diseases. The students then take pictures and post them to a closed facebook group so they can discuss each of their findings and diagnostics. The amazing thing is that most of the students interact through their mobile in any location (at the farm, at university, at home), so their mobile devices are the central connectivity device. It is a nice project and Darren clearly has a great time being the guide-on-the-side who helps his students to stay on track whenever necessary.

And last but not least… What scenery! The campuses I visited are truly amazing: open, green, pleasant atmosphere, … wonderful. 

Here is the movie related to the mobile living labs and mobile South Africa project that is getting into shape for roll out by Adele Botha, Ronel Callaghan and team mates:

#m4D webinar with #mobile #health projects from Malawi provided by Limbanazo Kapindula

In this short (15 min + 5 Q/A) and very illuminating webinar given by Limbanazo Kapindula who spoke straight from Malawi, Africa, we all get an idea of the impact of simple sms solutions on the health of the whole family: parents and children.
In the webinar he shows how African community health workers work around some connectivity challenges, how they solve stock problems in their rural clinics... Another interesting addition is Limbanazo's analysis of the sms's exchanged and for what purposes: health related, technical, emergencies... The simple fact that sms is used for such a variety of purposes gives an indication of its impact.
Limbanazo also looked at the impact on costs and time saved thanks to setting up the frontline sms based solution. If you want to join hands for your own project, feel free to email him at lkapindula

(at) gmail.com