Call for gender, mobile and learning research cases ideas

If you work on a project, or idea which involves gender and mobile or online learning, make sure you get an article in to Ronda Zelezny-Green. She is the founder and organizer of the Gender & Mobile/Learning Newsletter, packed with news and now running up for its first year edition. And you can easily subscribe to the newsletter here.

In order to get your gender/tech article added to the celebrating-one-year-newsletter, you can submit your articles before 4 December 2013 by sending them to Ronda (RondaZG3 at gmail.com) or/and Alex(andra) Tyers (alexandratyers at gmail.com). And become part of a growing network.

Ronda Zelezny-Green is just one of those stars that will and are changing the learning world. Ronda is an upcoming, yet already sparkling researcher and a prolific blogger. I must say even a quick glance at her work is enlightening. So get your projects mailed to her, so she can give them a boost by sheer information dissemination. 

Ronda wrote a formidable piece in the Guardian's Global section on bringing education education to young mothers through mobiles, based upon her current main project. The article is rich in information and insights and provides insights on how girls can be kept in the learning loop by offering mobile education (really great article!). 

Call for eLearning Africa as an extra

And why not give your project a double boost, and submit it for eLearning Africa if you have a potential development link in your proposal? 

The 9th eLearning Africa conference will take place in Kampala, Uganda, from 28 - 30 May 2014.

Theme of this year: Opening Frontiers to the Future. 

More information on the conference can be found here: http://www.elearning-africa.com/index.php

Speaking proposals need to be in by 15 January 2014. You can submit a proposal here. 

Read More

All content videos on #OER, #MOOC and #opened13

If you can, take the rest of the week off for research purposes. Go home, activate your internet, take which ever device you like best and look at one of the sessions coming from last weeks Open Education conference. All the talks can be viewed, everything is out in the open and most of the talks are about 30 minutes long, so fairly digestible.

All the speaker sessions can be viewed here:
http://openeducation2013.sched.org and you simply select the session you think is going to lift you to the next knowledge level. And there are a lot of content topics to choose from:

• If you are interested in Open Educaitonal Resources (cases and theory - either from educational, library resources or a researcher perspective ... there will be a session of interest for you).
• If you are interested in MOOCs, simply select one of these sessions
• If you are interested in using Open Badges, again there are multiple sessions covering those as well (again in practice and theory).
• If you want to learn more about institutional change and whether or not to move towards Open or more towards Corporate open for your online modules... there are sessions of interest.

And if you are unsure of where to start, have a look at the wonderful and thought provoking keynote delivered by Audrey Waters on the Future of Education and THE END OF TIMES, talking the viewers on an epic journey through the movies and into the realm of the singularity and beyond! Great stuff! The slides accompanying her 40 minute talk can be found on slideshare here, but just watch her speak energetically does the trick.

Read More

#Plagiarism and digital #citizenship

If you have, at any time, wondered how to react when some of your content was picked up without being cited, this is a nice video to view as you are reflecting on the topic.  The presenter is the wonderful Sophia Mavridi talking about digital plagiarism versus digital citizenship, a war of words. It is a wonderful overview of thoughts, cultural concepts on plagiarism, factual student realities, self expression and identity, privacy, self mediation,  and ... content repetition.

The content is of interest, but at the same time it is also interesting as it is a workshop recording. So in a way, you can enter the actions of this workshop after the actual fact. Though some editing might have cut out the group discussion and enable optimal use of time for us the viewers. But still, fun idea.

The recording makes you reflect on plagiarism, but there are various factors linked to plagiarism: human cultural (copying an author can be seen as an honor in some regions), academic mark (plagiarism is seen as a negative practice), cultural acceptable practice (copying narratives for plays, songs - covers, ... goes back to Roman times and is accepted). With new plagiarism tools (name is indicative for our perception of copying other people's work), detection is increasing. On the other end, there are still opportunities for plagiarism to be un-detected (translating from other languages is one, or rewriting...), and there is the conscious or accidental plagiarism. Sophia also remarks that sometimes grades are more important than learning, making plagiarism more attractive to get good grades (students doubting themselves, lack of time, or simply not knowing how to write something). Digital citizenship is put forward as a solution.

So what to do with this idea? Maybe it needs to be redefined, maybe personally given a place in the broader scheme of things?

In the past I saw some of my content coming up in courses or sites without being quoted, and I myself undoubtedly have sometimes used words of others while loosing the original author out of sight (endless rewriting is not ideal for me in keeping track of everything although I do try). At any occasion I am wondering on what to do. Some thoughts:

• If I want to make a difference, surely everyone is free to use what I say for their own goals? My name is irrelevant to changing the world? In fact if any detail that I can come up with would indeed have the potential to make a positive change, than this would indeed be AWESOME already? So way should I care about my name?
• If someone uses content I have built, surely that can only be seen as Open Educational Resources being reformatted (or not) and as such - being a propagator of open education - I must be all for it? My name - again - would not matter?

