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.

5 week free xAPI course by experts, starting 26 May 2016 #xAPI

Online xAPI course, provided by the xAPI developers. You can pre-register for the course now, and it goes live from the 26 May 2016 (until 30 June). Full details are available on Course Hubpage on the Curatr website. Join this MOOC to explore both the technical realities and the strategic possibilities of the xAPI. If you want to write your first xAPI statement and understand the difference between an Activity Type and a Context Extension, this is the place to be. Equally, if neither of these things mean a darn thing, we are the community that will help you make sense out of your data strategy, and your roadmap for the medium term. This MOOC will be open to contribution and allow you to explore the content and conversations that best fit your needs. Starting late-May, the course will run for 5 weeks with full facilitation and a series of live events throughout June, and then remain open for the rest of the year. The conversation has already started on Twitter,  using the course ID as a hashtag #LearnxAPI – so why not head over to see what’s being said and to lend your voice to the conversation. Here’s a quick rundown of what you can expect:

Demo access to the next version of Learning Locker We’re running a demo version of Learning Locker v2 alongside this MOOC and you can connect up your activity to the LRS to get a feel for the next generation of Learning Locker. V2 isn’t ready for Open Source release yet, so you’re getting a head-start on the crowd by joining the MOOC. Format & Events Same as last year, we’ll be running two streams - one that covers xAPI strategy, and another which focuses on technical aspects. We go live on Thursday May 26 to give you a few days to get started on the material before starting up 4 weeks of live events where we’ll be taking a more in-depth look at some of the key themes with a number of experts from across the globe: Week 1 - Megan Torrance shares her been-there-done-that advice on getting started with the xAPI without breaking the bank   Week 2 - Sean Putman steers you through your xAPI-conformant Authoring Tool options, sharing best practice and advice along the way   Week 3 - James Ballard gives a view from down-under, discussing xAPI adoption in the Asia Pacific region and how vendors are working with clients to adopt more xAPI-enabled technologies Week 4 - Aaron Silvers updates on the new Data Interoperability Standards Consortium (DISC) which aims to bring standardised conformance testing to ensure that vendors saying they ‘do’ xAPI, really do know their stuff.

Welcome to Learn xAPI 2016 #learnxAPI from HT2 on Vimeo.

Debut video capture software, free option #media #screencapture

With my new laptop installed, I am now slowly catching up on my private software tools that make my life as an online learning provider/researcher/speaker easy. Today I decided to (finally) capture one of my keynotes, so I could use that recording for future speaking opportunities. Sometimes conference organizers demand that you send them a video of one of your public speaking events, as such having some relevant talks at my fingertips makes it easier to fill in my speaker data. 

To capture this video, I wanted to have a very user-friendly screen capture software, that would allow me to quickly edit the movie clip, as well as ensure its video and audio quality. In my first search, I found a link to the debut video capture software, which has a free download option for private use (download can be found here). The tool needed to run on Windows 10 (which it does, as well as Mac OS X 10.4), and I always look at the latest update date... to me it reflects some kind of durability. Debut's latest version update was in January 2016, so I downloaded it to give it a try. I really liked it. Once I downloaded the software, it only took me about 5 minutes to figure out its options, and adjust the settings (encoder, format...) to my own preferences. As I need to be able to deliver media for different screen sizes and purposes (mobile, online learning), I like a full set of options to set before exporting the edited video. 

The tool offers some simple, yet frequently used video capturing features:

• Record videos as avi, wmv, flv, mpg, mp4, mov and more video formats
• Capture video from a webcam, network IP camera or video input device (e.g., VHS recorder)
• Screen capture software records the entire screen, a single window or any selected portion
• Mouse highlighting spotlights the location of the cursor
• Record video alone or video and audio simultaneously
• Record audio from your microphone and speakers simultaneously, ideal for recording video conferences
• Time lapse video recording
• Create photo snapshots of a video at any time
• Add your own text captions or time stamp your video
• Change color settings and video effects before recording
• Adjust the video resolution, size and frame rate for capture
• (free, but it does demand a download) Burn directly to DVD with Express Burn Disc Burner
• (free, but it does demand a download) Works with VideoPad Video Editor Software

It was also easy to edit the movie afterwards, including adding captions (always easy if you want to translate a short video). A truly nice experience, and quick. There is also a paid option for professional use, which is also very low cost (29 EUR). 

Changing the #twitterheart to X via simple coding

When twitter first changed the star into heart, I could not be bothered. Although I must admit I did follow some of the discussions (one from Kate Bowles here).

Software is always biased and represents the cultural and philosophical background of the developer/s (nice overview paper from Friedman and Nissenbaum, 1996, but also a lot articles, latest one from Gizmodo on job application software). This is also true for the symbols socmed companies use, in this case the #twitterheart. But when tweaking of those symbols becomes really simple it becomes a pleasure to change the symbols used... oh Yes.

Vicky Curtis got me on to this nice and simple Chrome/Firefox extension tweak to change the twitter heart into something you like. (tough part: finding a symbol you want to use... I went for a mobile phone.

The idea comes from Robert McNees who shared a full code via Github here. But this is a bit of work, a simplified version was offered by Adam Clark Estes from Gizmodo in an overview article, focusing on a simple addition of coded lines to a browser extension (either chrome/firefox), which only takes 6 steps to get the twitter heart replaced by an emoji (= character or symbol) of your choice. Neat!

