Why is #AI useful to pro-actively prepare #learners in a changing world? #skills

Preparing for my talk today at Online Educa Berlin, after a great workshop-filled day yesterday (one of the workshops was on preparing for the 4th industrial revolution guided by Gilly Salmon - https://www.gillysalmon.com/presentations.html ) and a wonderfully inspiring and ideas provoking workshop with Bryan Alexander looking at methods to predict parts of the future).

Below you can find my slides for the session at Online Educa Berlin looking at ways that Artificial Intelligence can be used to pro-actively prepare learners for the skills of the future.

It covers the steps we have tackled at InnoEnergy with the skills engine. In the talk I will share our approach, and how this differs from what was previously done. The slides are rather minimal, but if you download the talk, you can look at the notes in the slides to get the full picture.

Building the Skills Engine: our dreams realise the future from Inge de Waard

Yes a learning engine: demo is ready, but #AI and #Learning challenges ahead #TBB2019 @InnoEnergyCE

If you have ideas on ensuring continuity in pedagogy when clustering courses (research), on certifying across corporate and university learning (blockchain/bit of trust certification), on opening up industry academies to decrease L&D costs (HR and L&D), ... please think along and respond to the challenges mentioned at the end.

People in high and common places seem to agree that the world is in transition, especially workplace learning, as innovations keep changing what is possible. As I am working on one such an innovation (the skill project of InnoEnergy), I am at the one hand very excited about the new opportunities it might open, yet at the same time concerned that the complexity is bigger than expected.

First: have a look at the demo screencast here. It shows the overall idea, and ... this might immediately give rise to questions.

Today the Business Booster event (TBB) is opened, and with it, the skill project demo is launched. The skillproject (we still need to get a brand name for it), is combining AI and learning for the sustainable energy sector. But in essence, once we get the sustainable energy sector mapped with this tool, others can follow. 

AI and learning? What does it do: the project identifies industry needs (AI-driven), pinpoints emerging skill gaps in the sustainable energy sector (AI-driven), analysis the existing workforce to know where urgent skills gaps are situated (AI-driven) and then refers employees to a personalized learning trajectory addressing their skills gap (part AI, part human support). The goal of this project is to ensure that employees of the sustainable energy sector stay futureproof in a quickly changing working environment. Let's be honest, it sounds cool, but ... the challenges are multiple. 

The emergence of a Learning Engine

The skillproject helps realize the emergence of a learning engine, an intelligent career-oriented engine which knows your own skills and which signposts you to where you want to go with your career by suggesting a personalized learning track.

In the Learning Engine you simply type in “goal: become Director of Innovation’s in offshore wind energy which courses?” and the engine immediately returns a tailored, personalized learning track consisting of a variety of certified, business training from both universities, corporate academies, open educational energy resources and coaching options to send you on your way. This will allow professional learning to surpass the limits of classical, university-based learning.

Challenges

In order to get our engine to come up with the best, most-tailored courses, we need access to industry academies, as well as university courses. 

Learning-to-Learn capacities. Once we signpost learners to a cluster of courses, they need to take them (the familiar 'take the horse to water' comes to mind). But even if the learners are taking the courses, 

Granularity for course clustering: clustering courses to keep on top of your field of expertise is one thing, but then what is the granularity of those courses? Micro-learning is an option, and modular learning will become a clear necessity, as all learners have different existing knowledge, which means they all need different parts in order to upskill what they already know. 

Ensuring pedagogical continuity, even OU finds that a challenge. Great, so let's cluster modules. But then, how can we link these modules together, Do we believe in the non-pedagogical support (e.g. hole in the wall from Sugata Mitra already dates back 10 years), or do we need to find a solution to provide pedagogical continuity that fits with this new assembly of short modules, and courses coming from different sources (both university and industry)?

Certification across the learning ecologies: to blockchain or not to blockchain. Once we start learning across institutes, we need to keep track of that what we learn, by keeping tabs on the actual learning: corporate academy learning, university modules, hands-on training, workplace learning... one solution is to embed blockchain in education to keep track of all learning. But this is easier said than done, and open standards and trust might be an issue to consider (bit of trust initiative offers good reading). 

Feel free to send questions, comments, share your own projects... let's get together.

LiveBlog #Ectel2019 Rose Luckin @Knowldgillusion Keynote #AI & #education mindset

 Rose Luckin takes the stage with a headset and immediately getting into her talk. The talk was very informative and to me it looked as though Rose is so knowledgeable about a range of topics, so I got a bit curious and envious in how her mind works [It I heard - I do not know if this is correct, will ask her ] that she only got into academic life later on in life?

Key topic: develop the right AI mindset for businesses

A perfect storm: data mass plus computing power and memory enhancements, sophisticated algorithms ... this made AI part of our lives and education.

3 routes to Impact on Education

• using AI ED to tackle some of the big educational challenges
• education people about AI so that they can use it safely and effectively
• changing education so that we focus on human intelligence and prepare people for an AI world (hardest to do at the moment)

Working with select committee processes to try and take forward new developments. Debating on 4th industrial revolution and what it means that people understand AI (it is not coding, it is about the humans and their understanding of the fundamentals of machine algorithms, awareness, it is a much higher order we need to engage people with).

Need for multidisciplinary teams with equal input
As change happens, we need to change our educational systems (Singapore). Be resilient to change, be adaptive.
The above are not separate routes, it interconnects, and these interconnections increase AI and that we need to change and invest in our society using emerging ideas and realities of these three buckets.
We need to build bridges between communities: all stakeholders (parents, communities, government, coders...).
Currently separated communities need to work together to build a credible, societaly based AI solution.

