Great mobile presentation by Judy Brown on mobile project planning

As the MobiMOOC is well in its second week, the presentations are becoming increasingly inspiring. If you are interested in mobile project planning, Judy Brown's presentation will get you on the way in just a couple of relevant steps.

Mobimooc Week 2 - Planning mLearning

View more presentations from Judy Brown

Call for papers on the subject of #Connectivism #MobiMOOC

The MobiMOOC course is well on its way and the interactions are relevant and they get the participants into the sharing mindset which is related to the connectivist idea of building knowledge by exchanging ideas with peers.

In the newsletter from George Siemens (and in collaboration with Terry Anderson from the University of Athabasca (Canada), he mentions a call for papers on connectivism, so feel free to join with your research ideas. The papers will be published in a specialized issue of IRRODL

Title: Emergent Learning, Connections, and Design for Learning
Editors: Roderick Sims, PhD and Elena Kays, PhD

Rationale
Connections? Emergence? Chaos? Complexity? Fractals? Quantum Theory? Although many of these terms originated and have been widely studied in the natural sciences, they are emerging as important interdisciplinary ways to understand both natural and social sciences, including education. The question therefore arises ... are the traditions of what it means to teach and learn being challenged by these concepts, or are we simply experiencing the natural evolution of education through a process of emergence?

• Emergence encourages random encounters, paying attention to your neighbours, and “more being different”. Through such encounters and interactions we can look for patterns in the signs which can be extrapolated to an entire system, the intelligence of which comes from the bottom up, and where low-level rules can create high levels of sophistication.
• The connections being made between people through social networks has emphasised “connectivism”, an emergent theory of learning where the interactions that are generated by these connections, whether informal or formal, have the potential to result in new, emergent knowledge.
• For designers, taking account of emergence and connections can challenge the traditional models which have been used to create ‘instructional order’. Emergence theory offers insights into complex adaptive systems that can self-organize, a quite different way of conceptualising the teaching/learning space.
Given this link between connections and emergence, and the significant impact this association would have on how we teach and learn, it is therefore important to analyse what it means to design for emergent, connected learning experiences.
 
Special Issue
The purpose of this special issue of IRRODL is to provide a forum to explore connections, emergence, and design for learning, and in so doing be sensitive to emergent ideas. Because we’ve designed and implemented education in one way for decades does not mean it’s the right way!
We encourage your ideas for topics, with the following list (by no means exclusive) identifying possible topics to be covered in this special issue.
• Methods for studying emergence in distributed , online contexts
• Extensive literature reviews of emergence and related disciplines focusing on their significance for education
• Empirical studies on extent and impact of emergence in learning contexts
• Emergence and social networks
• Connections and emergence – is ‘design’ realistic?
• Designs for learning in connected worlds
• Connecting affordances – virtual worlds, networks, social media
• Open educational resources and emergent learning
Submissions, especially those that apply multidisciplinary approaches to online and distance teaching and learning, are welcomed for this issue.

Articles due: May 27, 2011
Editorial decision: September, 2011
Publication: November, 2011

Authors submit their manuscripts online by registering with IRRODL then logging in and following an automated, five-step submission process. 

Join the open and free course on mobile learning: #MobiMOOC

Mobile learning (mLearning) is all the rage at the moment, but how do you get started and how do you maximize the mLearning plans you have? Simple, follow this free online course facilitated by 7 mobile experts and turn your mLearning knowledge into a practical project. Interested? Join the online google group, the course wiki and enter the mLearning conversation with other peers.

Grab your mobile and optimize its use
The MobiMOOC course will run for 6 weeks (2 April – 14 May). The target group for this course is … anyone interested in mLearning. Although the course is open to all, it is useful if you have some experience with social media. If you have a mobile phone or device, than grab it or go and buy one, it will make your learning much more authentic.

The MobiMOOC course will start with an introduction to mLearning, getting everyone comfortable with some of its key features, and gradually moving into the more complex technical, project planning and philosophical topics. The course will feature mLearning examples from the academic, corporate and non-profit world, and look at both simple and on the edge projects from both the North and South, as the South has been an inspiration for mLearning.

