Liveblog #Educon17 @Kinshuk1 Enhancing learning through adaptivity and personalization in ubiquitous environments

Kinshuk (http://www.kinshuk.info ) was streamed in live from Austin, Texas. Lately he is also increasingly engagement with industry on EdTech (yes, the bridge between university and industry is tightening).

The learning environment is expanding outside of the classroom environment, so how can we incorporate learning in all these environments. Some opportunities (free)

• Series in springer collection in EdTech (look up book guidelines for this series: I think it is http://www.springer.com/series/11777 ), any new advancements are welcomed.
•  Journal which is completely open access called ‘smart learning environments’ (Inge, look this up: http://www.springer.com/computer/journal/40561 ) , focus on improved learning environments, and bringing these traditional environments and transforming them into online learning environments.
• International association of smart learning environments http://www.iaslo.net they look for evidence-based research on the subject.

Current trends in learning

·        Inclusive education,

·        Focus on individual strengths and needs

·        Various learning scenarios – in clsass and outdoor environments

·        Relevance of the learning scenarios with learners living and working environments

·        Authentic learning with physical as well as digital resources

Result: better learning experience due to authentic learning, and ubiquitous access to learning. So learning is now more easily fitted to real life of the learner. Learning needs to be relevant to the learner, but as a teacher you need to become aware of how to capture the attention outside of the classroom.

This means the teachers must become aware of the new teaching/learning opportunities.

Vision

Learning is happening everywhere, at any time, and is highly contextualised.

Seamless integration of learning into every aspect of life with implies immersive, always on learning that happens so naturally and in such small chunks that no conscious effort in needed by actively learning while engaged in education.

We need to make learning as meaningful as possible. The goal of the learning needs to be put across to all the learners, and the learning needs to be made visible (e.g. Hattie)… but all of this is highly demanding for the teacher. Every student is doing different things, so how can the teacher know that her learners are learning? That is why we are looking for much more data, much more information, and the assessments is also coming out of the classrooms and out of the formal, classic design of assignments and assessments.

Smart learning analytics is used to discover what type of learning data is coming in. Discover, analyze and make sense of student, instruction and environmental data from multiple sources to identify learning traces in order to facilitate instructional support in authentic learning environments. This also opens a new type of teaching, namely coaching, give guidance, personalise the feedback given the learner data or the learner information that is viewed and analysed by the teacher. For example, a  flower bed with a placard on what the flowers are, but on the top right there is a QR code with additional information on the flowers, but embedded in its full cycle, use and systematic botanical information. So this means that the information is delivered in an adaptive way (as complex as the learner wants to view it), and open to all. The learning system provides you authentic information within a contextual reality, and with the option to zoom in on additional information. (look at iSpot as additional learning scenario).

Information can now come from different sources: mobiles, environment, internet, people, …. It is like learning traces, a small learning impression that can tell us that learning is actually happening. For instance, looking at paintings in a museum, one painting captures the learners attention, and some things are different to other paintings. The learner might learn something a week later, and gets more information on it, and now a story can be shared by the learner to people that are outside of the classroom. This actual fact proofs that learning has happened.

But a system needs to be in place to proof or visualise the actual learning that is happening.

Remark on data: the learners need to be made aware that their data might be used, for privacy and policy issues.

How can we design instructional support that will make this type of smart learning happen and make it measurable.

Discover

Past record and real-time observation of: learner’s capabilities, preferences and competencies, learenr’s location, learner’s technological use, technologies surrounding the learner, changes keep happening in the learner’s situational context. So knowing the past, does not mean that what is happening today is a meaningful difference to the previous actions, as the contexts of today constantly change.

Miller was pioneering (5 elements of information memorisation).

And although the tech can provide the teachers with lots of additional data, the actual learning experience needs to take into account the changing environment and connected conditions of this environments.

Human-machine learning has an effect on the actual learning process.

Is the learner trying to find new information, is that new information screened critically…

We do have lots of mechanisms that we use to see what the learners are going through and how the learning occurs.

Informal learning happens everywhere, across the potential learning environments, and is there a record of the learning somewhere? Small learning can happen anywhere, but how can we identify it and use it as evidence of learning.

Making sense: learning traces

A learning trace comprises of a network of observed study activities that lead to a measurable cchunk of learning.

Learning traces are sensed ad supply data to learning analytics, where data is typically big, un/semi structured, seemingly unrelated, not quite truthful, and fits multiple models and theories.

What kind of learning, which models can be used to map learning traces to try to understand that learning is actually happening. Learning traces are also important to understand personalised learning, differentiated learning that is happening across the population in all its variety.

Why learning traces are important

Different students can adopt different learning approaches for the same learning activity

Ex,, why a pointed object penetrates better than a blunt object?

A visual-oriented learner may choose to use different approach than an sensoratory learner.

Learner awareness

Personalisation of learning experience through dynamic learner modeling: performance, meta-cognitive skills, cognitive skills, learning styles, affective state, physiological symptoms (eg. The learner is doing something in the lab, and suddenly heart rate will increase, why? What kind of concept is the learners using, are there comparable situations of learning where this occurred?). All of this are tools that can make teachers more informed, enabling more informed decisions on learning.

Technological awareness

Personalization of learning experience through the identification of technological functionality.

Identifying various device functionality

Dynamically optimize the content to suit the functionality

Display capability, audio and video capability…

Location awareness

Personalisation through location modelling

Location base optimal grouping (grouping ad hoc based on mobile location)

Location based adaptation of learning content

Real-life physical objects

Public databases of POIs

QR codes

Wifi and Bluetooth access point identification

Active and passive RFIDs

Surrounding awareness

Learning based on all the surrounding data, context-aware knowledge structures

Identifying specific context-aware knowledge structure among different domains,

Identify learning objectives of real interest to the learner

Propose learning activities to the learner

Lead the learner around the learning environment

Skills and knowledge level detection: competency level, confidence level (evidence-based confidence). For instance using dashboard to get an idea of learning progress,… and what type of skills are affected.

Teachers need to feel that it does not affect their workload, they become more open to these new options.