Companies working with UCL EDUCATE
Not all companies are already using AI, but they want to understand more about it.
EDUCATE was from Europe, but turning into a global program from Jan 2020.
250 educational study start-ups (each start-up has to have a link with London, but they need to have some profile in London, so most UK-originated).
UCL provides training (labs, clinics, blended rooms, mentoring sessions)
It is free for the companies (years spend on figuring out the gaps between educational departments and industry. This was the case for hard sciences and industry, but not education). A lot of the reasons was because they did not know who to talk to, where to start => reason for starting with start-ups, embedding the educational mindset and to understand more about outcomes and validation of educational projects, so what it means when we say 'it works' (complexities... this results in the golden triangle: edtech developers, teachers & learners, academic researchers).

Start-ups are pushed to build a logic model, and the change being the learning that they want to take place. Opportunities they have to analyze the data, how should they demonstrate impact. We hope they will get to the last stage (see picture).
EdWards are set in place (awards to proof evidence applied and evidence aware awards).
120 companies became evidence aware, and 25 become evidence applied (last being much more difficult to achieve).

EDUCATE for schools
objective: build capacity in schools to identify and evaluate edtech that meets the needs of their teaching, learning or environment.
This approach can work in different educational programs.
Sit down, get head teacher in to pick two or three educational challenges - what they find tricky, than teachers are chosen to test it, to find out how the edtech works.
Currently this is under development:
all resources included in option 1, schools identify new or existing edtech to pilot
EDUCATE provides new resources to help schools plan their edtech pilot,
educate povides video and document resurces to walk schools through the pilot process
schools step through piloting process and recieve one hour of 1:1 video mentoring support
evaluate it (not sure I put this in correctly - this last step)

Sources
Century AI:
AI and big data powers personalised learning
Quipper: video insight, smart study planner, knowledge base
EvidenceB KidsCode : paths through materials, optimised parts through material

classic recommender systems (finding the right resources for the educator/student)
Bibblio
teachpitch

Chatterbox: refugee as expert native speaker with matching backgrounds (e.g. engineering background)
OyaLabs cloudbased monitor in the baby lounge and monitors interactions between baby and its cognitive developments for language developments
MyCognition algorithms automatically increase the number of training loops for the domains where you have the greatest need. If attention is your greatest needs you will receive more attention loops, building resilience in attention. As you progress the loops become more challenging. Looks at your attention, actions... assessment and report, which powers aquasnap and takes you to a underwater world (sea routes, fish names...) and adapted to your own cognitive status.

Building an AI mindset
Important for any company that wants to get into AI
What does it means to have the right data,
not just the tech team must understand the data and AI
as an individual it would be good to understand more about AI

Working with OSTC / ZISHI company: example of AI mindset collaboration. What they do: training for trader floors. They have to train everyone. They try to attract diversity in the workforce and pick them from less evident universities. ZISHI tries to use AI, AI for financial sector.
Financial sector has used AI for some time. AI used for assist in recruiting the best traders, assist in training the traders, help traders in improving performance, mentor the traders through out their careers.

Understanding OSTC's performance metrics

• how can training behavior be measured?
• can we profile traders by their trading behavior?
• how do these profiles relate to performance?
• can we then create a tool to help recruitment a tool to help traders and a tool to help managers?

The CEO of OSTC started out at the post floor of Lloyds and moved up. One's he saw the lack of training, he got into training and set up OSTC. Fundamentally what they try to do is creating AI mindset.

Much is not easy or obvious of what traders do

• what others tell me that I do
• what I think I do
• what I really do
• what family thinks you do...

Workflow
Nearly half their traders left less than one year in. So something was wrong, and investment was too costly for the results in the longterm.
Modeling using machine learning techniques to profile traders and make predictions (recruitment data from tests, interviews and videos, trading history data from trading platforms, multimodal data from eye-movements and button clicks, and behavioral data.
Masses of data from the tools used in the company.

Profiling 4 types of traders, using four identified characteristics:
data visualizations, using clustering techniques.
It turns out that the behavioral patterns relate to significantly different performance (risk management, bonuses... and different cognitive abilities & traits (openness to experiences, agreeableness...) [here my mind went off... must be something related to trader-vocabulary?]

Challenges to IA mindset

• collaboration: is everybody onboard?
• getting rid of AI's sci-fi fantasies and fears
• digging in rich soil will bring out stuff. Are we ready to act upon it?
• the appetite comes with the first byte - be ethically prepared to diet
• data is har to collect, standardize, clean, #you-name-it

Opportunities for IA mindset

• map the organisations' data information knowledge wisdom pyramid (and who is where
• identify data sources: what is ready to be picked, what still needs to be ripened or sown
• what can we learn from previous (successful of failed) experiments or pilots? what hypotheses they already have? what are their blind spots?
• metrics - how do we know what success looks like?

OSTC - lessons

• team members across different tiers need to embrace change
• collect as much data 
• tech team in company not the same as data team
• need new expertise to digitize documenten and learning content
• develop coherent and consistent procedures in all offices across the globe despite the cultural bias
• track the daily activities through logs and multimodal data
• develop tools

Developing an AI mindset

• AI is set to transform education
• three core types of interconnected work: using AI, understanding AI, changing education because of AI
• multi-stakeholder collaboration can help achieve these three types of work
• EDUCATE is an example of a multi-stakeholder collaboration to help develop a research mindset in Edtech developers and educators
• for AI companies, or companies who want to use their data and AI we also need to develop an AI mindset (or perhaps initially a data mindset)
• Academic research partners need to be put in this mix

Barclays provided somebody (eagle) in branches, and they would help people to use technology (from simple to complex) to get people engaged about using and thinking about technology, and how they can get involved.

#mLearn2019 workshop Urban safety and #smart civic #education

liveblog from mLearn2019, so consisting of bits and pieces and notes written during the workshop.