The MOOC format
MobiMOOC is a fully online course, which follows the MOOC (Massive, Open, Online Course) format. This format uses a lot of social media to enable all the participants and the facilitators to stay connected, build a network, exchange experiences. As the course is focusing on mobile learning, it is called MobiMOOC. As much of a MOOC is about exchanging notes with peers, and constructing knowledge collaboratively, so responsibility of the learning is with you, the participants and as such you need to self-regulate your learning. To optimize your learning it is important to plan your learning actions. However, we are all in this together! You can be sure that with the mLearning expert facilitators of the course and your peers, you will get your hands on great resources, inspiring discussions and all of our minds will be challenged and inspired.
If you do not like e-mails, you can also add the discussion threads to a RSS feed.

The main course sites are accessible for a lot of mobile devices (e.g. google groups for discussing which uses e-mails, twitter, facebook…).

Interested? The when and where
The course will be running: from 2nd April 2011 until 14 May 2011. Every week focuses on a new topic.

Join the MobiMOOC google group (this will be the primary site for discussions) in order to get into the course and be kept up-to-date. You need to sign in with a google account. Important: once you have joined the MobiMOOC google-group, make sure you choose how you want to be kept up to date: recommended choices either an abridged e-mail (= you get a summary of the new activities each day) or digest e-mail (you get all the new messages bundled into one single mail per day). Google groups works like a listserv, so you can reply to a message send from the group via your e-mail, the google group mail: mobimooc (at) googlegroups (dot) com . After joining the group, please add a bit of information about yourself via the profile of your google group account, that way we all get to know one another a bit better.
Check out the course wiki (still a work in process, but already loaded with information)
http://mobimooc.wikispaces.com/

Get connected to the MobiMOOC twitter and Facebook account.
Facebook account: some informal learning or chatting
http://facebook.com/mobimooc
Twitter: mobiMOOC: tweetering thoughts and ideas and for speedy connections (hashtag #mobiMOOC)
http://twitter.com/mobiMOOC

Topics and facilitators?
Week 1: Saturday 2 April – 8 April 2011: Introduction to mLearning;
Facilitator: Inge ‘Ignatia’ de Waard

Week 2: Saturday 9 April – 15 April 2011: Planning an mLearning project;
Facilitator: Judy Brown

Week 3: Saturday 16 April – 22 April 2011: Mobile for development (m4D);
Facilitators: Niall Winters and Yishay Mor

Week 4: Saturday 23 – 29 April 2011: Leading edge innovations in mLearning;
Facilitator: David Metcalf

Week 5: Saturday 30 – 6 May 2011: Interaction between mobile learning and a mobile connected society;
Facilitator: John Traxler

Week 6: Saturday 7 – 13 May 2011: mLearning in k12;
Facilitator: Andy Black

So if you are interested, keep your agenda (a bit) free from 2 April - 14 May 2011 and join us.

Blogphilosophy: #eLearning in times of #diabetic despair

We learn for many reasons and most of the time we can plan what and when to learn, but sometimes we need to assimilate more knowledge than we had anticipated in a much shorter time span. This was what happened to me last week.
At first I did not want to share any of these experiences, but then I remembered the dictum ‘the personal is political’ and as such I reminded myself that silence never helped anyone. Diagnosed diabetic
Last week my blood glucose was completely of the charts. Where at first I thought I had a rapid functioning thyroid, it turned out to be diabetes, a late diabetes 1, which was undetected for months (hemoglobineA1c above 12) so I got rushed into hospital. Within five days I got educated in food, carbohydrates, insulin, using syringes, physical activity, possible consequences and getting to grips with something that will stay with me throughout my life. It was a hard blow and it still is.

For seven days I refused to go online. I did not want the disease to infiltrate my life, and I did not want to share what I had out of fear of no longer being seen as ‘a strong professional’. This was an absurd train of thought, for I would not think of anyone having any disease as weak, but now with me at the receiving end it did feel that way for me.
The hospital staff was supportive and they educated me day by day on how to cope with diabetes, what effects it could have, why it depended on three pillars: physical exercise, carbohydrates and insulin. Nevertheless my mind was in a constant state of blur.