Now, because I combined the article of Adam Clark Estes with the updated coding from Robert McNees = @McNees , I will add the steps I used in this post. Btw, at the end I also choose the "URL's that start with' option to add behind the 'applies to' option inside of the Stylish extension. So here it goes:

Step 1: Download the Stylish extension for Chrome or Firefox. (There are a host of other extensions to restyle the web, but Stylish is super easy to use.)

Step 2: Open Stylish (= click on the 'Manage installed styles' option within the Browser icon of Stylish for a new window to open, then click on 'write new style' - button)

Step 3: paste the wonderful code from Robert McNees into that new style window, find the code here at Github. 

Step 4: change the standard emoji, with the emoji of your preference (you can search for images of emoji and then copy paste them into the code).

Step 5: In the “Applies to:” field below the code, choose the option 'URL's that start with' (otherwise you only get the changes for twitter.com and not your own tweets).

Step 6: Click Save and your twitter should be updated with your own emoji.  

My biggest difficulty was finding the right emoji... still not sure about my simple X... and there seems to be some hearts still not adjusted, but getting there. And in the meantime, chaos in symbols is adding some diversity. 

Write, create, curate and collaborate: preparing for #digiWriMo

Great initiative to combine digital writing and creativity all through the month of November 2015. I learn by writing. It always feels like the movement of my fingers on my keyboard makes me think more clearly, and even pushes thoughts right into the open. So this Digital Writing Month initiative (#DigiWriMo), organised by the Hybrid Pedagogy bloggers (Maha Bali, Sarah Honeychurch, and Kevin Hogdson), is right up my alley. The #DigiWriMo will push people to engage in digital writing and creativity during the month of November. The frequency is left to your own preference, even the choice to make your writings public or not is up to you. The definition of writing is also very open (though digital): it can be any narrative making media: drawing, video, audio, text...

So here it is: if you ever had an idea about writing (making use of whichever digital media, and for an idea that can be either big or as small), this is the moment to test it out. It is simple and open. 

My addition to #DigiWriMo: I will be able to test out a strand of writing that has been sitting in my mind for months: imagine future daily life, and connect it with current digital, learning options. Breadcrumbs from here to the future... To prepare I am listing a number of topics already... oh, nice initiative!

Get subscribed through the designated website: http://www.digitalwritingmonth.com/ 

Or get into all or some of the online communities (or not, as I said, they are really open with this initiative, open to all of us), what they provide as guidance and locations:

How Does One DigiWriMo?

1. There are no secrets to doing DigiWriMo, no right way and no wrong way to do it. Some people may write a novel using their computer and call it a day; while others may write hundreds of Twitter haiku. The key to success is your imagination and your love of experimentation, exploration, and fun. Along the way, check out our regular prompts and guest posts for inspiration.
2. Prepare to join the fray! Beginning on November 1 at 12:01 UTC, post your goals for the month on our Roster. This will help you connect with others in the DigiWriMo community and keep on track!
3. Join in wherever you like: Because digital writing takes place everywhere on the web, so will our discussions. Plan to join our regular Twitter chats using#digiwrimo, head over to our Facebook page, or participate in the DiGiWriMo Google Community, and visit this site often. All the Digital Writing Month writing prompts and special challenges will be posted here.
4. Not all digital writing has to be public. But, if you want to share your work with others, do so by posting it on our Facebook page, on Twitter using #digiwrimo, in the Google Community, or tag your blog posts with “digiwrimo”. That way, you’ll have all the audience you deserve for your grueling hours of digital brilliance. We’ll be curating content created on the web via a Flipboard magazine entitled “Along the Edges of Digital Writing.”

Notes from Mendeley workshop by @janeshsanzgiri

Live notes from a great workshop on basic and easy Mendeley use by my OU/PhD colleague Janesh Sanzgiri. In this workshop Janesh highlighted the most useful Mendeley functions, and how to use them in Word. He likes Mendeley as the files are stored in the Cloud, which allows you to access your account across all your devices as well as access it from internet-connected computers wherever they are.  And Mendeley is also seen as intuitive.

Overview of Mendeley use: off and online (important: use the sync button to sync all your devices).
Three main functions:
• Library management (storing pdf’s)
• Reference management tool
• Academic networking between personal learning network

Import a file in Mendeley to Mendeley’s ‘Watch folder’ (this will automatically put the pdf’s into that folder, enabling quick structuring). The default folder for downloads can also be made the dump folder for all your pdf’s. So, each time you download a pdf, it will upload it into your Mendeley account (if you sync it).

If the document is not a pdf: add manually, manually (through ‘File’ button on main Mendeley toolbar)

Always check meta-data, so always check the meta-data.  As meta-data is the primary tool within the reference management function. Once that file is okay, it is durable for the rest of your research journey.
Important for the library management purpose: add tags that are meaningful for you.  Separate tags via comma or semi-colon. Additionally, you can use folders per theme or topic.

Mendeley does a full search of any word you might want to highlight, it goes through the full text of all pdf’s. You can do this by choosing ‘documents’ and put the search word in the search box on the right top side of Mendeley.