Part 1 by Wim de Jong (OU Netherlands)
Smart solutions for urban problems (design solutions), governance for safety (prevention of crime, policing....) and systemic challenges (eg.polution...).

Can technology foster the fears it tries to combat? (perception and condition of city safety)
How can we counterbalance the bias in current perceptions of safety? (Question from Daniel Spikol).

sources
Safe cities index (2019) here 
Sherlock app (citizens who can help and assist in crime-solving with police - Dutch)
OTT (where are the fights going on?)

Part2 Leadership in smart cities & Open innovation
New paradigm in industrial engineering. A new way to integrate a community for designing things.
Wicked problems (things are connected and affect each other): social instabilities, traffic accidents, environmental pollution, floods...)
Need for innovative solutions
requiring input and expertise of a wide array of people

the innovative ecosystem
focal entity
combination bottom-up & top-down
value capture and creation = difficult and complex
importance of partner alignment => intrinsic motivation

[While following this talk, I see how the framework shared in pictures below can be relevant when looking at #AIED and citizen jury / citizen action ].

Part 2 on #Blockchain in #learning: some points of discussion

This is a second post on Blockchain in learning (specifically for certification, it is referred to as Blockcerts). In the first blogpost on the subject, I took a look at some examples that are currently out there (industry/academia), but in this post, I will have a closer look at the discussions surrounding Blockchain for learning. First I will zoom in on how I see Blockchain certification being the new big brother in an already very structured dominant education system. After that I share a prankster who conned himself into a professorship, then an example from Russia, and to finish the blogpost, a quick overview of one of the major critiques on blockchain. First off: fight the power!

Blockchain the move from freedom to the rigid, dominant system in learning
In history and innovation, there is always the first momentum which feels like liberation and promises a minor or major new Utopia (the emergence of television: education for all right in your living room; Internet: education at our fingertips; MOOCs: free education for all by highly acclaimed institutions, ... and now blockchain: certification for our lifelong learning, right in our mobiles). Blockchain certification is cutting out the middle person and making sure that all transactions move from user-to-user (where the user might be any person or company that is at one end of a transaction). At first, the promise of secure data transition is felt like new freedom to some, but once the technology gets more embedded and used by more people, a more rigorous system kicks in, the dominant system.

To me, it feels like dominant learning is reeling all of us, informal learners, back in, and blockchain certification might just be a strong example. Why would blockchain be a ball-and-chain from the dominant system? Easy, it now stacks formal certification, which means it becomes even more difficult to live and develop outside of the pre-set pathways of life (if you want a professional career that is). Why would this be necessary? Well, not all of us want to pull pranks, not all of us want to live outside of the set boundaries (study, go to uni, work and climb the ladder within a specific branch), but some of us do like a bit of job freedom. I for instance like switching jobs, and retaining some freedom while performing to the best of my abilities.

Our human right to pull pranks within the educational establishment
For me, we - as humans - need the freedom to pull off a prank from time to time. Nothing as big as full-blown fraud, but just something small to satisfy our inner fool.

I remember a prank that Gogol pulled off which actually went against the rigid educational system of his time. Gogol was a famous Russian author using quite a bit of surrealism in his books, eg. The Nose. At a certain point in his life, he could earn enough money, so he was looking for a means to earn money, and he managed to earn a chair as Professor of Medieval History at the University of St. Petersburg, a job for which he had no qualifications. He pulled this off for a year (not giving lectures, keeping all the information very general, and taking exams with a towel wrapped around his so-called toothache, so that he did not have to talk and another professor took the exams of the students. Great! I mean, let's be serious, this is something that makes all of us pranksters laugh. It takes a serious position and turns it into a very human momentum. Let's be honest, no robot or cyborg would do this, only humans can come up with such a beautifully orchestrated prank.

However stupid a fool's words may be, they are sometimes enough to confound an intelligent man. Gogol, Dead Souls.     

Blockchain certification is for idiots who cannot pinpoint real knowledge or expertise
Sometimes Blockchain certification is promoted with: "it takes away the risk of hiring someone who has not gotten the degrees that the person says they have". So what? If you cannot tell if someone had or didn't have an education based on what they deliver in terms of work, it sure means they were intelligent enough to really grasp those skills and experiences in their own way. If they cannot pull it off, it does not matter whether they had the qualifications in a formal way or not either, because if they cannot do the job, no matter which qualifications they have, you will fire them. So in a way certification is only a fools tool within a dominant system that agrees it is too difficult to distinguish real earned certification versus fraudulently earned certification. Or is it?

Universities are no longer on top of the educational ladder: the Russian implementation
In my previous post, I mentioned a couple of Blockchain certification options, but since then I came across a more advanced blockchain in learning example, and it is a Russian implementation called Disciplina. This platform combines education (including vocational training), recruiting (comparable with what LinkedIn is doing with its economic graph) and careers for professionals. All of this is combined into a blockchain solution that keeps track of all the learners' journey. The platform includes not only online courses as we know it but also coaching. After each training, you get a certificate.
TeachMePlease, which is a partner of Disciplina, enables teachers and students to find each other for specific professional training as well as curriculum-related children's schooling. Admittedly, these initiatives are still being rolled out in terms of courses, but it clearly shows where the next learning will be located: in an umbrella above all the universities and professional academies. At present, the university courses are being embedded into course offerings by corporations that roll out a layer post-university, or post-vocational schooling.

Europe embraces blockchain, as can be seen with their EU Blockchain observatory and forum. And in a more national action, Malta is storing their certifications in a blockchain nationwide as well. We cannot deny that blockchain is getting picked up by both companies and governments. Universities have been piloting several blockchain certification options, and they also harbor some of the leading voices in the debate on blockchain certification.