Constructing knowledge in times of despair
Coping with what life throws at us is often linked to eLearning. We (or I) seek answers on the worldwide web, and in many occasions it helps us cope with the real world. Many of us have to deal with distressing health news at one time or another. For me, it came last week. First I did not want to accept the fact that I had a chronic disease (yes, I know full denial and to be honest the denial still pops up), but after the first week, I turned to the Net – real-time school – to get some answers to questions like:

• Where can I find more information?
• How can I find the proper information (no panic, just the facts please)
• Where to find people in the same situation to exchange notes?
• Are there mobile gadgets? (this I found interesting)

Diabetes: mobile and gadgets
I wanted to bring the diabetes closer to my own world. So, what were the mobile options, the gadgets? And I found some stuff that gave me hope.
First of all a native application to report my glucose and activities via my Android smartphone:
On Track:
http://www.androidzoom.com/android_applications/medical/ontrack-diabetes_lex.html

Secondly a newly released (Dutch) iPad magazine
http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=419603195&mt=8&affId=1380330

And I wondered, is there a system that can monitor your blood glucose ‘life’, and depending on this figure can inject the correct amount of insulin on a regular basis?
Well, it seems there is, but still in a very early stages (nevertheless it does give me hope that there will be a fully tested device soon that will be able to monitor all – nano technology might help out as well).
http://www.medtronic.com/your-health/diabetes/device/insulin-pumps/paradigm-pump/

It is weird to see that diabetic is a mobile disease, for which you use mobile gadgets to keep up with it.
All of this learning would not have been possible ten years ago. Or at least it would not have been as easy. Unfortunately though, learning only nourishes the ratio, and not the emotions. It must be said that learning is a rational act, and where we place our knowledge is a moral, emotional act which often takes more time than the simple picking up of information. To illustrate the discrepancy between learning and living what is learned, I add the last bit of this blogpost.

The roller-coaster of a chronic disease
At the moment I am still not feeling very well. It is like the proverbial emotional roller-coaster. I understand that with the insulin I will live longer, but the uncertainty of having to rely on something outside of my body is difficult at times.

I got home by Friday night, and the first time I needed to put in insulin at home was quite confrontational, as suddenly also my 'safe world' was invaded, not only the surrealistic hospital world.
I felt like I had stepped through a looking glass and I could not return to the world of the healthy people. It really feels as if I am on the other side surrounded by people in similar conditions.

All along I felt a strange kind of guild: what if I had..., what if I had not..., ... how strange to seek a moral cause where morals do not have anything to do with it.

Diabetes can bring along some scary complications as well. My legs are hurting since I came out of hospital, which makes me feel very insecure for this might be a complication already. At this point I still hope the pain will fade as the surmount of sugar leaves my body. I hope this is not the first symptom of neuropathy (which scares the hell out of me).

It seems that today I am also fighting, I have danced for 15 minutes to underline the fact that I refuse to live without action. It is strange to feel how my mind is rushing through iterations of emotions in an attempt to find a new equilibrium.

And once again learning is what keeps me going.

Call for papers for mLearn2011 in Beijing, China

The mLearn conference (supported by IAmLearn) always guarantees real good research and discussions on mLearning and contextual learning. And the great thing is.... this year it will be organized in China! Yes, so get your brains working, your fingers oiled and your keyboards working.

The 10th World Conference on Mobile and Contextual Learning will be held in Beijing, 18 - 21 October 2011. And there is an array of papers you can submit, so no excuse not to do it!

The mLearn 2011 paper submission system is now open - https://www.easychair.org/account/signin.cgi?conf=mlearn2011. But do not just run over and submit anything, first get the paper template, it will surely increase the acceptance of your paper if you format it correctly. Download the paper template here . Should you experience any difficulties submitting your paper, please let us know via email: mlearn (at) bnu.edu.cn

All accepted papers will be considered by the Programme Committee for Outstanding Paper Awards (and yes, that is a great honor and it looks good on your resumé). Certificates will be issued to 10 outstanding papers of at least one registered author. There is an opportunity to be invited to deliver the keynote speech at mLearn 2011 as well.