Question from my end on making learning visible: do you have examples of feedback from the learner that make the actual learning visible.  You mention on how learners learn, but it seems you are more viewing it from a teacher viewpoint, awareness in the learner.
Answer: analytics are coming from a variety of sources and at Austin, Texas, we also work with Codex and MI-dash see the learner progress over time, SCRL which uses self-evaluation, learning initiative design… 

Merging #mLearning with #MOOC is a good idea

While MOOC are of interest for any training and learning, the surplus of mobile learning or mLearning can not be underestimated. In many ways I feel that the benefits that mLearning offers would add to many MOOC environment. To me a future training platform would merge both mLearning features, as well as MOOC options to come to an ultimate online learning environment that caters intuitively (read ubiquitously) to the learner's own contexts ans needs. But before getting there a couple of hurdles need to be taken, to me the most difficult challenges are:

• reaching seamless mobile learning (letting learners switch between devices, as well as stay connected with their peers at all times, enabling smooth/seamless collaboration as well as smooth connectivity);
• enabling the learner to stay in the flow with learning
• create a smooth cross-platform and immediate access learning environment.

In order to get it realized I started to map out (briefly) why I think this would be a good idea and how to get there. On 16 July I had the pleasure to put these ideas forward to a knowledgeable crowd of ADL enthusiasts. The formidable expert Jason Haag was the master of ceremony for the Interagency Mobile Learning seminars, which had a wonderful line up of speakers. The webinar was part of a series of free webinars on mobile learning, the presentations will be listed soon (and I will put the link to the other presentations up as soon as I get it). 

The slides of my presentation can be seen below, via slideshare

mLearning and MOOCs as an optimal training environment from Inge Ignatia de Waard

Eliademy a mobile MOOC platform resides in the Cloud

Another great initiative called Eliademy is getting more attention as it rolls out one day at the time. The people of TechCrunch got me onto this wonderful open course initiative. Eliademy provides people to build their own MOOC courses (for free) and get your own learner base up to speed with relevant content/cases/expertise... This time it is an initiative coming from Finland, more precisely from ex-Nokia high-profiled visionairs. The idea is easy enough: take Moodle, adapt it to usability (lean, smooth immediate overview and orientation), develop it so people can build courses using different languages. You can prepare content and keep it invisible for your learners, or publish it whenever you feel like it. The process is simple, you can log in/register with an existing account from e.g. Facebook, LinkedIn or Gmail.
You can add content, start discussions, a timeline, get annotations or notes in (which is conveniently linked to Evernote, making it a perfect ubiquitous fit).

BUT, although it is in the cloud, I have not found a way to link it to my own existing learning channels. From a content angle you can really easily add a picture, file, youtube or vimeo video, or link it to slideshare, but that just is not enough. In my opinion, nowadays many of us have curated content streams set-up somewhere, and these types of content streams can be seen as learning options, as they are filtered and focused. There is a feed for the course, so I would imagine this feed could be merged with others. Having said that, it could be that such an option exists, as I only took a brief look and could not find it. I also did not see a virtual classroom tool, but that could be integrated using HangOut over Youtube, with youtube being integrated in the course itself (a workaround).

What I would like to see is the Moodle (or other) type of central - collaboratively adaptable - central content environment, with options such as provided by Netvibes , a plea for Open Content Stream Resources (not sure if that type of term exists :-D but it is related to Open Educational Resources (OER), yet of the streamed and curated type). That way the course could be fitted amidst a more realistic content dynamic, more like a Lego type of content creation and not fitting all the content of a course in the confinement of a bordered learning environment. By leaving this curated option open, the course content can also be fertilized by ideas and content produced by the learners themselves.

But overall: really easy, simple, ubiquitous course platform that can be enriched with content in just a few moments. Nice.  

20 strategies for learner interactions in mobile #MOOC

Let's be honest, we all LOVE research *grin*, or facts, or lists, or useful practices ... or practical strategies for that matter. Well, here is a new set of useful strategies for mobile MOOCs, I hope you like it!

In my latest research I focused on the impact of mobile access on learner interactions in a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course). The research was done to get my Master in Education at Athabasca University. As always all of the Athabasca faculty was supportive to get the research up to their standards (ethical approval, relevant literature...).

The readable and hopefully useful list of 20 mobile strategies to increase learner interaction in a MOOC that came out of my research can be found below in this post, but feel free to read the full thesis here, it has links to ethical procedures (e.g. informed consent form), some web analytics, community of inquiry use to screen learner interactions.... If you want to reference to the strategies, or parts of the thesis, this is the APA reference for it:

de Waard, I. (2013). Impact of mobile access on learner interactions in a MOOC. Retrieved from Athabasca DThesis database http://hdl.handle.net/10791/23 

Abstract of the research 
As mobile access and massive open online courses (MOOCs) become a global reality, the realm of potential distance learners is expanding rapidly. Mobile learning (mLearning) as well as MOOCs are based on similar characteristics as shown in the literature review of this study. They both enhance a community feeling, increasing networking and collaboration; they strengthen lifelong and informal learning, they use social media to a large extend and they are ideal for setting up communicative dialogues. The focus on learner interactions is of interest, as research has shown that dialogue is an important element for learning and knowledge enhancement, and mobile access increases the opportunities to enter into such interactions. This thesis study used a sequential explanatory mixed methods approach to investigate the impact of mobile accessibility on learner interaction in a MOOC. The study showed that opening up a MOOC for mobile access has immediate impact on learner interactions, as participants with mobile devices tend to interact more with their fellow learners in comparison to their non-mobile colleagues. This was deduced from the mixed methods approach looking at web-based statistics, an online survey, an analysis using the Community of Inquiry framework and one-on-one interviews with volunteers. The study formulated a set of 20 strategies and possible consequences deriving from the analysis of the impact of mobile accessibility in a MOOC and more specifically how this affects learner interactions. These strategies might optimize the impact of mobile access on learner interactions in an informal, open, online course. Future research needs to support the findings, embracing a larger learner population from a more varied background. Overall, this research hopes to add to the body of knowledge strengthening the field of distance education.

