Designing #mLearning for people with #disabilities or learning difficulties

Last week I got a mail from Jenni Wright from Australia. She is a trainer and she was looking for solutions that could help her optimize the already wonderful vocational courses that her company the BedfordGroup in Australia is setting up for adult learners. The challenge was that the learning environment should be secure for the Intellectual Property content portion, yet at the same time dynamic as a MOOC AND - a tough one - if possible cater to people with learning challenges, whether it be disabilities or learning difficulties of any kind.

In the past years I did encounter more questions on solutions for learners with disabilities. And I feel that with the evolution of mobile technology some of these learning challenges can be met, although it stays a tough road to travel or find solutions on.

Here is what I came up with for Jenny. If any of you have additional ideas, feel free to add them. This is not my area of expertise and any help or ideas are more than welcomed.

1. A secure yet easy to enter and edit learning environment: I would suggest using a private wiki. Why: because the text is easy to edit, comments and discussions can be given on every page. But most of all, as a wiki has plain text, you can use free text-to-speech options to convert the text to audio-files. This means you can add an mp3 on every text page, providing the learner with an audio file. Another bonus of the wiki text, is that you can enlarge the text using key board short cuts. Thanks to Jenni I am contemplating to make all my MobiMOOC additions (week one) audio accessible as well. Just done one addition based on the draft text, simply to see what it gives. I used Pediaphon to get the MP3 files. Mostly because it is easy and it also includes an option to put an PediaPhon bookmarklet into your browser menubar. this Pediaphon bookmarklet makes it easy to select text, than click the pediaphon button in the menubar and ... hear what you have selected. So what I did was enter the text of my 'introduction to mLearning' wikipage (which is a public and open wikipage), download the mp3 and than added that mp3 to the wikipage, enabling people who prefer audio to listen to what is written there. The result of the converted audiofile (mp3) can be found here on the page.

2. In addition to this secure, private learning environment, there is always the option of adding other, more socialmedia driven learning locations, based on the preference of the learners themselves (including what they like to let them create content in a way they like it). For instance: build a central movie repository, for instance via a Facebook group or similar where learners can share their own experiences easily (well, taken the word easily with some salt as what is easy for one person can have enormous complexity for someone else. These social media locations can be embedded via widgets in a secure wiki (to be done by the instructional designer, or technical helper: Once it is set up, new additions to these locations will automatically show up in the central learning environment). Depending on the type of learning you have in mind, you can use different social media. Here is a list of learning aims linked to the most common social media groups.

3. I also added some subtitles to movies using Camtasia and its subtitle options, but I must say that is very time consuming. I could not get very far with the YouTube option that adds subtitles automatically, as I have a non-English accent while speaking ... this dialect affects the YouTube results immensely :-) But I have not tried giving a transcript to YouTube and than see what happens. Might work better, so is on my to-do list.

And I also found a nice short publication (with cartoons) that describes strategic mobile options for learners with disabilities or challenges: called the “The 99 tools from the magical pocket of Aki-chan” .

To end this post, I gladly refer to a slideshare by E.A. Draffan who is working at Uni of Southhampton and has years of experience in this area. Her slideshare covers a lot of tools that can help students/learners with learning challenges.

Inclusive teaching using technology and the internet from E.A. Draffan

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New colleague shows #Twitter for #academics and #researchers report

Getting in contact with new colleagues is always inspirational. Ildikó Bokros is one of such knowledge rich colleagues. She has pointed me towards a 11-page Twitter overview sheet which lists the twitter advantages for academics. The twitter report is fresh in lay-out, to the point and written by Amy Mollett, Danielle Moran and Patrick Dunleavy from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

The report is very useful if you want to get people in your institute oriented on the potential of Twitter, but also to get them started: setting up a twitter account, useful twitter terminology, tweeting styles, how to build a relevant network of followers, ... nice, short and to-the-point.