Major critique on Public Blockchains for learning
First of all, and prominently present, is Serge Ravet. He is co-author of the Bologna Open Recognition Declaration, founding partner of the Open Recognition Alliance, which already offers a good deal of interesting blockchain for learning related reading. On his learning futures blog, Serge wrote a couple of articles on why he thinks that blockchain for learning is not the way to go and is, in fact, solving a false problem. http://www.learningfutures.eu/2019/01/its-about-trust-stupid-why-blockchain-based-blockcerts-are-the-wrong-solution-to-a-false-problem-0-3/ . While going head-on, he pinpoints the real actor behind the EU blockchain observatory and forum, he then goes on to state that blockchain promotion is based on the promotion of the idea of distrust. When I read this, I concurred to the notion, as indeed there is another way to certify education and learning, that is by using the Web of Trust.

The blockchain is sometimes presented as the new panacea needed to heal the wrongs of the world. It is not just superficial, it is plain wrong: some applications of blockchain technologies can make things worse than they were, like the Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies that are not just boosting traditional criminal activities but enabling new ones, not to mention global warming. (It’s about Trust, Stupid! Why Blockchain-based BlockCerts are the wrong solution to a false problem (0/3) by Serge Ravet)

In his follow-up post Serge zooms in on the economic-dimension of using blockchains, notably the actual risk of erasing regulatory bodies, and one of the most irregulated markets, the cryptocurrency market. He states:

The rationale for the initial development of blockchain technologies like Bitcoins, was to solve the problem of double spending while simultaneously:

• Getting rid of regulatory bodies — the dream of the proponents of anarcho-capitalism also called libertarian anarchy, one of the ideologies widely shared between the alt-right, Trump and Silicon Valley (c.f. their track-record in tax dodging).
• Getting rid of the need for trusted authorities to secure transactions — which resulted in creating an ecosystem that works best when everybody is at war with everybody. Trust is a mortal sin as trust between the [blockchain] miners could lead to collusion and cheating. 

 This puts a large part of society in a precarious position, as blockchains are pushed as being secure, while actually not only cutting away the middle man, but also the regulators, and the only ones really benefitting from having no regulators are those in power.

Another well-known downside of blockchains is their impact on global warming (definitely regulators needed there).

Public blockchains based on Proof of Work (PoW) are actively contributing to global warming—Bitcoin operations consume the annual energy of New Zealand, and growing! (It’s about Trust, Stupid! Why Blockchain-based BlockCerts are the wrong solution to a false problem (1/3) by Serge Ravet.

He also dispels the blockchain myth in pointing to how easy it is to get funding if you use 'blockchain' in any type of way.
What I really like, and often think, is that there is not always a need for blockchain. There are other options that do the job you want and have less impact on the climate, as well as less impact on society (so keeping it a low risk).

When addressing blockchain for certification, he hits on similar ideas as I did in the beginning of this post (though Serge uses a much more literary and blockchain-tech angle). And he uses some bitter wit as well:

The blockcert-authors want to use blockchains to reinvent the teaching machine that B. F. Skinner imagined for humans out of his extensive study of pigeons. But with an interesting twist this time: the positive reinforcement is not for the students, but the teachers; and it is financial! ... If the goal is to “enable a wave of innovation” what kind of innovation could emerge from making credentials “cryptographically signed, tamper-proof, and shareable”? The only innovation here is in using a new technology to improve paper-based credentials. We had a piece of paper, a static piece of information that is now a digital record, just as well a static piece of information, but easier to share and more difficult to tamper with.

When reading this last paragraph, it dawned on me that blockchain certification might well be a contemporary version of the Emperors New Clothes. Ah, so that means blockcerts might be a prank after all?! That idea feels satisfying, I no longer need to search a viable product for my project... or do I ? 

#Blockchain in #learning exploring for #validation of lifelonglearning #certification

This is the first part of a series on Blockchain for Learning posts. In this post I am giving my (current) overview of Blockchain options from industry, a second post will focus more on the academic side (including impact on universities), and I will add a philosophical post on it as well).

Background and project

As I am working on the learning bit of the skills 3.0 project (a multi-disciplinary project combining AI, HR, learning and learning certification, see basic slides here), I have been gathering some Blockchain-for-Learning solutions as well (exploring options before adding them to the project slides). 

Main idea for using Blockchain (open or closed) for learning

What I am looking for is a stackable certification solution, which blockchain for learning or education can provide. This stackable way of organising or linking learning could enable a validated, personalized certification procedure covering both formal learning (e.g. certification, degrees, micro-credits) and informal learning (e.g. badges, skills, experiences). Practically: each learner has a learning wallet or portfolio, and you - as a learner - can add each learning step as you 'earn' it and you are issued a certificate/badge of what you learned by a learning authority/individual/group).  

Why is this useful?

Remember how each one of us has to give proof of learning whenever we want to change jobs, or when HR sets up these profiles that are so complex, that you wonder whether you will ever fit in? Well, in an ideal world this blockchain-for-learning solution might shed some light on both your formal credits, as well as your experiences throughout life and even your emerging interests (e.g. blockchain basics). It is a bit like a LifeLongLearning Accreditation On Steroids. 

So the blocks of this blockchain would be all instances where you learn, this could be study hours, but also workshops, reading, interactions with experts, papers, patents, peer groups of practitioners ... 
The idea is to support personalized learning when people are reskilling or upskilling their competencies and knowledge and adding a layer to it so their training and learning can be certified in a secure and digital fashion. 

Its technology, so there are heated debates

With all new technology, the heated debates emerge as well: what is the best, what are the upsides, who is a true believer, who is a true cynic... all of this I keep for a post later on this month. For now, just to give an idea, I am focusing on what is out there. Which is more than I had imagined. 

Blockchain you say? 