List of 20 mobile related strategies to increase learner interactions in MOOCs:

Design
1. Offer a ubiquitous learning environment based on BYOD design and content, making use of existing ubiquitous tools (social media, e-mail…) so people can switch between devices at their own preference.
2. Create a user-friendly, one button centralized access learning environment. This easy access must be linked to a clear course overview to increase transparency, user-friendliness and provide the learner with a structure that s/he can organize for self-regulating learning purposes.
Self-directed learning 
3. Provide self-directed learning strategies to the learners.
4. Enabling immediate access to content material as well as discussion areas adds to time management options and it enables self-regulated learning.
5. Offer synchronous and asynchronous learner activities within a clearly timed course. This provides the necessary freedom for the learner to access, reflect and possibly react on the subject touched at specific moments during the course.
6. Provide a clear timetable of the course, while embedding time for reflection into the course timeline. This suggested flexible, yet cohort move through the course provides an opportunity to nurture reflection time, which is in direct relation to learner interactions.
7. Embed informality in the course to allow increased, autonomous learner interactions to emerge. This room for emergence is induced by the course being both formal and informal, or informal overall and being mobile. The informal character of a course results in participants feeling more at ease with sharing and producing content and engaging in interactions across all their devices.
Digital skills
8. Increase the necessary digital skills of the learner, providing basic training before the course starts via meaningful content-related actions. If a course is accessible for a multitude of devices, it affects (the need for) digital skills, because multiple devices have multiple characteristics and affordances.
Content 
9. Offer an array of course materials, varying from bite size snacks to big, time consuming content. The mobility of the user results in the ability to access materials in a variety of locations and times. As such a wide array of course materials is needed to cater to the time availability of the learner. Offering the learner a choice to tailor the content to their current possibilities.
10. Provide a sense of ownership about the content and the learning: BYOD, contextualized options, this adds to the overall learner motivation.
Human learning environment
11. Ensure a safe learning environment. This essential to increase learner interactions in general. Tolerance, trust, daring to write in a non-native language and knowing that one can pose every content related question and not being judged for either its simplicity or format must be set early in the course.
12. Provide interaction/communication guidelines stipulating balanced communication allowing a safe discussion area to be ensured. By creating a safe learning environment, a broader perspective of personalities are tempted to engage and interact in the course.
13. Profile a central course person(s) (e.g. central coordinator, course support person) who watches over the interactions and links to each participant personally, ensuring a trusting learning environment with room for cultural and language diversity.
14. Watch over the group-size. Community feeling is increased by an intermediate group-size and learner-centered activities, which in turn affects learner interactions.
15. Allow networks to emerge. A community feeling based upon easy (mobile) access increases the formation of a more durable professional network for those connecting to each other in a way that surpasses the course duration.
Course activities
16. Embed icebreaker activities and/or discussions at the beginning of the course to allow learner interactions to take off. These activities should also be linked to intellectual topics.
17. Ensure discussions or conversation starters. The act of conversation and exchanging ideas leads to more interactions as participants become more familiar with each other on professional grounds.
18. Create meaningful, contextualized, generic, topic related interactions, as they are pivotal to create a course community spirit, because the exchange of professional interests adds to the knowledge need of the learners.
19. Add activities involving non-verbal communication to offer additional understanding, which increases the community feeling, for it might offer an additional insight into dialogue and discussion.
20. Ensure topic relevant learner diversity in examples or actions. Learners can more easily join in those conversations where they detect knowledge niches to which they can provide an answer, strengthening each other.

FutureLearn: pedagogical & mLearning MOOC platform - the approach

For all of you out there wanting to push your government into setting up a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) platform gathering knowledge from all your national universities, take a look at the approach of UK’s open university on planning a MOOC platform, it looks very promising.

Ever since I was 9 years old I have watched school television on BBC where the Open University UK rolled out wonderfully rich and comprehensible visual content. At age 10 I could understand and speak basic English thanks to them (Dutch being my mother tongue). Now, as in a dream come true I am researching right at the center of that same institution and … even bigger news: they are starting up their own MOOC platform, the so called FutureLearn ! So ok, I am a bit enthusiastic here - read subjective - but after hearing yesterday’s introduction focusing on the pedagogical and design plans of the FutureLearn MOOC platform from Mr UK-MOOC himself – Mike Sharples – I gladly list why I think FutureLearn starts with an advantage and could become a strong contender to the already existing xMOOC platforms out there (EDx, Udacity, Coursera...). 

Strong pedagogy and ubiquitous design at its core

• Start from ubiquity, mobile design: we live in a mobile age, immigration, brain drain, brain movement, hopping between cities, moving to where the work is … an increasing amount of people are becoming citizens of the world. This mobility is enabled in part by telecommunications, more specifically mobile devices. And all of us are using mobile devices more frequently each day. This is a global movement, as many developing regions are also mainly accessing web content through mobiles. As such, building a platform starting from mobile ubiquity is – to me – the right thing to do. Forget mobile enabled, bring mobile learning at the core of the design, as well as content and learner activity and this will result in more course engagement (more on that tomorrow, will share some of my research on that topic).
• Built pedagogy linked to mobility and social media: offer small content snippets, provide short courses as well as longer courses, build a narrative to anchor the content that is offered and the learning actions that are demanded from the participants for higher retention, …
• Engaging the learner for their needs: as many of us are lifelong learners, engaging in learning that fits our knowledge needs is important (and time saving), this is also taken into account in the new platform: short courses (6 – 8 weeks, but can vary), progressive rewards (informal and formal).
• Put an institute with online pedagogy experience right at the core of the set-up and planning. The only people really knowing what online learning is about, are the open universities world wide. They are best equipped to set up MOOCs using proven practices for online courses. And yes, MOOCs are different from traditional online courses, but they have similarities. And the Open University of the UK is right at the center of FutureLearn. They understand Open Educational Resources, online dynamics, getting learners accustomed with online learning... for them the transition of getting online courses to a qualitative strong MOOC level is within reach.
• Build in rapid iteration options, so the platform can be optimized as research and consequent analysis provides  new insights 

Challenges faced by starting a (national) MOOC platform:

• Access to relevant research and information sources (sometimes good research papers and information are only accessible through payment)
• High quality course content: e.g. rich multimedia, preferably accessible to all
• Solving online best practices learning problems
• Ubiquitous platform: users will use their own devices (UYOD comes to mind)
• And most importantly (in my view): a platform that meets the learning needs of the participants as mentioned above: tailored, guiding learners through chaos that comes along with MOOCs, multiple devices with which learners will access it…) which inevitably leads to contemporary sound pedagogy.

So how does FutureLearn seem to tackle these challenges (remember, I only took notes during the presentation of the platform, so I could be wrong at some point due to my speedy note taking)?

Using the strengths that already exist – partnering up

The UK has some strong elements for setting up a MOOC (but then all of us have, it is their approach which is usable!):

• A high quality multimedia production house (BBC). Just think about the awesome documentaries! (National Geographic also comes to mind when looking at great visuals)
• A high profile national library: the British Library just teamed up with FutureLearn, enabling course participants to have access to resources (not sure to what extent, this access can be guaranteed taking into account copyright/costs and such, but … they are partners so the best possible options become possible)
• Bringing together strong partners: FutureLearn says to partner up with top UK universities (looking at the 30 most highly rated universities – not sure how this works in practice). Strong partners means, proven qualitative content and teaching approaches (admittedly old school teaching). 
• Linking traditional university learning with online learning: this is where the combination of Open University with UK universities comes in. 