Annotations in the pdf’s are most of the time possible (not available in all pdf’s), but for those who do allow annotation, and add notes. Cfr memo’s.

(Look up Inge: Kizilcec attrition and achievement in online learning 2015)

Using Mendeley in MS Word
In Mendeley go to ‘Tools’: install MS Word plugin to really use the reference managing tool. This will make it much more automated, instead of manual labour. BUT provided all your meta-data is in place.

In MS Word, you can go to the ‘references’ tab in the main toolbar.  At the same time in Mendeley go to ‘view’ in the main toolbar of Mendeley, then choose the ‘Citation style’. You can always change your citation style in order to comply to the guidelines from the journal you are writing for.
Then click Alt + M and you  need to click on ‘refresh in word to switch between citation styles. How to do it: type the text, click Alt+M, type in the author, and choose the right pdf. That will add the author/s to the paragraph, as well as add it to the references.
Put any new author in through the author name and year, BUT you NEED to keep that basic citation in if you do not want to lose the full reference in your reference block.
The success depends on your meta-data.

Academic network purpose
The MOOC observatory (Southhampton, owned by Su White ), these academics tagged a lot of MOOC references. You can link to these networks. But if you link to those networks, you get a list of references, but not the full pdf’s. So if you want to get the full pdf, go to the network, scroll and explore the meta-data of these network references and find the full paper.
To find these groups you go to ‘groups’ button  within the Mendeley website, you can browse through disciplines, sub-disciplines…
You can also build private groups, but that is more for the premium model.

Link to the Mendeley guides for lots of devices.

#Quiz tool with variable grading for profiling

 Shaf Cangil, an educational consultant (and Open University alumni: hooray!), who has a strong experience in SCRUM mailed me last week with a challenge: find a quiz (preferably for free) that allows multiple grading, so you can use those grades to visualize or distill a profile. Shaf wanted to set up a survey that will immediately provide feedback to the user of that feedback and tell him or her which type of scrum-person they are.
She mailed me based on a previous blog in which I describe the use of google forms and flubaroo to set up mobile quizzes. So I returned to that option, but couldn't get the forms+flubaroo to provide different grades to different answers for the same question (admittedly I went through it quickly, so maybe there is an answer - if you know it, feel free to share).

In a second attempt I looked around for other options, and this got me to the OnlineQuizCreator which has an option to build profiles based on the answer one gets from MCQ.
Small remark: you can try out the test options for free and without registering, but as soon as you have filled in the questions and built a test the software does ask you to register in order to get access to the full quiz you have built (I went for the free option: quizzes up to 15 questions).

In order to build multiple choice questions, and build a profile based on multiple profiles (categories):

• select the 'assessment' option,
• select the 'multiple categories' option
• create the categories (in this case your profiles: I used 3 categories: learner, facilitator, course organiser - crude categories, but simple for the sake of testing the tool). You must fill in titles (only example titles are given, but they do not count as 'real', so you have to change them in order to build your trial test. Also add a description to each category. You can choose to add a category URL (for instance if you want to provide some background information on that category). But you can also leave it blank.
• After you have created the categories, you need to create questions.
• Create questions: at least 3
• Then fill in the answers (and here it becomes exciting): you can link the answers to a category (profile) AND you can even add a grading scale to it, for instance if you are a participant in a course you are linked to the profile of the learner. But if you are a facilitator, and you consider yourself a learner: you can add full grades or profiling to you as a facilitator, but you can also add a small grade for you as a learner. Nice in case the profiles overlap at times!
• once you filled in all the questions, save your test.
• If you have not registered by now, you must do so in this step, as this will allow you to really see your test in action.

You do have an assessment dashboard, where you can change settings, colors, shuffle questions, etcetera.
And the results are shown to the testee immediately (by default, you can change it). I choose the simple option, as that allows mobile use as well. Nice tool with options, and really easy to use.

There is also an option to embed your test:

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Inkle making multiple interactive narrations simple #storyboard

Since the dawn of eLearning, interactivity was a key concept. With interaction defining an action undertaken by the learner, as well as feedback provided by either humans or/and machines. No learning without going out into the real world, and experience feedback ... which is how we learn from our first days on this beautiful blue planet

Gamification and multiple story lines
But with the onset of new digital options, like gamification (wikipedia, academic definition and history), the need for new types of interaction became apparent... and it was a challenge in most cases. One of the big challenges in gamification is the fact that the learner is in charge of the path they are taking (if you use complex gamification, less true for simple: who is first, got the most points.. type of learning games). As such, you cannot simply add one gaming/learning path, you need to offer a more complex set of options, providing at least the illusion of autonomous actions.
In gamification it feels natural to have multiple stories from which a learner can choose, but of course writing it is much more complex as Heather Jackson explained in a wonderfully short and consize blogpost for the writeonsisters blog: screenplays versus game scripts: 5 differences. The writeonsisters blog turned out to be the find of the day, as it is packed with nice writing tips and resulting knowledge.
Thanks to Robin Rivera's blog on 8 tips for interactive storytelling, I was directed to Inkle, a free cloud software (in beta) which enables multiple stories to be written AND to follow-up easily thanks to the software. A really nice and useful learning software find, which I gladly share.