You can find the twitter for academics report here.

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Does #mobile learning really make a difference in this world?

Years ago I met Devaji Patil in Bangalore, India and … I related to his spirit and wisdom. Devaji is a philosopher at heart and a medical doctor by profession. In his new job he wants to set up mobile health projects, but at the same time he wants to make sure they will be durable and basically… make sense to the people it is designed to help. So he challenged me with some tough questions comprising ethics, meaningfulness, gender challenges and effectiveness of learning with mobiles. I could get some thoughts in, but I feel many more people are needed to answer his questions in full, so feel free to add ideas or send Devaji additional answers.

1. how are we sure that mobile learning is really empowering

For ages people, both philosophers and lay-people, have been discussing the empowerment of learning or education in general. Looking at the Millennium goals, I can see that most of us still believe in it, but even the most basic primary education is not reached yet. I think this is due to lack of durable, educational vision. Any learning, including mLearning will only be empowering if it is made accessible to all, inspiring, comprehensible, participative as well as collaborative, with guidance for those learners that feel the need to have a guide-on-the-side and most of all durable within a flexible learning environment. Looking at teachers that are real corner stones of education, they know how to appeal to their learners, lift their spirits, inspire them to reach their full potential. That type of teacher is creative, knows how to reach his/her learners and find the strength within the learner. This being said, I feel that every learning is based on inspirational, creative people with vision and trust in the future of their learners. As such I am sure Devaji that if you set up mLearning courses, they will be empowering.  

2. how to actually negotiate the barrier of technology to an 'illiterate' health worker?

The best way to negotiate the barrier is by using what they use, or trying to reimagine new technology with how they use old or known technology. It is not necessary to read if you have a phone, in that case speech can be enough to exchange knowledge/information. So basic cell-phones can be used as help-lines, where patients phone in, and health workers phone back.

If the spoken feedback of the health care workers are than added to a data-base after ‘speech to text’ software, this database can be used for future cases. At the same time radio transmissions offer a great, non-reading, durable way of getting knowledge (continued medical education) distributed to large crowds in a less expensive way, and radio is a mobile device. A case study using radio for this reason (in Philippines for rural farmer women) is linked here (http://www.tistr.or.th/RAP/publication/1999/1999_08_rome.pdf). What strikes me is that funding is much more difficult to get for this type of proven, mobile learning than small scale smartphone projects (but that is another discussion).

3. with rapidly changing technology ... what is happening to pedagogy? Does pedagogy change too ? As fast as technology ?

Good pedagogy stands apart from technology, but technology can be used to get good pedagogy out to the masses and via distance education (reaching the difficult to reach, in every sense of the word). I feel that pedagogy is very human, and as humans only change slowly, good pedagogy will also only adapt to the pace in which humans can reach their own bigger potential. However with the evolution of technology, the variety of teaching/learning that can be reached via distance education does evolve more rapidly than before: which means that more people can be reached based on the same concepts of good pedagogy (e.g. participation between rural health care workers is now possible by using simple cell-phones).

4. Are we in a position to make 'learning' a central theme of Health systems strengthening if we are then where is it being seen if not why not ?

The knowledge and application of durable and scalable mLearning is still in its early beginnings. In just a couple of years’ time mLearning starts to take off. This means that a lot of projects did not take off due to lack of knowledge about all the factors impacting a project or target population, other projects do take off but are sometimes stopped due to non-durable options… And sadly those projects not attaining what they were meant to obtain are rarely disseminated, although most of us are eager to learn from mistakes to ensure successful future endeavors.

To me learning or training should be at the center of any system, including health systems. The concept of Lifelong Learning did not come out of the blue, but came out of an awareness that constant education will be a must in a world where changes happen increasingly rapid.  