Any transaction between different parties where the transactions need to be validated, and they are distributed across locations fit the blockchain technology. The data is distributed over a massive amount of people, which would make tracking all the transactions very complex if done manually. Blockchain automates these transactions, and in many cases, they use distributed databases, as well as smart contracts to enable transactions. A smart contract is a computer protocol intended to digitally facilitate, verify, or enforce the negotiation or performance of a contract. Smart contracts allow the performance of credible transactions without third parties. These transactions are trackable and irreversible (it being irreversible is one of the topics of debate, for instance, even if you are the author, you cannot change the transaction... so how does this fit in with Personal Data?). However, there is one important factor: the learner should be the one in charge of who can see what from his 'learning experiences and certification', which means she can give or revoke access to personal records. 

A great white paper on it (53 pages), called My Skills Project, written by John Casey from City of Glasgow College is a good read to get acquinted with blockchain for learning, focusing on vocational training (great read!). 

Some features that I feel are key:

• Privacy (well, yes)
• Learner is the owner of all data (others might be as well, but intermittent, while the learner is the owner of all their data. Right to be forgotten is also important, but seems difficult at this point - says my colleague Frederik who knows more about blockchain tech).
• mobile first (you would think this is a given, but ... it still is not).
• Standardization (otherwise it becomes difficult to achieve lifelong learning traceability)
• Bridging formal and informal: this demands a variety of validated certification, including micro-credits, open badges and the like.

Giving some examples of products out there or in progress

Chainscript demo by Phil Komarny (Chainscript from SalesForce): in just 5 minutes Phil gives an overview and live (!) demo of the chainscript on mobile (oh yes!).

SmartDegrees: a mobile tool developed in Spain (the app already exists and has been rolled out in some Spanish Universities, a.o. Carlos III in Madrid). Because this solution seems (at least) a good starting point, I have a meeting with one of its people next week (looks promising, you can see a 2-minute video of what smartDegrees does here, but only in Spanish at the moment). 

A great comprehensive overview of Blockchain overall and with practical implementations in education comes from the Open University (UK), which looks at their plans for smart contracts, micro-accreditation, open badges, ... great 9-minute video. It is John Domingue (director of KMI at the OU) who speaks, and he has just been awarded the fellowship of the British Blockchain Association. 

LearningMachine: from MIT lab, and the good old W3C credentials community group, LearningMachine emerged. This is a full product in market, fully self-sovereign identity. But not sure how open they are to non-classic accreditation, although their video does include 'skills equivalencies' but not sure of the peer recommendations or fully informal learning options. They seem to be more focused on formal education (from government, university, companies). Their 2-minute mobile app can be seen in action here.

Standard-oriented information
CIMEA is the Italian Blockchain for qualifications standard. Their certification wallet service is called Diplo Me, which is still under construction.

DigiCerts is the German counterpart for Blockchain certification standards.

Blockcerts, subtitled "the open standard for blockchain certificates" is a service connected to Learning Machine, and also works towards a standard in an Alliance of major universities (which makes it feel mostly formal in certification). 

Europe is developing a standard embedded in its Digital Education Action Plan, called "framework for digitally-signed credentials". (pdf-document) A mostly theoretical approach, but of interest as it will be linked to Europass and such.

And of course the laudable Open Badges, used by multiple organisations (e.g. The Open University) to certify informal learning (I love this one, but it is of course going against the dominant system).

Some additional sources

Accredible is another, with UK, Netherlands and USA offices. They work across LMS systems, so they seem more LMS oriented. A lot of reading to get the idea, but nice reading. This is more like a certification publisher, not an active certification wallet option. 

The American, Public University system has blockchain lined up as well, but I could not find a bigger description of their project. 

Blockchain is a hot topic, so there is a multitude of courses out there, but one that seems to specialize is the Blockchain Training Alliance . They do not seem to offer specific Blockchain products though.

There are also some standards being developed (nice to keep in mind when wanting to use blockchain in a later stage):

Then there are a couple of blockchain companies who haven't developed a Blockchain for learning solution, but seem to be eager to explore the field:

T-mining (Belgium) - working with Frederik to explore which solution would fit my need best, great people to talk to. 

Wallet services 

Learnovate (Ireland, connected to Trinity College Dublin), wrote a piece about it here.

Looking forward to getting a more in-depth look at these, and considering some of the more academic and philosophic ideas paralleling this technology. If you know of any other solutions, feel free to add them as a comment, or let me know. 

(picture from OpenBlockChain from UK)

Page for #IDVmatrix on #LMS description and setting it amidst other tools

picture by Giulia Forsythe

In the past year I have been adding some Instructional Design descriptions in my notebook. After I while I realized that something useful could come out of this very varied collection, so now I am putting some of these pages online (the Instructional Design Variation matrix or IDVmatrix). The idea is to grow a compendium of these pages, adding parameters that are meaningful in ID to each of those learning/teaching design elements, and eventually use these parameters as a matrix to use on the job. I will only write them here, and add the #IDVmatrix hashtag for easy recall once these pages grow. The reason behind these pages is to create a contemporary overview of Instructional Design options that are out there, and to build an instrument that allows you to quickly screen whether other ID-options can be used that reflect the same parameters you are looking for (taking into account your target learning population). The collection will have standard ID-tools (e.g. authoring tools, LMS, MOOCs...) as well as more contemporary learning and teaching tools (e.g. chatbots, machine learning, ...). The template I will follow is simple: short description (as brief as possible while allowing main features to be addressed), a segment on who uses it and how (of course that will be a not exhaustive), referring to some examples, important features to keep in mind, and finally adding a matrix stamp to it (taking into account the 5 parameters I think are relevant to structuring educational tools. And trying to add some meaningful, possibly EdTech critical pictures as a bonus. First one: a classic: the LMS.