Inkle (@inklestudios) software to write multiple stories
The Inklewriter is free (might be due to beta version, but still free for now, you only have to pay a small fee when you want to get your writings out of the cloud), and the first steps were taken in 2011 by two Cambridge people. Inkle is an award winning software, and it feels easy to use (always a bonus!). You just provide your email, and a password, and ... you are in. The tutorial they offer is also just an option, and you can choose to either go through the full tutorial, or choose and pick one of the topics (nice to be able to choose). You can also decide to just dive in... and write/learn as you do it.
The software is made to write interactive books or stories, but because of the importance in using narration in eLearning or let's say online learning, this can be useful to set up the narration for an upcoming tutorial where you want a more playful story to be used. And the bonus of this software is that it allows you to keep track of all the stories or paths you have been creating. A nice feature, as keeping an eye on all loose ends can at times proof to be difficult.
Writing with Inkle is easy: you write a paragraph, then add options, and these options are kept together enabling you to write the full story with all loose ends neatly organized until each of there own endings is written... if that makes any sense. A real treat!

My plan of action with Inkle
Exploring a new software for online learning implementation always gets me into a space between dream and reality. For this software I am trying to build a multiple learning path through available open educational resource options... a bit like continued professional development but with multiple iterations as option. Ideally, setting up a generic structure that might - might - be used to combine your own curriculum or bigger learning goal. Just trying out if it works... seems plausible at this point.  

New ADL #mLearning Design Reference model: adjust to your needs

Peter Berking who is the lead of the MOTIF project just released the core slide deck for the newly adapted mLearning Design Reference model, and is now inviting us all to have a look at the reference model, and adapt it to our own needs. If we do have adaptations, Peter would love to hear about it, in order to add an extra layer of understanding to the model, coming from all of us practitioners.

The slide deck is protected under a Creative Commons "Attribution-nonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 license"
Purpose: "From MoTIF project research, the learning community identified a need for instructional design processes optimized for the mobile platform that could most effectively inform, situate, and invite consideration of the new mobile learning approaches, device capabilities and usage patterns. This reference model is intended to address the need to inform, situate, and invite consideration of effective and innovative mobile learning approaches through following a mobile-optimized learning design process. As a reference model, it is an integration of existing theoretical and practical models rather than an original model. It has been developed through an open process via a community-based working group."

The MOTIF project has been running for a few years now, and the reports of each stage can be downloaded from the MOTIF site (you do need to create an account, with a nice guarantee that while logging in, your data - including contacts - will not be copied or used in anyway).

The slide deck is quite big (238 slides), but it is a 'work deck', which is filled with flow charts, performance support, design elements, conducting an instructional analysis, analysing learners and contexts, develop assessment instruments ... and it all starts out from the needs and goals that you want to achieve with your mLearning project. It is a really useful slide deck. I only went through it at this point, but I am going to try it out on a project soon, trying to figure out what I would adjust to make the reference model fit my own context and need/s. The slides are also set up to enable you to immediately click to extra information on the subject of that specific slide... nice.

The referred to frameworks are also of interest (Koole, with the FRAME framework, and - one I really like at this point in time: the champions framework). 

#Fun testing boundaries of #DeepFace

Since the announcement of DeepFace and its consecutive reasonance in the media, the facial recognition algorithm from Facebook, it aroused both interest and critique. There are many arguments to consider privacy issues before sending out these types of identity related software's out there ... into the public world. But no matter what the status of the philosophical decisions is, DeepFace is now ready to be fully deployed after a successful pilot.

Every type of technology is embedded in a context and ecology, which makes it an integral part of a holistic society. And as a human instrument, it inevitably leads to many discussions whenever it changes contemporary habits. Nevertheless, each technology also adds to a bit of fun. And I see it as an informal duty of each learning technologist, tech geek... or all-round nerd-joker, to investigate the fun-factor of these types of algorithms. And that was what I was thinking about during last night.

The DeepFaced-facts

• Deep Face recognises more people than I ever would (I have trouble recognizing faces, and not coming anywhere close to the 97,5 % average of most people), and has almost reached human recognition stats (97,25 %).  
• The rotation challenge: DeepFace uses a 3D model for rotating faces virtually so that the person in the photo appears to be looking at the camera. 
• The algorithm draws its power from Deep Learning, a visual as well as audio (language) recognition system set-up by Google. Where deep learning has reignited some of the grand challenges in artificial intelligence, due to its use of computational power, use of big data, and adaptation capacity.

So take DeepFace to the challenge
Provide DeepFace with some additional challenges, while at the same time expand your EdTech tool-use
History is being rewritten, we all know this, and most of the time history is written by the victors (Churchill). It will never be different, nevertheless, it might be fun to try and contaminate some of history's facts with us - the normal people. Which also makes it into a nice 'how would you use this tool'-action for any multimedia class, online or face-to-face. Some options:

• Photoshop yourself into (Facebook) history. It almost feels like old-school this photo-shopping, but it never hurts to rethink old options. By placing yourself into histories key moments, Facebook might pick-up your presence at these key points, and of course Deep Learning might adjust itself to 'this person could not have been here!?!', but then again it might start to calculate you must have been here if you work yourself into these picture from different angles (in doing so, making yourself even more experienced with photoshop). Me with Ghandi, me with the new Greek president Alexis Tsipras (would love this), me with ...
• Exploring the boundaries of morphed images and DeepFace. Another fun activity, that will allow you to see how much tweaking you can do to your own face, before DeepFace stops recognising you. As a test I already morphed me with my son. Quick online morphing option: 3Dthis.com .
• Finally an answer to 'does everyone on earth have a (or more) look-alike/s'. If facial recognition is indeed working, it might reveal that there is another Ignatia out there somewhere... and I would like to meet her, facebook might make this possible (what is the return rate for DeepFace on successfully recognising twins?). But I do hope my look-alike is not mixed up with too much hustling though... how dangerous could that be for my identity? and what if people make masks mimicing my face?... 