So FutureLearn is rolling out the big guns, building a platform which is embedding educational tools and formats enriching todays educational reality.

On the critical side

All of the above is great in theory, and I really belief the approach starting from a strong, contemporary pedagogy is the only way to have a sound base for any learning platform, but … turning this into practice can proof to be quite challenge. For it means that all stakeholders involved must be willing to go through the change. And change management as we all know is the toughest human nut to crack. So will it work? Will the platform be as innovative as planned? Will participants be willing to reinvent their learning? Will the facilitators of these courses be willing to put themselves in the new teacher roles as guides on the side? We will see, but as to date, FutureLearn is said to roll out its first open courses in September 2013, having gone through beta testing by then, so … let’s wait and see!

Tin Can: learner #analytics for the next #research frontier

What if you are looking for an easy, accessible learner analytics that does not only map access and timings, but actually allows trainers and teachers to take a more in-depth look into the actual learning? THAT is what I am looking for. As I am researching learner interactions in a mobile accessible open, online course – I can see that access pushes forward learner interactions, and even meaningful, constructive learner interactions (research snippets will be shared soon, still getting my thesis together). Looking at Tin Can will reveal a bit of the future of learner tracking and open opportunities for future educational research. The most essential challenge that emerged from my research (at this point) was the fact that meaningful mapping of learning was lacking due to a number of reasons. 

So this is where Tin Can enters (@tincanapi), and thanks to Danny De Witte (@paravolve ) for getting me back on this topic! Tin Can builds on SCORM, but takes learning/training data to the next level. What Tin Can does is enabling teachers/trainers and as such also researchers to see which type of learning appears within a learner community. Not only the formal learning (access to course content, etcetera), but also the informal learning, not only web-based but offline as well as online, and adding ubiquity to the analysis as well. So in a nutshell Tin Can wants to push learner analytics to the next level.

Tin Can is not yet in a version to provide a widely audience a userfriendly version, but … you should have a look at where they are heading (currently 1.95 version, so near public release). What Tin Can does is getting all the diversity of tools that all of us use to build brick-à-brack solution for learner analytics, and centralizing them so that it becomes more intuitive.

The problems tackled with Tin Can as it is developed:

• Mobile tracking – any device tracking: so allowing focus on the actual learning, no matter what device.
• Simulations: allowing to move away from the browser, into where the actual learning takes place.
• Educational (serious) games: gamification is a great way to learn, but it gives rise to a lot of learning challenges, let alone tracking. Currently a lot of serious games are being played by young children, which can actually show the actual learning going on (algebra, math, language…), but this (informal) learning does not seep through to the actual teacher/trainer… however, this could create a much more personalized and in-depth profile of the actual learning of a particular individual.
• Performance support: point-of-need, just-in-time learning is essential for learning. But the barrier with scorm was the actual ‘login, path….’ Which gave rise to a bit of demotivation. But Tin Can takes tracking outside of the LMS, as such it is much more directly accessible.
• Track real world activities: a webinar, training attendance… any tracking that is GPS enabled and such.
• Offline and long running content: spaced learning enhances all of our learning as we know, but this was tough to track, with Tin Can offline tracking will be enabled. Tin Can will not program spaced learning, but will provide data that will make it easier to develop spaced learning.
• Security and authentication: Tin Can will upgrade the security a bit: secure the security between a learning provider and the actual material. It will not be fully secure, but a bit more secure.

Deeper layers: multi-level tracking: in the cloud and on the device:

• Everything is learning: if we do something that increases our knowledge, this is essential to get an idea of learning: making a mistake, writing a blog, reading up on a specific topic …. The holistic learning environment.
• How it works: bookmarks are gathered (in Tin Can), book scanner (to add the books you read), tapestry api addition…. It is all about capturing learning events.
• Key enablers: tracking does not need to be done inside an LMS, it can be launched from anywhere. The asserter of the learning material, can be different from the learning event => as such everything on the web can be used as a learning object, and can be tracked for its learning, it does not be ‘scorm-enabled’.
• Free the data: LRS: this is a great concept, LRS is a Learning Record Store: the thing that accepts all the Tin Can data and enables other instruments to analyse the data. This is where specialized analysis comes in: improve content delivery, content analytics, point towards learning pathways…
• Training data portability: allow to take along training records.
• Personal data locker: that might give the learner herself/himself to learn more on their learning: ideal meta learning tool!

Major challenge: how can one filter out the signal to noise: what makes up relevant learning, what not?

And of course, if you look at Tin Can and put this next to MOOC’s and take socially intelligent agents into consideration, than you must agree that it will offer an amazing learning advancement for the next decennium. And the effect on educational research is ENORMOUS:

• How do people like to learn?
• Which learner profiles are there?
• Can you deduct a professional profile based on learner profiles?
• Can you filter out skills and consequent opportunities based on learning?
• Can you find topics that arise from learning … from what seems to be missing?

This will shed light on actual learning apart from neuroscience monitoring. Great!

If you want to learn more about Tin Can, have a look at their website here (http://tincanapi.com ), or get a broader idea watching this webinar.

#Future of #learning on the go: Project Glass

Project Glass from Google research starts out as a personal assistant type of technology. But ... even in the short 2:30 minute YouTube movie you can see how it could be used for future learning purposes as well. It definitely adds to the mobile learning options as well and most of all, that would result in only having to use one - 1 - tool, a thing that sits on my nose daily anyway, my glasses.

Just imagine, combining these glasses with augmented reality and gesture-based learning (keep on top of new innovations at the Kinect education site)! For real! I would definitely travel to Rome and walk around all the sites, learning and viewing ancient Roman traditions, crafts, historical reenactments ... Everything is there: the Roman itineraries have been laid out (http://omnesviae.org/), there are 3D walks through the city of Rome and its architectural glory (http://earth.google.com/rome/) and add simulated mobile reality (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NliEGCnlSwM) to this and ... you have got a whole different immersive learning package!

The only thing I want to know is ... how to turn it off and stay off until I want my glasses to start providing me information and interaction again. Too much media overload never works for me, but when I like it or need it, it is simply wonderful! It would enable anyone to tap into the stream of information on the Web and ... create knowledge on the go.

html5 is growing, and this looks like a good e/mLearning solution

The new Rapid Intake mLearning studio looks like it's on its way to become a great authoring tool for all of us who are into ubiquitous learning.
Last Friday I had the pleasure of talking to David Blakely from Rapid Intake solutions. Rapid Intake is company that thrives on its dynamic developers and it shows. They have focused their recent energy on coming up with an authoring tool that allows instructional designers to deliver content across multiple devices while keeping the same content logic, though formatting the content towards the device that is connecting to that content. You can follow them on twitter via @rapidintake.