Learning Management System (LMS)

Learning Management Systems (LMS, also related to Content Management or Course Management Systems) come in many variations, but generally they offer a digital environment to facilitate, support and design online or blended instruction. an LMS offers content structuring options (put specific modules online, sometimes integrate a learning path into those courses), quiz-options (including a question-database with a variety of quiz-options), and communication services between the learners, the facilitators, the course managers ... or all of the learning stakeholders.
The LMS is pre-programmed. In some cases this means the complete system is programmed (e.g. Blackboard, WIZiq), and you - as a course provider - can only customize specific features, but in other cases you can customize a big part of the system (due to open source code), including some programming that you do yourself (e.g. Drupal, Moodle). Some smaller LMSs offer a more specialized and valuable option, e.g. Curatr which emphasizes the social learning factor. Some LMS also include course libraries, or you - the institute - can build an open, LMS supported library to offer support to your learners.
Normally these systems are self-contained, but with options to integrate other tools to align the LMS with contemporary learning realities (e.g. integrate instagram, twitter). Although some LMS are free, you need to consider the cost of server space, programming some features, supporting all users, and keeping the system up and running 24.7.
Who uses it: learners, teachers, trainers, course coordinators, ... each on their own level. Normally user rights can be allocated within the LMS. Depending on the role, the LMS will offer a different experience (back-end mostly for course-delivery people, and front-end for the learner). 
Important features to keep in mind while choosing a LMS: security features are very important as a LMS generates a lot of learner data and communications traffic. A mobile app is a must, test it on multiple devices to estimate the quality of the app. Offline features will make life much easier for learners. SCORM options make life easier for any instructional designer, and xAPI features will allow the educators/facilitators to make meaningful analysis from all the learner data.
IDVmatrix stamp

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. 

Part 1: creating voice-activated #ID #learning #Alexa #smartclass #elearning

In this first post on the topic, I share how I installed Alexa, using a basic smarthome skill (Philips Hue) and some features that increase or limit Alexa’s search returns (e.g. playing Spanish podcasts via free radio).

Testing the Amazon Echo Dot
The last couple of weeks I have been enthusiastically using the Amazon Echo Dot (which answers to Alexa). I am trying to setup a voice operated learning hub (well, as much as possible in a relatively cheap and simple way). With each step, I will keep you updated and share what works, what did not work, and which unexpected hurdles needed to be solved. In following episodes I want to use some coding options for additional Alexa skills, combine the Echo dot with an Arduino board as well as a Raspberry Pi to see what can be done with relatively cheap computer boards, and of course in relation to IFTTT and for specific voice operated IFTTT.

Why? Because with all the Fab Labs emerging (you can locate your nearest fablab using this map), I wanted to see how much of that could be built at my home (as I will be mostly home based for the next couple of months), so I might as well work on making my home into a fab lab or at least a smart learning hub.  The Echo dot has been used in classrooms using its basic functionality, but also for some special ed purposes for communication skill practice for children withautism.

I bought my Alexa with last year’s frequent flyer miles (made it much cheaper), but you can also buy it from Amazon for 40 $  or Amazon UK for 49 £. This does mean I got the German version of the Alexa, but as I can read and understand German, that was something I could start with. Once it was installed, I could switch to English. I also got two Philips Hue light bulbs, as they would enable me to test out the smart home part of the Alexa. By using this simple Alexa in combination with existing objects (things) that react to an impulse coming either from a mobile, voice or other object, it becomes easier to feel what the Internet of Things (IoT) is really like.
With a new online course in the back of my mind (working title of the course 'instructional and learning design examples, with added academic background information'), I want to explore a more meaningful application of this Amazon Echo Bot learning hub setup.

Installing Alexa
This is super simple, and only requires an internet connection and a mobile. The mobile app (either Android  or iTunes store ) is used to control Alexa and possible other devices, e.g. the Philips Hue, Nest thermostat….

As Alexa is voice-activated, it depends on specific language. In the Amazon Echo dot I bought, it was either English (you can choose American or British English) or German. My German is not that active, so I have installed my Alexa for British English use, also because I want to install specific skills on it. Skills are conversational applications that allow you to ‘ask’ Alexa something specific and then – hopefully – get a meaningful answer in return, so a skill connects to end users via the conversational Amazon Echo platform. Reddit features anice list of skills here once you have decided to add a skill, go to the Alexa app and add it to your skills.

The name Amazon Echo Dot says it: this device is a home device that will want you to buy more from Amazon. It uses Amazon prime to play music (paid service, I don’t use it, so will share other free options soon), and you can buy a list of options from Amazon, which is why I immediately deselect the buying option in the Amazon device, I do not want to order something buy mistake or simply because some of my Flemish sounds like “Alexa, buy a supersonic airplane from Amazon”…. And it does happen that Alexa thinks I am asking her something, as she has returned uninvited answers during regular conversations at the dinner table. There is some commotion on Alexa spying, if interested you can read upon these here.

Basic Alexa features
Alexa can be used for some basic options:

• Ask a question (answer found via Bing browser)
• Ask what the weather is like (still some limitations on regions, but if you add your own town in an English voice it can give you the weather there… my town is called Aalter, it took a while before I could get the weather forecast for that particular very Flemish town.
• Ask a silly question (Alexa sing a song, do the dishes…)
• Play music (mostly paid service, but free, easy option below)
• Make a to do list (“Alexa, add write blogpost to my to do list” afterwards ask “Alexa what is my to do list”)
• Make a shopping list.
• Set a timer (“Alexa, set a timer for 10 minutes”).