As you can see: fun guaranteed. I feel that I should add this concept of the Fun-test to my repertoir on getting and screening new technologies. 

#OER on higher ed, corporate, personal & #development

Thanks to my new contact Vivienne Bozalek from UWC, I got redirected to ROER4D (Open Educational Resources for the Global South or for development). She shared an interesting talk with Cheryl Hodgkinson-Williams from the University of Cape Town, South Africa. And as I was listening to this 30 minute talk, another OER movie caught my attention: Using OER for workforce development which was presented by Una Daly from the Open CourseWare Consortium. Which led to the OER use in an open course, which is (among others) done and shared by the Tompkins Courtland Community College through the Kaleidoscope project. This in term reminded my of a talk given by Stephen Downes on the MOOC of one, which in a small (but to me relevant way) links OER to personal learning environments. And that made the circle full from my perspective: global, local / personal and institutional / higher ed and corporate ... you cannot deny that OER has taken up speed, and has grown in importance. This of course turns the internet into a global content that can be tailored by all of us, to result in learning paths (personally relevant learning paths).

Learning paths for sharing 
One of the learning paths is to provide customized, or better yet curated content, but there are easier/quicker options as well, and one that sticks to mind (I saw this while I visited Quallcom in Cambridge) was Pathgather, a nice piece of software that enables people to map where they found/find useful content for their purposes, and which they can rate. From there other colleagues/networking peers can check out those shared learning paths and rate them in turn, to indicate how useful the path is for their own professional or personal development. But ... Pathgather is not an open educational resource or OER, nor is it Open Source, so it cannot (yet) be used in the open. Would like to see something similar in the open though. If anyone knows of such a tool, feel free to share.

OER, the movies, with brief focus
Here are some of the movies I have been listening to, and brief ideas or interests from each (there is much more content of interest in every one of those movies of course!). And a brief wrap up at the end, on why I find this interesting.

ROER4D
ROER4D started (2012) as a project to see whether the claims being made by OER were actually true and could help the global south (increasing access to Higher Education, reducing costs, improving content quality in education, due to a shortage of teachers in the global south and lack of resources). And as most work is being done in the global North, there is a gap of proof and testing those claims. Another objective to look at ROER4D is to get a network going (next to testing the claims) in order to bridge the isolated spaces the current OER academics are in (for the global south, miles from conferences), and build a research capacity on OER in the global South. A wonderful thing about ROER4D is that they want to open ALL data, not only results, but the full process in order to provide this research capacity and insight (NICE!). Cheryll also mentioned some of the challenges and issues on ROER4D on global South: increasing amount of students, financial constraints and resulting pressure on educational institutions. Part of the challenge is about also keeping the research capacity inside of the global South (stop braindrain) and at the same time offer real insights into methodologies, analysis... and possibly allow the global South to develop contextualized methodologies from there.



Moving from ROER4D to corporate use of OER in training
Important focus on community colleges from which students need to enter the job world, and need to understand how to be able to keep up with workforce development. From the labour department (US) they did push the agenda to create more OER for US based workforce development. There are increasingly more entrepreneurial schools, and they develop OER. Una also covers IP and copyright licensing options, as well as cost reduction options by using OER. Una also shares some good OER coming from government resources in the Public domain : NASA, Department of Labor, department of energy (all US). But she does mention that not much is known in the public about these high quality OER provided by government. She also shares the Saylor.org resources site (how to present yourself, where to search for jobs...), they currently have 23 courses on workforce development.



And then moving to OER for personal learning environments
The interest of this talk by Stephen Downes (INTED2014) is about the selection each learner makes when following online education that offers a big amount of content (OER). And to look at organic learner dynamics as a space that can be used for OER. Stephen also focuses on the learner, but specifically the process that becomes ever more important to learners to understand what they need to do/have in order to become critical learners using OER (and non-OER). A nice concept launched is the semiotic approach: the learner trying to make sense of the world (meaning, context, representation), and in addition the critical/digital capacities being made by the learner for personal use (trying to make sense of our own experience, knowledge). And in sharing among all of us, concepts are constructed, OER take shape. Multiple viewpoints to create meaning, but looking at it from the personal perspective.



The open course
This short (5 min) video shows the process and adoption of an open course, as it was experienced by the Tompkins Courtland Community College through the Kaleidoscope project.