The conference theme is Mobile and Contextual Learning: Culture and Change

. It aims to stimulate critical debate on and research into theories, approaches, and applications of mobile and contextual learning; to bring together researchers and practitioners from all over the world to share their knowledge, experience and research in the field of mobile learning; and to create dialogue and networking for knowledge sharing and transfer across the globe.

Submissions are invited for:

• Long papers (8 pages)
• Short papers (3 pages)
• Workshops (2 pages)
• Posters (300 words)
• Panels (500 words)
• Industry showcase &presentation (1-2 page)
• Doctoral Consortium (4 pages)

All submitted papers will be blind reviewed by at least three members of an international panel of research leaders in the area of mobile and contextual learning. Accepted papers of at least one registered author will be published in the printed and the CD versions of the proceedings. The proceedings will also be published via the web for Full Open Access. Authors of accepted papers will have the opportunity to have their submissions considered for special issues of the SSCI-indexed Journal of Computer Assisted Learning (JCAL) and the International Journal of Mobile and Blended Learning (IJMBL).

More details about the reviewing process, the acceptance policy, organizing invited workshops, and submission deadlines can be found at our websites - http://www.mlearn.org/mlearn2011 or http://mlearn.bnu.edu.cn/

Enquiries:
If you have any further questions, please contact Prof. Shengquan Yu at mlearn@bnu.edu.cn Tel: +86(0)1058806922, Fax: +86(0)1058800256,
Blog: mLearn2011
Twitter: @mlearn11,
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=154843551225978
School of Educational Technology, Beijing Normal University, China.

Google Chrome and translator to get 1 click translations and increase your PLE and network

Just two nifty tricks for those work with international colleagues or simply interested in eLearning resources from different languages. The first trick tells you how to quickly translate any web-page into your language (really quick), the second one suggests how you can enlarge your PLE or network.

Translate any webpage really quickly
Google Chrome is moving up in the browser world and there are many reasons why, a personal favorite is the reason mentioned in a blogpost by Ivan Boothe who is all into nonprofi and activism. He mentions an initiative by Google to donate (for a limited amount of time) some money to good causes. A great idea and initiative, clearly indicating the drive for change.

For me, the most handy feature in Google Chrome is the translator function which gets me through to many non-English/French/German/Dutch sites. If you have not given it a try, please do, it will increase your PLE and professional network.

In just 5 easy steps, you will be able to read (sometimes in double Dutch but still understandable) your favorite Chinese, Hindi, Russian, Japanese, Swahili sites! How cool is that!

1. Install Google Chrome, remember to uncheck the box suggesting you should use Google Chrome as your default browser (or leave it checked if you want to).
2. Install the Google Translator plugin for Google Chrome.
3. Restart your computer.
4. Open Google Chrome, and you will see that in the top right hand corner of the browser a little icon shows up.
5. Go to a website with a language you do not understand, and click on the icon. A bar appears asking you if you want to translate the website.... et voilà

It is nice, nifty and neat.

Find new people and new resources in other languages
To make it worth your while, you can apply the above in an advanced way:

• you can go to Google translate:
• type in the topic you want to know more about,
• set the translation to a language you would like to get to know people/professionals in.
• Then copy the translated word or phrase,
• paste it into a search engine;
• open the website you found into google chrome,
• click on the translate buttton and... a new network and information hub opens up!

I did the above with the terms: 'education e-learning' and translated it into Hindi, which gave me the Hindi words: शिक्षा ई सीखना
I then put it into Google Chrome, where I choose the website: http://hindi.anriintern.com/news?act=news
Which I could simply translate and ... it was a new useful resource. Fun!

Call for papers on Open Educational Resources deadline 1st March 2011

This call links creativity with OER, so will be fun to write. Underneath you will find the synopsis on the call, for more information you can take a look at the website.

Special Themed Issue on Creativity and Open Educational Resources (OER)
Fostering Creativity – The Use of Open Educational Resources

The European Journal of Open, Distance and E-learning announces a special issue for Summer 2011 entitled "Fostering Creativity – The Use of Open Educational Resources".