For those of you who want to take a look at the Rapid Intake mLearning studio, or Rapid Mobile, feel free to take a look at a course example and how it tailors itself to the device that is connecting to it. You can ask for a demo, or get on their mLearning mailing list, so you will be the first to know when they launch this html5/flash authoring tool to the big public!

The tool uses html5 whenever a mobile device connects to the content. They are testing it on android2.2 (galaxy tab, smartphones), iPad and iPhone, and a blackberry version will follow at a later stage. The great thing about this authoring tool is that the developer only has to author one time, once the learners uses the course the device will get the output that fits its specifics. The learners on desktops will see the application in flash, the others on html5. The tool also allows a lot of personalization, which is great for designers.

Additionally, it is scorm comformant, so you can bookmark, which makes it ideal for ubiquitous learning as it memorises where you - as a learner - where looking at the content, so if afterwards you connect to it with another device, it immediately recalls what you have seen and which answers you gave. You can also deliver it to any scorm LMS.

Although the tool will only be launched in March 2011, I had the pleasure of playing around with it (desktop, iPhone and Android running 2.3). Swiping moves the learner from page to page and it works smoothly. At this point in time they have only enabled a couple of templates (text, video, picture and a couple of quizes), but it looks great already. Possibility to add a page narration as well, which is nice. The example course ran smoothly and wonderfully on my desktop, iPad and iPhone, but it was not completely running as it should on my Android phone. Nevertheless, they still have 2 months to get everything up to speed and ... it is really worth a look. This tool will save me a lot of developing time, so yes, I will keep an eye out for when it launches in March.

What to take into account when chosing a mobile device for learning?

Choosing the best phone for mobile learning can be quite a challenge. It also depends on what you want to do with it and how easy you can get used to technology. The amount of features you want to use will also allow you to purchase a low or high cost smartphone or mobile device.

Let's say you want to explore mobile learning, these are some of your options.

First of all if you are a tech savvy person you could go for a less expensive device which has all the options of the iPhone and more, for the iPhone costs a lot, yet is similar to many other mobile phones that are cheaper. The iPhone is above all an incredibly easy phone to use (very intuitive in its user interface), so for those not that comfortable with technology, the iPhone is the way to go (although it is expensive). If you do not want to pay the cost of an iPhone, you can also go for an iPod Touch, which is much cheaper and offers all the iPhone options, except phone possibilities (but the phone possibilities are not essential for mobile learning).

The same is true for PDA's, with these types of mobile devices you have a range of possibilities, but not the phone possibilities, this again decreases the cost. You can also simply use a MP3 player, as these will enable you to share audio material (e.g. language learning or gather all the songs of birds in the wood and determine which bird it is...)
What can you opt for in a high-end phone or mobile device?
When deciding on a phone, it is good to know what features are most important to you and what type of mLearning you are envisioning, e.g. if you want to use location data to tag your pictures for field trips or similar, GPS will be necessary.

Depending on these features you can make a selection of phones and then compare them in one of the review sites (or a couple of review sites, sometimes those sites already have a 'best off' list: http://reviews.cnet.com/best-cell-phones/ , or a funny geeky one: http://www.testfreaks.co.uk/mobile-phones/ ). In any case it is good to look at which devices are on your local market and then look at (and compare) the specifications of your short list of mobile devices you want to choose from. Go for sites that offer both expert reviews AND peer reviews, because it is the user that is important, not the geek.
Personal criteria that might influence your mobile device purchase (basically what you do is check what you feel is important to you, the more possibilities, the more your device will cost - most of the time):
Camera quality: how many mega pixels does the camera have (the more mega pixels the better the quality of the pictures taken with it)? this was critical too me, as I like to record high quality movies and pictures for later recall (visual person)
Memory extension: if you use a lot of big files (movies, audio, podcasts...) it is a good thing to look at phones that have a memory slot (most of the time it is for mini SDcards), this offers you the chance to have access to more files.
Wifi possibility: if in doubt, I would certainly go for wifi enabled phones: wifi enables you to connect to free internet, which will save you a bundle especially when being abroad.
Bluetooth: this might be interesting if you want to connect to other devices without using a USB connectivity cable. It is also handy for health check-ups, they use bluetooth for instance for wireless interaction between a blood pressure meter and the software to analyse diabetes.
Phone capabilities and specifically quad band connectivity: only important if you travel internationally, because if you only have access to - say 2 - phone frequencies, you will likely not be able to access in some continents.
Mail access: is there a possibility to exchange between your mailbox and the mobile? Or is it of interest to you? If yes, look for that specification.
In addition to that one: synchronisation with outlook: only necessary if you work with outlook, this enables you to exchange mail and your contacts between your desktop and mobile phone.
Office possibilities: this enables you to look at office documents (depends again on your need).
Social media widgets: does the device offer easy to install social media widgets (e.g. facebook, flickr, twitter...). Having this function will enable you to quickly personalize your phone to your own social network.
GPS: that is increasingly important for geo-located learning as well, in those cases the GPS will know where you are at and offer you nearby information (shopping malls, geek stores, museums... linked to your location). But of course also easy to find your way around unknown territory.
Applications - can you add software that is build for your mobile phone, to your mobile phone? To me, being able to add extra applications to a phone is very important, as applications offer a wide variety of possibilities not necessarily integrated in the basic features of a phone (e.g. speech to txt, keeping track of your walks, comparing prices of products across various supermarkets and looking for the cheapest product in range, recognizing buildings...)
Touch screen or not: again this is very personal, some like touch screens, others do not (with touch screen you cannot write a quick sms blindly or from the pocket of your pants for instance, but on the other hand it offers immediate contact with what you see).
Screen reflection: if you want to use your phone outside regularly, it is a good thing to check readability of the screen when you are outside, standing in the sun.
Battery life (thanks to Nick Short!): this is pretty important if working away from a power source for example on a field trip.

Now with all these above mentioned features, it is clear that they are only interesting if you really want to explore them, otherwise it is better to buy a simple 'intermediate' smartphone which offers access to internet, phone capabilities and basic note taking (and the price is much lower than high-end phones). With these 'simple' phones you can already exchange pictures, movies, and discuss what these audiovisual materials you gathered with peers. From a learning point of view, even the simplest phone can add to a learning process.