My thoughts on why this is interesting
Now why do I find all of this of interest? (aside from the obvious benefit of OER being there for all of us). I find it interesting because it is an evolution that affects or will affect all of us, in a strange - come together kind of way. If all of us develop OER, or curated content, then we are all recreating the internet by populating it with meaningful content built on the shoulders of giants (which means all of us with our expertise in our own contextualized environments). That is a sweet thing. For this also means that all that ever matters is no longer in us, but outside of us and each of our living space, it is in a layer build by shared meaning. Following an online course, is by definition open (as not all the material is sent to you, and as such a closed content package), and becomes part of a discussion by all interested parties (positive and negative). The interesting tension is between the individual and the joint-us, I have my own needs and contextualized expertise, but the built upon content is from the collective. No longer of the one singular institute, corporation... 

Complacency, failure, improvement cycle and #pearltrees #pkm14

For what ever reason, I seem to have a personal complacency => failure => improvement cycle. Which means that every few years something that I was good at turns into mush.

Messed up more then one presentation
The latest one concerns presentation skills. So I have been good at it (why do I know: feedback forms, mouth to mouth) and then it turns bad (why do I know? Again feedback forms). I did feel myself slip, but I simply told myself 'I had a day off' and soothed me into not worrying. So what is the typical decay of my presentation skills: I know what I know, I actually know quite a bit about certain topics (mlearning, cMOOC), but then I want to share ALL that I know in one hour slot of presentation AND I rely on my brain to come up with structure ad hoc. This does not happen.
There are multiple reasons, as every and any teacher/trainer will know:

• pushing too much information forward to the public simply does not transmit the message
• if you are not a naturally structured person, ad-lib will result in chaos and rambling
• use simple slides for presenting, and use notes to elaborate on your slides, or add audio so people understand the pictures you use (this means: I always think that slides can be used as content booklets (see my slides for yourself)... but I think I will just need to step away from that. Either present, or offer booklets I guess). As Marshall McLuhan said: the medium is the message , and I scrambled both up resulting in a confused feeling in the heads of the listeners.
• a starting point and relations or concepts that are obvious to me, is not obvious for others
• practice, practice, practice to become really good, and aim for the moon while I am at it
• there was even someone in the audience figuring out if I could be one of their future presenters... well I scared them away big time *sigh*

Actions taken
I want to make sure I do not get trapped in my own world of greatness again (apparently I come from a city known for its citizens to think they are great (Antwerp, Belgium). Those citizens even get called 'señor/a' as a nickname to describe that complacent ego phenomenon. Anyway, I searched for a way to improve:

• get some pointers on how to present, i.e. expert knowledge
• corner a future presentation occasion: May 2014 an online forum (which will be on related subject as the presentation I messed up, and the forum also has feedback forms) 
• practice, practice, practice and get better. Why: I want to give pleasurable insights on topic into people's minds, not chaos!

Because of the personal knowledge management course I am following and its assignments. One of our current assignment is testing out new tools. In the past I have used content mapping as a way to organize and built content and information towards new knowledge. I used CMAP from the University of Florida, USA. But it missed some of the easy social media sharing options (but does have meaningful relational descriptions as an option between to sets of content). As such I strolled through Jane Hart's eLearning tools and I found pearltrees as a new tool to put together content in a jiffy, make it visual and retrievable and share it with others. So sharing my pearltree here ( a just started Coursera course, examples of great public speakers, good books, and presentation tips):

Filtering for Future ProFessional Frontiers #pkm14

As the Personal Knowledge Management (PKM14) course moves into its second week, all the participants are asked to filter their social media / their networks. We are suggested to use more advanced filters: e.g. using feeds from people or/and groups, using automated filters of choice (e.g. hootsuite or tweetdeck to filter the personal twitter and other streams).

First I took a look at hootsuite (suggested by Ronda Zelezny-Green) and tweetdeck (both of these are free to some extend. Another paid option is sproutsocial which has wonderful options, but fits more with an enterprise type of social media stream analysis. I tested both and looked at other user comparisons to get an idea of which tool would suit me. I had both used them briefly in the past, but not to their full potential. And as it has been some years now, it is clear that I am better at understanding what these types of tools can do, and the overall structure of the tools in themselves is an improved user experience as well. For me Hootsuite works (but without integrating it into my browser, that feature was the reason why I stopped using hootsuite in the past: too much bling makes me angry and puts me off a tool - but that is me, not the tool).

After only two days, I already found some immediately relevant information (e.g. more status updates on learning analytics for informal learning, more about weak/strong ties in online communities), but at the same time I am loosing more time as I got lost in an information loop. Again... knowledge management is about finding useful tools, optimizing or personalizing them to fit your own goals, and limiting your time on those tools to get the best experience out of them (for me the best experience is: activating a peer network. One immediate benefit of Hootsuite is being able to schedule tweets, this saves time and will - eventually - keep me from returning to my streams in Hootsuite until a moment in time I consciously choose and limit.

The information streams in Hootsuite are currently based on one list, and keywords (e.g. mLearning, learning analytics). I started to build MyKeyPeople list within twitter: adding those twitterers that are of importance to me, that provide new insights, links, ideas.

But I do realize this is person-based, now - like a fellow participant Kavi (@_Kavi ) mentioned - knowledge can be distilled from a higher level by using twitter lists and combining these, or to search for good curators/curations and link these to a RSS/feedread or scoopit... I still have to work on those options. So that makes a good to do. 
Speaking of to do lists, another participant of the course (Shane Johnson) mentioned todoist, a cross-platform software to plan your time or project. Will have to see if this works for me. 