The Chief Editor, Alan Tait, Professor Elsebeth Korsgaard Sorensen, Aarhus University, Denmark and Professor Grainne Conole, The Open University, UK as guest editors invite you to submit a paper for a special issue on the notion of creativity in the context of Open Educational Resources. Papers can be either single or multiple authored.

Overall objectives of the special issue

From the perspective of stimulating change and bringing about creativity in the design of OER, the special issue aims to identify and present, from a principled approach, the latest research, not only on relevant theory and various practice contexts, but also in terms of capturing learning designs and best-practice, which demonstrate significant and creative ways of enhancing the learning process through effective use of OER.

Key dates

Submission of full manuscripts:	1st March 2011
Reviewers’ comments will be sent by:	1st April 2011
Revised versions to be received by:	1st May 2011
Publication:	Summer 2011

Three wonderful resources for eLearning

The last couple of weeks I have encountered some very useful resources, so I wanted to share it. The text accompanying the resources is taken out of the documents themselves. I found all of the documents relevant: the first for practical eLearning development, the second for getting a more in-depth understanding of lifelong learning options, and the 3rd one to get a better understanding of the effect (or non-effect) discussion still accompanying blended learning.

Choosing authoring tools by ADL (29 April 2010): the purpose of this paper is to help those involved in the process of choosing authoring tools to make an informed decision. The paper presents a range of considerations for choosing tools, whether as an enterprise-wide acquisition or a single user purchase, and includes a sampling of current tools categorized according to the kind of product they are intended to produce.

Good practices and methodologies for HEI (Higher Educational Institutes) using ICT in the different fields of LifeLong Learning (30 October 2010).
The report is summarizing the outcome of a long research work that we made with the partners during the project based on a detailed research plan. We collected with different techniques possible Good practices of ICT use in the European Higher Educational arena, and categorised them in 9 territories and 8 areas. (See more details in the research plan.) Upon agreed definition we selected (shortlisted) those where at least two criteria of excellence could be observed. The partnership then gathered detailed data about the selected practices with different techniques, most commonly by updating or making interviews with them.
Finally 35 detailed cases were quantitatively analyzed by a common grid of 30 questions in 8 areas from management to communication. The analysis show the most frequently cited common elements in respective areas that lead to good practice, as well as territory specific outcomes where some aspects were cited only in one or two territory cases.
(Yes, this is really a report with formal language).

Evaluation of evidence based practices in online learning: a meta-analysis and review of online learning studies (September 2010).
A systematic search of the research literature from 1996 through July 2008 identified more than a thousand empirical studies of online learning. Analysts screened these studies to find those that (a) contrasted an online to a face-to-face condition, (b) measured student learning outcomes, (c) used a rigorous research design, and (d) provided adequate information to calculate an effect size. As a result of this screening, 50 independent effects were identified that could be subjected to meta-analysis. The meta-analysis found that, on average, students in online learning conditions performed modestly better than those receiving face-to-face instruction. The difference between student outcomes for online and face-to-face classes—measured as the difference between treatment and control means, divided by the pooled standard deviation—was larger in those studies contrasting conditions that blended elements of online and face-to-face instruction with conditions taught entirely face-to-face. Analysts noted that these blended conditions often included additional learning time and instructional elements not received by students in control conditions. This finding suggests that the positive effects associated with blended learning should not be attributed to the media, per se.

Part2: the facilitators of the free mobile online course

Last week I posted the first post related to a free, open online course on the topic of mobile learning. The course starts to get into shape, and it will be running from 2nd April - 14 May 2011. I am waiting to release the name of the course ... building some kind of surprise (but I did see someone picked it up already).

This is the list of the facilitators and the dates (this can still change a bit, but the subjects stay the same):

First the simple one: Week 1: Saturday 2 April - 8 April 2011: Introduction to mLearning.
Facilitator: I (and I already got help from all the other facilitators to link to some mLearning content, thanks for that!).

The real and wonderful eLearning guru's take over after the first week. Now remember from the earlier post, much of a MOOC is about exchanging notes with peers, and constructing knowledge collaboratively, but you can be sure that with these facilitators you get your hands on great resources and your minds will be challenged by getting all of us in this together.