In case you are not a native English speaker
If you are not a native English speaker, it is good to use Google translate, type in your word or the words you are looking for, then push the speaker button to hear how it is pronounced. After that you can choose either to perfect your English-speaking voice, or you can say 'Alexa', and type in 'search google for X' into google translate and push the audio button again to have the English version of what you are looking for. I confess, it takes a bit of practising to get a fluent mix of both actions (speaking and pushing button on time).
First steps in a smart home/learning hub
First I bought two Philips Hue lights and one Hue bridge  to get the lights to work on voice-command. That works well with the skill of Philips Hue, which you need to install to get Alexa working with it. The Philips Hue lights need to be installed with one ‘Hue Bridge’ per 50 light bulbs. This means you need to have an internet connected bridge to manipulate the Hue lights either through Alexa or through the Hue mobile app. You need to install the lights and turn on the lights first in order to be able to control them from a distance. With the Hue mobile app you can group the lights together per room, making it easier to tell Alexa which lights to turn on or off (btw you can also operate them from any location, so you can trick your partner in turning off the lights unexpectedly…. Well…. If they do not mind that joke…).

The process is simple and indicative of how the Alexa Echo Dot works:

• Address Alexa by saying her name out loud,
• Speak specific command (a command is a coded speech operand that triggers Alexa to do something specific): e.g. “Alexa, turn on lights living room” or “play Singing in the Rain’ by Gene Kelly
• And then wait for Alexa to return an answer, or in this case play that specific song.

Learning podcasts, using radio feature
Alexa is linked to Amazon, so some features simply do not work for free (no free music, as Alexa’s options are Amazon prime or Spotify pro) and the search option is linked to Bing, which does not always return useful answers. But if you like music, you can find it without having to resort to any skill by using the command “Alexa play TuniIn [followed by the name of your preferred TuneIn radio station].

e.g. “Alexa, play TuneIn Learn Spanish - SpanishPod101.com” which triggers the latest podcast of this radio station.

You can find a list of radio stations here: https://tunein.com/

Next post on this topic will be on installing a skill that you customize using Amazon Web Services and Amazon Developer services (but with the help of 'the people who know'). 

Top 10 open access papers from 2017 @nidl_dcu #research #onlinelearning #open

The National Institute for Digital Learning in Dublin (NIDL), Ireland has listed what they see as the top 10 open access articles worth reading in 2017 here (with a small abstract for each). All the top reads are featured in open access journals with high quality criteria. The paper by Perkins and Lowenthal is of interest, as they ranked open access journals. I have the impression open access is (luckily!) still on the rise. Unfortunately, open access papers are rarely seen as a valuable career move for early to experienced researchers.The NIDL launched the top papers one by one through twitter @NIDL_DCU .

Last year one of my co-authored papers with Aras Bozkurt (who was also a top author in the 2017 papers!) and Nilgün Ozdamar Keskin entitled Research Trends in Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) Theses and Dissertations: Surfing the Tsunami Wave was part of the top 10 reads for 2016 (which we only found out just now *blush*). For those wanting to read the full list of 2016 articles, feel free to find them listed here.

These are the 10 publications that NIDL has considered for the 2017 list, although it needs to be stressed that there are many other journal articles worthy of consideration and further evaluation depending on your specific interests:

No. 1: Blended Learning Citation Patterns And Publication Networks Across Seven Worldwide Regions

Authors: Kristian Spring & Charles Graham Journal: Australasian Journal of Educational Technology

No. 2 Review and Content Analysis of International Review of Research in Open and Distance/Distributed Learning (2000–2015)

Authors: Olaf Zawacki-Richte, Uthman Alturki & Ahmed Aldraiweesh
Journal: International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning

No. 3 Trends and Patterns in Massive Open Online Courses: Review and Content Analysis of Research on MOOCs (2008-2015)

Authors: Aras Bozkurt, Ela Akgün-Özbek, & Olaf Zawacki-Richter
Journal: International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning

No. 4 Theories and Frameworks for Online Education: Seeking an Integrated Model

Author: Anthony G Picciano
Journal: Online Learning Journal 

No. 5 A Critical Review of the Use of Wenger’s Community of Practice (CoP) Theoretical Framework in Online and Blended Learning Research, 2000-2014

Authors: Sedef Uzuner Smith, Suzanne Hayes & Peter Shea
Journal: Online Learning Journal

No. 6 Refining Success and Dropout in Massive Open Online Courses Based on the Intention–behavior Gap

Authors: Maartje A. Henderikx, Karel Kreijns & Marco Kalz
Journal: Distance Education

No. 7 Special Report on the Role of Open Educational Resources in Supporting the Sustainable Development Goal 4: Quality Education Challenges and Opportunities

Author: Rory McGreal
Journal: International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning

No. 8 A National Study of Online Learning Leaders in US Higher Education

 Author: Eric Fredericksen
Journal: Online Learning Journal

No. 9 Bot-teachers in Hybrid Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs): A post-Humanist Experience

Authors: Aras Bozkurt, Whitney Kilgore & Matt Crosslin
Journal: Australasian Journal of Educational Technology

No. 10 Gamifying Education: What is Known, What is Believed and What Remains Uncertain: A Critical Review

Authors: Christo Dichev and Darina Dicheva
Journal: International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education

Great reads, each one of them.

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 

360 camera use in online/blended courses #elearning #IDesign #MOOC

Sometimes simple instructional design tools can add to the efficiency of learning in an online or blended course. One of the simple options is using a 360° camera to immerse learners in a specific setting providing a more indepth learning context. Creating, using and providing a 360° experience has a long standing use especially with artists who wanted to use multiple visual angles to create a more captivating piece of art using multiple mirrors.

At the same time, using 360° cameras to give contemporary (MOOC) learners a better idea of what is meant by specific descriptions is now being fully tested in online courses. The real-life example provided a bit further down, relates to a MOOC on Climbing and the effect of using 360° videos to instruct online learners (comparing fully online with blended learners and the effect of those videos... really great research read!).