Nota tool for collaborative #mLearning with eBooks

Last week I got a message from Stephanie Ray and she asked me to take a look and review Nota, a free mobile collaborative learning platform which is available in a web format and as a mobile app. As she mentioned that it was linked to Open Educational Resources (OER) of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) textbooks, I got intrigued. They only launched in January 2013 so still beta, which is the nicest state as all of our remarks on the tool are as such welcomed.

After playing around a bit with Nota, it sure seems a nice tool. It offers textbook access with immediate (= internet enabled) links to movies, pictures, annotations... As it does offer very easy annotation options (just click a button), and most of all everything gets fed right into the cloud again. Another nice feature is the fact that Nota keeps a timeline of your actions (really useful if you know you visited something, but not sure where it was located in a particular book). Because annotations are easy to make, you can also link to personal content that is relevant to the topic you are researching (or teaching or learning for that matter) and build upon the original content provided. Really nice and it works smoothly, if you have a strong internet connection. So anyone can easily add comments, bookmarks, put in links to other content like video's, statistics, pictures.... which then can be commented on, liked, shared... all over again. 

At present Nota is focusing on the free STEM catalog of high school and college textbooks, as such Nota is targeting students who can support each other in a peer-to-peer learning environment, without the high cost of textbooks or tutoring. But I can see how this type of technology has the potential to go beyond its original start. A community of practitioners could use the tool to start up their own text and multimedia rich training/learning HUB. Exchanging information and adding to it as they read on. Of course everything is in the open, so everyone could have access.

At the moment the tool is only accessible for Android version 4.0 or higher, or via the web. But they do mention that the Apple versions (cross mobile) will be out soon as well.

The app and web version are still in beta, so everyone is kindly invited to test the application and feed any comments that they have back to the developer team, feel free to look at the bunch of brains behind nota or send your feedback about the app/web tool to info@handstand-inc.com

What would I like to see as an addition: a voice annotation option. Add the audio sensor/microphone from my mobile as a voice-to-speech bit to the options and it will make life easier for me, because I do not like to type much with my smartphone keyboard. Overall a nice addition for mLearning.

A quick look on how it works can be seen here

@LucidChart for #collaborative work and organizing

As I am following (read this as occasionally reading and even more infrequently reacting) in OldsMOOC (the  free open online course on learning design), I got hold of LucidChart. A wonderful way of working with a team on both mindmaps, flowchart or organizational charts.
What struck me was the ease of use to start with it and the really quick way to get everyone involved in a team effort. There are ample tutorials and I could easily register with my Google account so with one click I was on it. Nice stuff. I have added it to my working tools.
For anyone wanting to pick up with OldsMOOC, feel free to join and simply relax while getting on top of the  material (one word of warning, if you do not have a lot of time, relax, do not go through all the threads simply look at the new one's that catch your interest).

A quick overview of the options of LucidChart can be found here:

Solutions for learners with #disabilities using specific #social media

Karel Van Isacker from PhoenixKM and VIPI just gave a presentation on social media in an accessible learning perspective. He gave an amazingly interesting talk. The reason of interest was his focus on the actual usability of a broad range of alternative social media tools that people with disabilities need to use in order to actually access social media. I had no idea and I am very grateful that Karel got me so excited. So if you are looking for inclusive education that can be accessed by all people, have a look at his presentation.

Here are the slides provided by Karel, 15 slides with a mountain of information for people with and without disabilities.

Social media in an accessible learning perspective from Karel Van Isacker

10 steps to convert a DVD into a #mobile format

As a teacher or professor you want to use multimedia (e.g. from your school’s library) in your classes or for informal learning purposes, the trouble is how do you do that? If you have a documentary or a movie you made on history that you can distribute on mobile devices, you can deliver it to your learners in advance of a field trip. In that case it can be a great starting point for additional content that the learners produce. Of course you must always keep copyright restrictions and demand in the back of your mind and see to it that you distribute only with permission. Copying for your own personal back-up or viewing purposes is normally allowed.

During the last couple of months colleagues of mine (and family) have been asking to give them an easy way to rip and convert DVD movies to a format that works on their mobile device. This is how I do it, it is relatively simple and only costs 40 EUR, but if you want a broader approach, of if you want to search for specifics, the wikiHow on DVD ripping might be useful or go for the thorough and complete article of lifehacker on how to turn your pc into a DVD ripping monster (which also works for Mac’s and Linux computers).

The relatively simple (well, once you go through it, it will look simple at first it can be daunting) and easy way for windows operated computers (yes mom, this is the manual I promised to you, have fun), the examples are for a HTC desire and samsung omnia i8910:

Step 1. Get yourself a copy of AVS4You videoconverter and register it (it does cost you either 39 or 59 USD, but the latter gives you access to unlimited upgrades and other AVS software as well). This is a low cost software that is userfriendly and it covers a variety of formats (including High Definition).

Step 2. Download DVD43: this is a free DVD decrypter that runs in the background and decrypts DVDs on the fly. It enables easier decryption which means security of the DVD is more easily overcome. Remark: you do not always need this decrypter, but it enables a wider range of dvd’s to be ripped.