What mobile operating system to choose?
Let's say you go for the more high-end ones, at that moment the operating system of the phone becomes very important (apple mobile operating system, windows mobile operating system, android OS, Palm OS, Rim or Blackberry OS, Symbian OS (the last one is the Nokia operating system)). Of all the Operating systems, the blackberry is the most restricted one as it needs to be connected to a central Blackberry server (rectification thanks to mLearning-world.com (who work a lot with blackberry comment - see below: the Blackberry's do have third party software that allows synchronisation with e-mail without having to go through a BB server).
There is also the operating system to consider when buying a new phone. Btw: always buy a phone that is not the first generation (these have many childhood diseases), always go for a second or third generation of a phone (e.g. do not buy the first android phone, but buy the second version they put out).

Both iPhone, Windows Mobile and Android offer 'application market place', and for the android many of them are for free. For instance if some application would be useful, but does not exist yet, android offers an open SDK (= an open development kit, which is similar to easy building blocks to build mobile software that the mobile device can run). And - thank you to Jra! - the iPhone also has a SDK kit which is easier to use than the Android one (but the Android SDK is open source, so it is again what you like best as a user or developer).

Mimi Ito: what the user wants in mLearning at mLearnCon

A dressed in black woman with Japanese features who talks amazingly quick and eloquent.

Device proliferation is one of the specific features of the new mobile user. It is personal, ambient contact enabling, sharing media. People will go to a great length to have personal, customized media based on - sometimes - a conglomerate of devices.
Japanese youth are into mobile media longer than any other user group around the world. Very few learners and educators take advantage of the new mobile possibilites. We should overcome the boundaries of schools, companies... and really get into mobile sharing and learning across boundaries.
Kids always reiterified boundaries, but in todays society the boundaries are more than ever challenged. The media use of youth has had an innovative influence on society.
Technology becomes a proxi for social context. So both social and context are important. The relationship to mobile devices is a proxi for the social relationships the users have.

We have moved to an era that we can be part of the media flux 24/7. An era of multitasking, where the constant stream of social media is constantly there. Downside of connectivity => constant attention cuts => need new mechanisms to filtering focus.

fluid flows of knowledge is the model we should follow, dixit Ito, refering to Hagel, Brown and Davidson. Using connectivity as resources for lifelong Learning.
social media = social communication + personal media.
Peer sharing, social viewing, locative media, transmedia. The nice thing about mLearning is that it makes it ubiqiutous.

Peer sharing
shift from traditional top-down formal formats to connected, informal formats.
In a lot of ways the mobile phone is the first personal computer (emerging regions, youngsters) = personal connectivity to the mobile world. It is an individual device = powerful adoption pusher.
looks into the effect of mobile phone communication on language, e.g. 'U rawk', 'drinkin til 2'
The important thing about sms is sharing presents, it is about sharing presents, it is about sense of social connection, a social wrapper. Fulltime intimate community. Text messaging drove mobile internet in Japan, because it was not possible to text message across different providers. With this push into mobile internet, other sharing medias followed.
Connecting all this mobile connectivity into learning.
Participatory learning emerged, and the pc was not the best option for this mobile exchange. Ambient access became possible, and this ambient access was linked to the specialist community, or the trusted community. So this enabled building on each others experience. Peer learning gave much better results than the hierarchal learning that was happening before.

Linking social media to location: locative media
inward photography, putting themselves in the picture. Outward with pictures. Community pictures: mobile social network that captures where youth was when and which can be shared afterwards as well, so they are always carrying mini sticker albums around (Inge: this is reallllly great!).
Ambient storytelling: university of social California. application that launches once you enter a building, and it provides a set of tools that can be used in the building, creating a knowledge database of what people do and emerse in when moving through the building (qrcodes, ...). Effort to build a history, linked to a location. Visitors and residents of the building can also participate in these activities.

Social viewing
connecting through their mobiles to connect to similar experiences. Japanese example: Nico video: annotations can be made on the videos, so if you are watching a video with many, you can add your remarks at any part of the video and you can put it on any scene of the video. Access to video is increasingly via mobile, but there is a lack of social connectivity in videa and it is precisely the communication layer that drives the learning and attention. One exaple Project k-nect: students could connect to their mentors, peers, content => learning outcomes: Bjerede, Atkins and Dede, it is connectivity to learning AND mentoring (Inge check this).

Transmedia
Social glue happens. Linking up the specific features of mobile devices, and linking them to other media. Example: pokemon, media sensation that crosses cultures and regions. Infiltrating social meanings, it is a huge knowledge economy behind it. content is about gaming and social interaction. Media mobilezes kids to act: viral contageous media. Media is the social glue, one pokemon is taking out, and other people flock together. Opportunistic learning moments, because they have these portable devices. Context of learning and social learning. Gaming is based on sharing more and more, social learning wrapper is getting more important by game designers. Social experience is part of gaming for nintendo, and since pokemon they really got the idea and importance of social gaming. Social connection with other platforms is also gaining importance with Nintendo DS. Now they start with Nintendo DS classrooms.

Manhatta project: collaborative project in New York city, drawing on the work of eric anderson, who looked at the ecosystem of New York. These databases and learning resources is put online. Now a game is made, to get youngsters out in the streets of New York and share eco locations with the database. So knowledge base knowledge media.

Inge question: there have been some projects in trying to get kids of around 12 years old a different learning experience, different in it not being traditional school curriculum, but do you know of any early smaller children initiatives? Ito answer: most of the initiatives are for the middleschool kids, quest for learning school, manhatta project... but it is covering these kids, because they are at an age where they move from being inquisitive to being blocked by peer pressure.

Question to you all: do any of you know of any initiatives directed at really young kids (even beginning with kids only a couple of months old up to 6 year olds) that embeds the new media results that come out of these researches into new forms of education?

In 2015 augmented learning in a ubiquitous learning environment will be fact

In the Big Question launched by Tony Karrer this month, he wonders what workplace learning will look like in 2015?

This is a very nice challenge, it is short and this question allows you to focus on the gut-feeling you get when looking at all the new emerging technologies.

With the mobile technology increasing and all of us eLearning providers grasping what benefits mobile learning has, I feel confident that the most innovative corporations and academic institutions will invest in their learning environments. These investments will embrace the new learning opportunities that result from adapting a new sense of learning: augmented learning, and a new way of learning: ubiquitous learning.

Augmented learning
Through augmented learning a completely new layer is added to the real and virtual learning that is happening right now. Augmented learning allows us to perceive the real world, and add an extra learning layer to it. This learning layer might be delivered above the existing real world we observe (e.g. the mobile browser layar ), or it can allow us to recognize the real world and get information on it (e.g. google Goggles), or an augmented reality can be brought to live via a barcode attached to a camera (e.g. ARToolKit).