Description 

The 360° camera is a camera which records or captures visuals in a 360° field (so the entire sphere). This offers the viewer the ability to move through the full panorama by choosing a specific or multiple viewing directions, using either a keyboard, pointers or by simply tilting their head in the direction they want to view when using Virtual Reality glasses.

360° camera functionality

As a 360 degrees camera will allow you to capture a scene or setting with a 360° angle, this means you - as a learner - can manipulate what you see with your keyboard or mobile phone buttons and get a full visual overview of ... for instance an engineering plant, the inside of an ambulance which is filled with medical equipment, a specific controller room, an event where all of the surrounding areas are of importance to the learner... all shown from one particular point in that space (that being where the picture or movie is taken) but enabling the learner to shift through that space to see all of the potentially interesting features as they can be seen in real life.

An example of this can be seen here, which depicts a room at the Gaudi Exhibition Center in Barcelona, Spain, where I took a picture of a historical artist set-up for 3D capturing (old style). You can see the whole room by using the pointers at the bottom of the picture frame.

Today the 360° camera can be purchased at a reasonable price (e.g. Ricoh Theta S) which allows you to make pictures as well as 360 degrees videos. Although these more reasonably priced camera's come with some restrictions (e.g. size of the videos), they are a good testing board to see what you can do with such a device. Once you realise its applications, you can consider implementing it in a bigger online or blended course.

When to use this tool

A 360 degrees learning element is of use in any situation that demands a full surround understanding of a certain context. If you are looking for an instructional decor which has multiple elements all gathered in one space, or related to each other in a space, than this is the way to go. Providing a 360 overview of such spaces enables the learner to grasp all the elements influencing each other. For instance if you are a medic in an ambulance, you need to know where to find specific equipment in a moments notice in order to save the life of the patients. At the same time the driver of the ambulance can benefit from a 'real life' drive through traffic after picking up a patient, and see which traffic situations (being able to see full street coverage) to watch out for while having a patient in the back.

Example of implementing 360° video in online and blended learning

A great research example can be read in this paper shared and co-authored by Martin Ebner.
Abstract:

In this research study a course, combining both computer-supported and face-to-face teaching using the concept of blended learning, has been designed. It is a beginners climbing course called “Klettern mit 360° Videos“ (climbing with 360° videos) and the online part has been implemented as a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC). This research study presents the background of the course, the course concept, the course itself and the results of the evaluation. To measure the difference between the pure online participants and the blended learning participants the MOOC has been evaluated independently from the blended learning course. It should be mentioned that all participants (whether pure online or both) evaluated the course in a positive manner. The use of technology enhanced learning realized by the concept of blended learning proved to be a well-suited method for this course setting. Furthermore, many advantages of computer based learning, blended learning and 360°-videos have been reported by the participants.

Free mLearning eBook: Mobilizing and supporting educator practice #mLearning

At the mLearn2017 in Cyprus, a free and useful eBook was launched by the International Association for Mobile Learning (IAmLearn). It is a free book entitled 'Mobilizing and supporting educator practice', edited by top mLearning experts (Robert Power, Mohamed Ally, Dean Cristol and Agnieszka Palalas) and as such available to all. They even have a download button (tucked away in the table of contents tab) where you can download the free book as a PDF, right here. The other download formats are ePub and mobi (great!).

Description (from their own website)

"Teachers are more likely to experiment with and integrate mobile learning strategies if they feel confident in their ability to do so. Professional development resources and activities that focus on making instructional design decisions can help to increase teachers’ confidence with mobile learning. Teachers have indicated that a community of practice would also help them to increase their confidence with mLearning. To that end, mobile learning experts and practitioners from the International Association for Mobile Learning (IAmLearn) have prepared this open access eBook to help create such a community of practice."

The chapters in this book are useful for researchers implementing mobile learning (eg. 6 mobile learning theories!), but above all to educators, as each chapter gives a clear description of what you - as an educator - can do and specifically, the authors added digital extra's (although I did not get the tub-tub app to work). Yes, those are ready to use in a classroom or training setting (eg. https://iamlearning.pressbooks.com/chapter/digital-extras-activity-1/ using the jigsaw method).

The table of contents:

Ch 1: MALL Gains, Barriers, and Opportunities

Mobile Application Use to Support Vocabulary Knowledge in a Japanese High School: Learning Gains, Barriers, and Opportunities

Digital Extras - Supplementary Materials


Ch 2: Enhancing Residential Student Leadership Training with AR mLearning

Enhancing Residential Student Leadership Training with Appropriate Augmented Reality mLearning Trail Design

Digital Extras - Teacher and Student Testimonials

Ch 3: Resourceful Instructors & Students

Resourceful instructors and students: Overcoming barriers to integrating mobile tools

Digital Extras - The Course Assistance App


Ch 4: Teacher Training and PD in Mobile Pedagogy for English Language Teaching

Teacher Training and Professional Development in Mobile Pedagogy for English Language Teaching

Digital Extras - Tasks and Guidelines for Teacher Development Questions
Digital Extras - Activity 1
Digital Extras - Activity 2
Digital Extras - Reflection Activities


Ch 5: Moving to Seamless Learning

Moving to Seamless Learning: A Framework for Learning Using Multiple Devices

Digital Extras - Appendix 5.1


Ch 6: An mLearning Toolset

An mLearning Toolset for Leveraging Learning Theory
Six Learning Theories
The Analytical Tools

Digital Extras - Design Rubrics
Digital Extras - The Digital Analyzer


Additional Resources:
The Collaborative Situated Active Mobile (CSAM) Learning Design Framework
CSAM References
The Mobile Teacher's Sense of Efficacy Scale (mTSES)
mTSES References

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.