Step 3. Now the fun starts: get your DVD into the DVD reader. When a window pops open asking you want you want to do, do not select anything, just close it. Depending on the security features of the DVD the smiley face of DVD43 will either stay yellow or turn green. If it turns a smiley green, it means your DVD is being decrypted actively. Just let the smiley do what it wants to.



Step 4. Get the specifications of the screen of your mobile device (google the type of your mobile device and add ‘specifications’ or ‘specs’). Knowing what type of screen you have will allow the best possible format for your movies. So look for the specification: size of screen, display or similar.



Step 5. Get the specifications of the audio and video files your mobile phone supports. There are various formats for audio and video, in order to convert the DVD to the right format for your mobile device, this is very important.




Step 6. Open AVS4you, browse to the file of your DVD on your computer. By default it looks at video files. You choose the 'video_ts.ifo' file. After the conversion is done, you can use the AVS4you converter 'edit' button to cut or paste to sections you want.
This part is important, but not necessary for the conversion to work. If you want to improve video viewing quality it is important to look at the bitrates and frame rate. For my phone I use around 1000 kbps up to 1500 kbps (depending on the lighting of the movie: a dark movie => higher bitrates, because it is more demanding on the eyes). This limits the file size. However, if I am planning to connect my mobile to a television set to share something (let’s say in a field clinic for training), then I use at least 2000 kbps for a better viewing quality. But remember: the higher you make your bitrates, the more time it will cost your conversion program to convert to the format of your choice AND the bigger file size you will get. So trying to figure out what you need in order to have a comfortable viewing experience is a good thing.


Important if you do not want speech to vary too much from the actual image (sometimes if you convert, a desynchronization can happen which makes your audio differ from the video. To avoid this from happening: Take the same rates as the movie. How? If you click on the 'advance button', you will see a list of features. To allow the best synchronization during the conversion of your file, the best thing to do is to adjust the output-rates with the input-rates (look at the red arrows in the first picture below).

Important! the details for the output-rates can be found in the 'advanced' section, but you must adjust the settings of the output-rates in the 'edit profile' section (see the second picture below).






Step 7. Select to which format you want to convert your DVD. Here is where the audio video features you looked up come in handy. If for instance your specifications indicate ‘wmv’ formats, you will have to click on the ‘To WMV’-format button of the AVS4you. If your mobile device supports mp4 (which is the case in many mobile devices), you click on the button ‘To mp4’.

Step 8. Select a profile: this is important. Within the list of profiles you have some type of mobile devices are listed. If you have one of those profiles select it, if you are unclear about the profile select the most general one, e.g. 'convert to pda'.



Step 9. This step is optional: it is about screen size and the option to add subtitles.
Screensize: if you just want to keep it simple, go to step 10, otherwise: select the proper screen size for your conversion. You looked up your screen size earlier on. If you click on the option ‘edit profile’ and a window opens in which you can put your screen size. Do this to get an optimal conversion. In my case I put in 320 X 180 pixels. If you have selected your screen size, it is best to save the profile. This way you can just click on the profile for future conversions.

Subtitles: if you want to, you can use AVS4YOU to add the appropriate subtitles to your converted format.

In order to add subtitles, you push the ‘advanced button’.

After this you select the preferred subtitle language from the drop-down menu.

This is it, now you can simply click on the ‘convert’ button in AVS4you and you are ready to watch a movie your partner did not want to see, while commuting to and from work… at least that is what I do with my newly bought set of Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman!

Step 10. Before pressing convert, make sure you type in the right output file path and add a recognizable title (this is something I forget to do a lot). After you checked it, press convert and the movie should be converted into the right format. The conversion rate is shown in the AVS4you window and once the conversion is completed you get a notification at it on the screen of your pc.

Now all that is left is to get the file you converted onto your mobile device. This depends on the type of synchronization you use between your computer and your mobile device (USB cable, Bluetooth, …).
If you have a problem with viewing the converted file, look at the format of the video again in the specifications of your mobile device and see if it is the same format.

Time-saving Tip: if you try this out for the first time, try it with a small test movie. That way it saves time (big movies, demand a lot of conversion time) and you will be able to look at the result much quicker.

Additional remark: sometimes the converted file is too big to get onto your phone memory. In that case you can convert piece by piece, this is how you could do it (you can also edit the converted movie into smaller movies). What if you want to convert piece by piece: open avs4you and go to the video-file setting. Change this so the browser depicts ‘all files’ (do this by clicking the arrow button next to the ‘files of type’ box. You will see a big list of files. Add them one by one by using the ‘+’ button (see image) Open all the VOB files, not the IFO-files. If you look at the details of those VOB-files, you will see big and small files. In most cases you can leave the small files and NOT include them in your conversion (those are intro files and such). The VOB-files do not necessarily correspond with the real chapters of the DVD, so make them follow one another (play list). The IFO-files do retain information on the DVD chapters, but if I try to copy from the IFO-files I sometimes do not get all the chapters automatically converted. That is why I sometimes start from the VOB-files. If there are a lot of VOB-files, I tend to convert them 2 by 2, this way my phone can open them more easily.
If any of you have a more simple way to convert all the VOBs at once into a playable file even when the files are really big, please let me know, thx in advance.