These innovative learning techniques seem to be far off, but they are actually already being incorporated in some corporate learning environments (see this finish example where engineers get on-site information from which they learn what can improve, and which enables them to give immediate feedback to the site again: link to the plant )

Augmented reality allows you to get more information than you can see with the naked eye. And because it can be linked to mobile devices, you can have that information where you need it.


Ubiquitous learning
Our learning environments have evolved. Until only a couple of years ago learning was rather linked to a certain location: your desk or school. With mobile learning on the rise, learning can happen apart from location (and whenever you want it). But in order to do this, the learning environment must be adapted so this ubiquitous learning can occur.

In order to do this the learning environment must be able to cater to a variety of technologies (sometimes you connect with your computer, sometimes with your mobile, sometimes with someone else's device...) and it must be build so the learner can reach relevant information in a variety of ways (e.g. qrcodes, mobile internet, wifi, ...). It must also cater to the need of the learner (some of us learn through our network => social media access, some of us through a content management system => cms that allows multiple device access...).

At this point in time it still takes a lot of effort to really roll out a ubiquitous environment, but in about 5 years we should be ready to feel comfortable to live in a world from which we learn what we want, whenever we want, and with any device we can get our hands on.

Of course this does express the need for standardization both on the device side as on the connection side (oh, would not that be great!).

And to see what lies ahead, it is always a good thing to look back. So have a look at the Future of Education: best articles from 2009 according to Robin Good.

Join us on Friday 19 March for testing the iPhone/Moodle web-application

The iPhone/Moodle team has been actively adapting and testing the iPhone/Moodle code. So we invite you all to join us next Friday, i.e. Friday 19th March 2010 for testing out the code that we have been building. Thanks again to all the members of our team, it is an honor to work with you all.
Our now expanded, International project team (in alphabetical order): Lewis Carr, Beto Castillo Llaque, myself (Ignatia/Inge de Waard), Luis Fucay, Hiroki Inoue, Carlos Kiyan, Julian Ridden, and Maria Zolfo.

Feel free to join us next Friday. In order to join the demo and try the web-application starting from Friday 19th March 2010, we ask you to register in the iPhone/Moodle site here. On Friday you will all get full access to the demo course and you will be able to try it out as you like.

After the demo fase, and after we have gone through your remarks, the code will be given for free under a Creative Commons General Public license so we can all use it, adapt it to any needs, and redistribute it for all.

We have been translating the demo movie in a couple of languages that you can see on our official youTube channel, in the hope that we might connect to many of you. We also like to thank the great musician David Arkenstone for allowing us to use an excerpt of his music for the demo movie!

Vlaamse versie
Version Française
Deutsche version
Versiòn en Espanol
Latviesu
Russian version
Japanese version

And the English version.

So join us on Friday 19th March 2010! We would love to hear your feedback and improve the coding so that we can have quite a good first release of the open source code.

In the meantime, check out this video (thanks Carlos!) to get people to the project site:

Blogger goal in 2010: more narrative coherence in between the topic strands

Wondering about the tulip image and how it links to this post? Look below.

As Christian Creutz put it so clearly: contemporary information is faster, more intense and direct. It is impossible to follow all that is created, even when limiting myself to a topic of any kind, there is so much knowledge out there in so many people. So, it looked to me that focusing will help my personal learning, as long as I link it to others who dive into similar topics. So for this year I will weave connections and topics together.

In the past year I also realized more then ever, that the narrative was missing and that I was missing this oldest human educational form in my blog. Narrations however might add to a deeper understanding, clarifying why I am learning, where my learning is going and it can also clarify it for possible followers. So for 2010 I have one stylistic ambition, to focus on just a couple of main topics that will be covered as I learn and act throughout 2010. And if possible to get some sort of narrative strand linking them all (or parts of them) together.

Future of education: institutions, interdisciplinary examples: art, activism, underground movement learning.
Pedagogies in contemporary learning: getting creative with existing and new stuff, trying to link it to a learning and theoretical framework with simple language and terms.
Ubiquitous learning: informal learning, formal learning, just-in-time learning, all the while keeping self-regulated learning in mind, or just immersing in learning no matter what context or location anyone is in.
Learning gadgets, tips and tricks: should pick this up.
mLearning: yes, it is still high on my list of fun topics.
Learning starts in the womb: getting my teeth into (very) early learning and possibly enhance chances of getting a good start for very, very young children. The informal learning, getting to grips with the world, stuff of with under two year old children.
And liven everything up a bit: humor (absolutely not sure if this will work).

These topics are linked to the eLearning predictions I have for 2010 and which might be added to the eLearn magazine's post on eLearning predictions (still on the editors table), so in that sense moving from predictions to goals. On the other hand, I wonder if I will be able to get some sort of narrative through all the posts?

Tulips? Typing in your major topics might reveal a new connection for networking
If you wonder what the image has to do with the blog post, I just put in all my main topics and googled for the first image. This gave me the tulips, which were linked to the blog of Jess Laccetti, who teaches in Edmonton, Canada on a couple of topics mentioned above. A good connection to add, me thinkest while adding Jess (hi) to my twitter connections.

My 8 learning predictions for 2010

In follow-up of the predictions I made in 2009, I take a go at predicting the learning evolutions for 2010 (oh, how I wish I had an oracle to advise me).

I also linked this post to the Big Question for January 2010 in a quest for plans or predictions, posted by Tony Karrer on the Learning Circuit blog.

Overall I feel that learning research in 2010 will favor pedagogy over technology as the prime focus, and ubiquitous learning will be the central goal. In a more elaborate sense, here are my 8 predictions for 2010:

Semantics: Learning will become the rave again. Web2.0, education2.0, mobile learning, eLearning, TELearning … we as learners will be focusing on Learning again for the simple reason that the learning is all around us, and done with every tool we have.

Ubiquitous learning: ubiquitous learning as a term becomes more common place, especially with net books and mobile devices still on the rise. Because ubiquitous learning is coming closer to our learning reality, and because it focuses more on the learning aspect and less on what type of technology is used, I think it will be one of the main educational foci in 2010.

Social media will become more streamlined, and all present: the last couple of year’s new social media applications sprung up. In 2010 I predict that it will become more streamlined, once people are used to certain software that serves a specific purpose; they tend to stay with it for a longer amount of time. Social media will become normal for any type of learning, because it favors networks and connections.