A stable, durable health system will have learning and specifically continued medical education embedded in its core, for without keeping health care workers, health managers… up to date on latest changes, the patients will not be reached with optimal health care. In relation to this, I share this National Health Service (United Kingdom) paper focusing on 29 recommendations for embedding mLearning in their health care system http://ignatiawebs.blogspot.be/2011/04/how-can-health-within-clinics-be.htmlthese recommendations do not always apply to more challenged regions, but some of them can indeed be implemented.

5 Why is human interface still important. ?

For trust, real understanding, and for reaching those that need some time to voice the problems they are facing, and to reach those that feel insecure or unable to share text.

6. How to / Why / Where/ When to place technology enhanced learning in health systems that are not just weak ... but actually in a disintegrated state?

That is something else, if a system is in a disintegrated state it needs to be rebuild from the ground up I guess. In that case technology might be used to start communicating about most urgent issues but … if a basis is unstable, you can be sure that any rapidly designed technological addition will only amount to even more disruption.

7. Is technology gender sensitive ?Technology is definitely gender sensitive. It has the old stigma (male’s are better at it), the new social-economic realities (women have less access to technology) and the gender digital divide. There are exceptions, but it is an uphill battle to get women on an equal opportunity base regarding technology or its related solutions. To that topic I refer to GSMA’s woman mobile initiative: http://www.mwomen.org   

These types of subjects will be covered and discussed during MobiMOOC in week 2 by John Traxler and week 3 by Michael Sean Gallagher, so feel free to join the discussions. Looking at the participants I am sure they will be able to add much more solutions and ideas than I can. 

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Win 500 $ with your mobile project overview for #mLearning

The free online course on mobile learning MobiMOOC will launch on 8 September 2012 and guide you through different mobile learning (mLearning) fields for three weeks. At the end of the three week course the MobiMOOC Award will be offered to the winning mLearning project, as voted by the MobiMOOC participants. The winning mLearning project will be that project which is considered by all as having the most impact for people living in difficult or challenged situations. Want to learn more about the course, than look at the course wiki here.

In order to enter the contest and to win the MobiMOOC Award, you must participate in MobiMOOC (it is a free course, open to all). If you have not registered for the course yet, you can enroll for free by becoming a member of the MobiMOOC Google group which can be found here.

The contest will be based on mLearning project overviews, that will be made based on a 10 step template that can be found here. If you already have an idea for a mobile project or you feel an idea will come soon, get a head start and take a look at the template to start brainstorming.

Which are the topics covered by MobiMOOC (all facilitated by mLearning experts):


First week: 8 – 15 September 2012
mLearning intro and planning (facilitated by Ignatia Inge de Waard - Belgium - @ignatia )

Second week: 16 – 22 September 2012
Mobile Learning Curriculum Framework (facilitated by Adele Botha - South Africa - @adele_b )
Global issues mLearning (facilitated by John Traxler - United Kingdom and the globe - @johntraxler )
mLearning tools (a collaborative experience by all of us MobiMOOC participants, each one of us will share their top tools, benefits of these tools and experiences)

Third week: 23 – 29 September 2012
Mobile Games (facilitated by David Parsons, New Zealand)
Augmented Reality mLearning (facilitated by Victor Alvarez, Spain)
Pedagogical theory, status of mLearning research (facilitated by Geoff Stead, Cambridge, UK)
ICT4D (facilitated by Michael Sean Gallagher - Korea / United Kingdom - @mseangallagher )
Train the trainer (facilitated by Jacqueline Batchelor, South Africa)
Corporate mLearning (facilitated by Amit Garg, India)
Mobile devices for activism (facilitated by Sean Abajian, California, US)
Mobile health or mHealth (facilitated by Malcolm Lewis, Australia)

30 September 2012: Award notification! The winner of the MobiMOOC award will be revealed.
Every MobiMOOC participant willing to enter the MobiMOOC award contest will be asked to send their overview by 25 September. From 28 September 2012 the vote will be open and on 30 September the winner will be revealed.