Week 2: Saturday 9 April – 15 April 2011: Planning an mLearning project;
Facilitator: Judy Brown

Week 3: Saturday 16 April – 22 April 2011: mobile for development (m4D);
Facilitators: Niall Winters and Yishay Mor

Week 4: Saturday 23 – 29 April 2011: Leading edge innovations in mLearning;
Facilitator: David Metcalf

Week 5: Saturday 30 – 6 May 2011: Interaction between mobile learning and a mobile connected society;
Facilitator: John Traxler

Week 6: Saturday 7 – 13 May 2011: mLearning in k12;
Facilitator: waiting confirmation.

So if you are interested, keep your agenda (a bit) free from 2 April - 14 May 2011.

Register for the Plymouth eLearning conference organized by Steve Wheeler

The wonderful and enlightened Steve Wheeler is organizing the 6th Plymouth e-Learning conference that will last for three days: 6, 7, and 8 April 2011. The central theme for this years conference will be: Learning in a Connected World, which is a hot topic by all means.

I hope some of you got your papers in, and if not, you can still just come over and join the conference.

There will be really great keynotes:
6 April:
Jane Seale: Jane’s research operates at the intersection of education, technology and disability and she has over 20 years of experience examining the role of technology in promoting inclusion, particularly for those with learning disabilities. This is a keynote I look forward to, as E.A. Draffan frequently pushes me to remember people with different abilities when I build e/m-Learning projects. I will learn a lot, I am sure (and happy).

7 April:
Stephen Heppel: yes, thát Stephen who is supposedly to put the 'C' into ICT. Since 2004 he has a global, florishing policy and learning consultancy Heppell.net. He is a renowned keynote speaker who inspires. Which is why I choose to embed one of his keynote speeches.

John Davitt: journalist and educator, John has written for several news papers/journals and worked extensively with teachers in schools in UK, USA, China and Africa. He is committed to leveling the playing field regarding access to new learning opportunities. Yes, a man who speaks to my heart, so looking forward to shake his hand and get a picture.

8 April
Me, I look at myself as the wild card in the bunch, and that is just stimulating. I must admit thought that I feel the anxiety coming as it will be a challenge to add anything to the central idea of the conference after having such wonderful keynote people speaking the days before. So writing with passion to get my abstract to the keynote ready (Steve, it is coming!). If you have ideas for my keynote, feel free to share, I am trying to make sense of mashing up these ideas: mLearning, augmentation, MOOC, learning analytics, and our common telepathic/tele-kinect-ed future.

If I understand correctly all the keynotes will be Ustreamed and shared, yes!

Wondering what the central content of the theme will be? This is it, straight from Steve's keyboard ...

"We live in a world of increased mobility where proliferation of smart, mobile technologies is creating a host of new anytime, anywhere contexts. Pervasive computing and handheld devices are creating opportunities for learning to become ubiquitous – anytime, anywhere. Tech-savvy students are more demanding, and often less comfortable with traditional settings and homogenized provision where ‘one size fits all’. There is a migration of students toward tools and services that are beyond the control of the institution. The emerging social media of Web 2.0 are more flexible, sociable and more visually attractive. The surge in popularity of user generated content (including the likes of Wikipedia) is challenging the long held beliefs that experts are the main arbiters of knowledge. The informality of massively multiplayer online games is pushing informal learning to the fore. In short, we live and learn in a connected world.

Schools, colleges and universities are attempting to change to adapt to these new needs and expectations, but such transformation can be slow and problematic. The 6th Plymouth e-Learning Conference will highlight the need for innovative solutions in education and training, and will provide opportunities for delegates to discuss the tensions that exist between institutional provision and personalised learning. We will explore a number of issues surrounding the use of technologies in learning, providing a platform for informed debate across all sectors of education and training. The conference will showcase key examples of e-learning research, innovative use of new and established learning technologies, practical solutions, debates and speculative pieces on the future of education in a connected world."

So come over to Plymouth, enjoy the countryside and discuss with the rest of us.