So, in the end it is my own vanity that compels me to choose my name above my idea. And if I can come up with an idea once, surely I can keep on coming up with ideas so I should not mind others running off with old ideas? Well, reflections on this topic do not seem to stop, so feel free to watch and reflect here:

Read More

#mLearn12 on #augmented reality with Elizabeth Fitzgerald

Live blogging from mLearn12, so writing and vocabulary is influenced by writing speed need...

Elizabeth Fitzgerald from Open University UK gives an overview of augmented learning state of the art. She looks fine as always and you can feel her passion for research as she gives her presentation.

What is AR
making the learning experience of a place more meaningful

current uses of AR
 sports coverage
retail/marketing
networking (augmentedU) or find somein in a crowd
aviation (head-up displays on wndscreen of plane)
training or task support
navigation
sightseeing e.g. outdour venues, museums and art galleries

defining technology-enhanced realities: virtual, mixed and augmented
fusion of digital information in real environment

AR, situated learning and embodiment
Situated learning
authentic: contextualized
use of tools to mediate contact with the world
Embodiment and embodied cognition (physical interactions with world help us to creeate meaning

other related research
ecology of resources
reality -based interaction
space/place (Dourish)

Classifying AR based on 6 projects using AR for mLearning
Dimensions used:
devices or technology used
mode of interaction
method of sensory feedback to the user (visual/audio/text /video)
type of experience (personal or shared)
fixed/static or portable experience
learning activities or outcomes

Criticisms and limitations of AR
Technical challenges:
GPS accuracy and registration errors
varying signal quality of phone networks/WiFi coverage
battery life of devices
viewing the screen in bright sunlight
using devices in the rain

Pedagogical challenges 
 learning not necessarily driven by the pedagogy
novelty of the tech may detract from the experience
ensure learning is not altered to fit around the limitations of the device
tech might be more engaging that surrounding environment (is the student removed from the real world?)
consider first the learning goals and objectives
reduction in observation skills due to excessive reinforcing/scaffolding

Issue: how can we make any educational innovation sustainable?
Is it a matter of time? Maybe this is one step along the way to completely integrated sensors etcetera for looking at the world? Increased hapticness, audio... or will this risk information overload => maybe we need to curate the augmented environment.

Do we need a new theory of augmented place? see E. Fitzgerald (in press - oct/nov 2012) Towards a theory ....
The slideshare of her presentation can be viewed here

Augmented reality and mobile learning: the state of the art from Liz FitzGerald

Read More

Recapturing #aufgs2012 Athabasca University's Graduate student conference

Last weekend I had a wonderful and enlightening time in Edmonton, Canada. It was the first time I met several of my online friends and ... during the conference I got to meet people that really made me feel part of a community, the Athabasca University community.The wonderful thing about this gathering was the high quality research that was shared, and at the same time the feeling of being embraced in the community. The conference was small enough to allow real contact to happen. A great combination.

Who did I meet, and why did they make a difference?
During my master I had many, many really inspiring professors and teachers, one of which was Terry Anderson. Terry connects with people, he is on a mission to make technology part of the human social life and his Athabasca landing is a wonderful platform. He also always keeps me focused and on my tows, which is a good thing in academic life.  
Stella Lee is a wonderful person. We met in 2007 during a mobile conference in Fredericton, Canada. She was passionate and brought her presentation with a lot of humor. Afterwards we decided to go and sit on a bench on the sidewalk of a busy street and give people compliments just to make their day... it was fun! In the last few years we have lived and got some changes in our lives, so it was a blast to catch up again. Too short though.
It was Stella who introduced me to Vive(k) Kumar and Ireti Fakinlede. Vive(k), or V, is an intriguing person. He has an air of complete energy over him and I gave him one extra grey hair by asking him to go outside of his wonderfully build online/offline presentation set-up. He did it, so I was very grateful.
And I had the most wonderful discussion with Ireti on social agents, languages and a vibrant Swahili dictum.
I also met Caroline Park, who I have mailed frequently on mobile topics in the past and all of a sudden here she was in full glory, organizing part of the conference. Tony Ratcliffe allowed me one dance, which was really nice. And last but not least, I had the chance to meet with Leslie Lindballe who single handedly got everyone engaged in making music. She also opened up my mind when she talked about her thougths when getting research grant: either work and study or go and live somewhere cheaper and study, while having time to make music due to the cheaper rent. I loved that remark! Fabulous. Leslie combines ratio with heart and ... that seeps into her learning and teaching as well. Just look at her wonderful on learning video.

Read More