Pedagogy: for the last couple of years technology was at the center of innovative learning. In my opinion, now that these (social media) technologies have taken off, the focus will come back to the learner her/himself. Pedagogy will overtake technology as the main focus in new media learning research.

Cognitive factors: in 2008 and 2009 some new initiatives were taken to start using new technologies and resulting innovative pedagogies, e.g. Connectivism and Connective Knowledge course, Quest for learn. For 2010 I think the cognitive will be increasingly in the picture.

Low resource areas build more applications by themselves, and for themselves. Africa and other low resource areas are moving forward at a rapid pace. There is a growing number of African developers and activists that make a difference and enable citizens to participate in society, and engage in learning. This trend will increase, as more projects are developed or useful mash-ups are put together to get a message out to the world or boost their region and its people.

Augmented reality: as the applications for mobile devices grow, augmented reality is becoming a much more interesting area to explore. It allows all users to get a clearer view on topics that are of interest to them: is an engineering project on target? Which shops can I see from where I stand? What church is this? Just take a look at the Augmented Reality Team video’s.

Networking and connections gain even more ground: for any long term project that wants to take off, the strength will be in the network and the connections related to it. Building a strong and relevant personal network will be crucial for any work. But in order to be willing to build a network and exchange knowledge with all the connected people in it, trust will be crucial. Trust is a good characteristic for any type of living.

What are your predictions for 2010?

(Another great cartoon by Nick D Kim, nearingzero.net.)

Living a mobile life? How do you cope?

First I was a nomad, I did not have a house nor passport for two years, moving from one place to another. Then I was house hopping for another three years. Eventually I got myself a house, then I started to learn on top of my work... so all along I had to be mobile. Where the mobility was mostly physical in the first part of my adult life, it quickly became essential for my mental development in the second part of my adult life.

As ubiquitous learning is becoming more obvious, some of you have been writing on the fact that learning has always been mobile, like Michelle Pacansky-Brock linking it to university issues. With this post I would love to hear your mobile life and how you are coping?

For my work I sometimes need to visit partners in the South (India, Morocco, South-Africa...). While I am there, I learn from my colleagues over there, I learn how they tackle certain pedagogical problems and infrastructural challenges. So I guess, at that point I am learning while being mobile, something that explorers have always done. In fact starting from the 17th century mobile learning was all the rave if you were part of the upper class, you went on a Grand Tour to get extra education. And in Africa they had and have people - les griots - who took what they had seen and learned on their travels and routes, the history of the people passed on to them for generations, and delivered that knowledge to whomever wanted to listen to them. So mobile learning is not new, but learning through means of mobile devices is.

Just a couple of weeks ago I was on route and this is how I was learning while being on route or mobile. I am currently following a master in distance education at Athabasca University on top of my work as an eLearning coordinator and researcher at the Institute of Tropical Medicine. This brings along some challenges, because where ever I go for my job, I need to stay in touch with my learning material as well. On this journey I had: two smartphones (one symbian, one windows mobile and waiting to by an android one), one light weight laptop with me. The trip consisted of a bus ride, four trains (yes, cutting the carbon emission by not taking the plain) which totaled 8 hours of travelling and a cab drive to my hotel.

All in all, here are some mobile learning snapshots... pictures taken with mobile smartphones:

Waiting for the train, so learning on the platform

Shaky while writing the first draft of a paper on the train




Learning next to the queen while waiting on the next train



What is your mobile life like?

European report on 'The Impact of Social Computing on the EU Information Society and Economy' also mobile social media

The European Commission JRC (Joint Research Center), Institute for Prospective Technological Studies released last week at the EU Ministerial Conference on e-Government a comprehensive report on social and economic implications of Social Computing [aka Web2.0, social media].

'The Impact of Social Computing on the EU Information Society and Economy' (Eds.) Yves Punie, Wainer Lusoli, Clara Centeno, Gianluca Misuraca and David Broster. Authors: Kirsti Ala-Mutka, David Broster, Romina Cachia, Clara Centeno, Claudio Feijóo, Alexandra Haché, Stefano Kluzer, Sven Lindmark, Wainer Lusoli, Gianluca Misuraca, Corina Pascu, Yves Punie and José A. Valverde.

For anyone interested in social media and the impact it has on both society and economy, this is a very worthwhile report.

This wide report covers different thematic areas. In addition to a cross-cutting analysis across areas in Ch1: Key findings, Future Prospects and Policy Implications

It contains thematic analysis:
Ch2: The adoption and Use of Social Computing
Ch3: Social Computing from a Business Perspective
Ch4: Social Computing and the Mobile Ecosystem
Ch5: Social Computing and Identity
Ch6: Social Computing and Learning
Ch7: Social Computing and Social Inclusion
Ch8: Social Computing and Health
Ch9: Social Computing and Governance

In Part II: On defining Social Computing, its Scope and Significance, you have a chapter (chapter 4) which is completely dedicated to mobile social computing and which offers some great tables and analysis. You might want to click on the image to enlarge the picture, it gives an overview of the techno-economic activities in the mobile content and applications ecosystem. So just taken out two quotes from the report:

"Learning from users (user-driven innovation) is the response increasingly adopted both by the new mobile industry and by new public policies (e.g., by providing wide access to “living labs”). At the same time, it could also be argued that users are still not empowered enough in the mobile
domain. Currently, users are not in control (or even aware) of the information that players cross the mobile value chain have about them and how this could be used."
With a relevant quote to low resource areas: "it must not be forgotten that the base conditions for the success of any mobile advanced service are the availability and affordability of mobile broadband connections and the availability, affordability and usability of mobile devices. In particular, these conditions have an inclusive angle for those people who are under served by market priorities."

From their website: "The rapid growth of web 2.0, or social computing, allows users to play an influential role in the way commercial and public products and services are shaped. The report "The impact of Social Computing on the EU Information Society and Economy", published today by the JRC Institute for Prospective Technological Studies (IPTS), finds that in 2008, 41% of EU Internet users were engaged in social computing activities through Social Networking Sites (SNS), blogs, photo and video sharing, online multi-player games and collaborative platforms for content creation and sharing. This percentage rises to 64% if users aged under 24 only are considered.

The report shows that social computing goes beyond individual networking and entertainment, as it empowers tens of millions of Europeans to support their work, health, learning and citizenship in innovative ways.

The research found that social computing is reshaping work practices, as employees join communities of interest outside their organisations to improve their knowledge and skills. Social innovation enabled by social computing contributes to improved lifelong learning processes, business competitiveness, social inclusion and integration of immigrants, among others."