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A recorded conversation with Michael Wesch @mwesch #teaching

Nellie Deutsch, an incredibly strong promoter of open education, has been gathering a few very interesting educational thinkers. One of these great educational minds, viewing the world from an anthropologist point of view is Michael Mike Wesch. These conversations offer any participant who logs into the open virtual session, a chance to pose questions to the speaker, exchange ideas or simply listen to what they have to say.

Why I found this video interesting? Most of all for the reasons Mike lists on what makes a good teacher, or a good person for that. He focuses on really getting to know your learners, respect them and recognize the gifts, expertise of the people around you, so engaging with those who are willing to engage with you. I like that idea, it is very human.

For those not familiar with Michael/Mike, I gladly add the information Nellie provided: Michael has been called "the explainer" by Wired magazine and he is a cultural anthropologist exploring the effects of new media on society and culture. After two years of studying the implications of writing on a remote indigenous culture in the rain forest of Papua New Guinea, he has turned his attention to the effects of social media and digital technology on global society. He has made some seminal contributions in the field of digital ethnography, and burst in to the realm of public consciousness with his 2007 video -"The Machine is US/ing US". Since then, his videos on culture, technology, education, and information have been viewed over 20 million times, translated in over 15 languages, and are frequently featured at international film festivals and major academic conferences worldwide.

Wesch has won several major awards and accolades for his work, including a Wired Magazine Rave Award, the John Culkin Award for Outstanding Praxis in Media Ecology, and he was recently named an Emerging Explorer by National Geographic. He is considered an active developer of innovative teaching skills, for which he has won several teaching awards, including the 2008 CASE/Carnegie U.S. Professor of the Year for Doctoral and Research Universities.

Enough formality, here is the conversation which starts with his famous video 5 minutes in the YouTube video.

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New, free #report on innovating #pedagogy by Open University UK

The Open University of the UK has just published a free report (38 pages, open layout) on the emerging innovative online pedagogies of today. The report gives a great, brief overview of what is currently happening and especially the pedagogical viewpoint adds some insights.

The report is linked to a blog so everyone can add comments per topic. 

Short synopsis of the report (from the report itself):
This series of reports explores new forms of teaching, learning and assessment for an interactive world, to guide teachers and policy makers in productive innovation. The first report proposes ten innovations that are already in currency but have not yet had a profound influence on education. To produce it, a group of academics at the Institute of Educational Technology in The Open University proposed a long list of new educational
terms, theories, and practices.
We then pared these down to ten that have the potential to provoke major shifts in educational practice, particularly in postschool education. We have not deliberately excluded school education, but that is not our area of expertise.

Topics covered:
New pedagogy for e-booksInnovative ways of teaching and learning with next-generation e-books
Publisher-led short coursesPublishers producing commercial short courses for leisure and professional development
Assessment for learningAssessment that supports the learning process through diagnostic feedback
Badges to accredit learningOpen framework for gaining recognition of skills and achievements
MOOCs
Massive open online courses
Rebirth of academic publishing
New forms of open scholarly publishing
Seamless learning
Connecting learning across settings, technologies and activities
Learning analytics
Data-driven analysis of learning activities and environments
Personal inquiry learning
Learning through collaborative inquiry and active investigation
Rhizomatic learning
Knowledge constructed by self-aware communities adapting to environmental conditions

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Scalable, durable #mLearning intro drill down

Tom Wambeke and Robin Poppe from the Delta unit of ILO/ITC in Turin, Italy asked a couple of mobile learning people to come over and have a brainstorm on mobile learning options,

The dialogue that appeared was interesting as it enabled all of us present to bring together similar priorities, add personal mLearning experiences and building options for people wanting to start, roll-out mobile learning.

The slides here reflect the generic ideas or topics that were shared as pointers to start with mLearning or embedding mobile learning into existing (online) learning environments.

Durable and scalable mlearning drilldown from Inge Ignatia de Waard

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