Solutions for learners with #disabilities using specific #social media

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

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

Social media in an accessible learning perspective from Karel Van Isacker

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iSpot a global #mobile enabled environmental #crowdsourcing initiative

For those interested in the development logic behind an ever growing, durable mobile project, the iSpot growth will be of interest. Especially as they share the choices they made and whether those were good or bad. There is also a link to the new Google mDesign recommendations.

Last October I met Will Woods who is part of the team behind iSpot a UK-based group linked to the Open University of UK. The iSpot team is now rolling out a worldwide mobile enabled project. iSpot a global mobile enabled environmental crowdsourcing initiative

iSpot focuses on sharing knowledge on what people can see in nature: birds, mushrooms, trees, flowers... and to determin what type of species or plant it is based on expert and peer knowledge. The project started out as something local, but is now set to go worldwide as an Open Educational Resource for nature in all it's wonders. In it's current version newly uploaded content to iSpot is determined (analyzed for what type of flora or fauna) within one hour!!

Different versions
The first version of iSpot was mostly web-based and was focusing on people willing to consume content related to nature. People could look up which type of flora or fauna they had met while being in the open. This was done based on a database with a list of visual and other information on local (UK) wildlife.
This first version was opened up for evaluation by all the stakeholders. As the project team got feedback from their first users, they quickly found that users wanted to be able to immediately access and share what they saw in the open field through their mobiles. the team got to work on a second version of iSpot, focusing on the possibility to share what had been seen in the open more quickly and immediately.

Version 2 got more interactive: people were now able to share their own content, load it up to the iSpot server, and ask for feedback on the determination of the species they had found, or simply add an extra visual to a specific species. By this crowdsourcing effect, the iSpot database is becoming a source of interest on where species were located, how their population is doing, how they migrate... Of course the database still needs to mature in terms of content, but ... it is a longterm project with a definite surplus to science.
For version 2 development choices had to be made which are of interest (see a bit further down this blogpost).

Version 3 wants to go international. This version will be rolled out by June 2013 but is already being developed and its vision was shared during the same session in mLearn2012. For this version to become of international interest, it meant that species not only had to be determined by the crowd, but that different language options for specific species needed to be embedded as well. This 3rd version is built based on the new Google recommendations for mDesign (G+), really new so check it out.
So what to expect in this version: html5, international options with regional mapping features, ecological relationships (relationship between different plants and animal life), improved social media tools, caching options for offline use and 'bioblitz' (which I forgot what it was... feel free to fill me in :-)

Interesting learning reward addition
An interesting and useful learning reward was offered. If people were able to determine which type of animal life they saw, they would grow through the 5 levels of expertise that the iSpot team had put up. This means that anyone with an interest and willingness to get into wildlife had the opportunity to work her/his way up to the 5th or expert level. Meaning they would reach a status where they would be the one's determining flora and fauna right up there with all the professors and experts connected to iSpot.

Choices made while developing

• When content is uploaded ideally it would be anchored to specific regional coordinates, as this would be of scientific interest.
• The mobile team also shared some pointers for ideal mobile project development:
• foresee short windows of development: if the iterations are short, it will enable you to cater much quicker to your target learner audience
• ensure adequate mDesign for an optimal user experience
• add features most suitable to app development
• design for a single platform initially as this will save you time and effort (= cost) and will enable you to focus on what matters => the actual content and user experience
• started as a mobile native app, but now turning into html5 project (the ECAR mobile preferences report of September 2012 indicated that students prefer mobile apps to web optimized content, so with the html5 option they hope to offer an optimal mobile web application).
• as different project iterations move on, it is of interest to analyse all the actions taking place in the project with event level Google analytics (this is also a new beta Google option and google looks for feedback so have a look).

Want to know more, contact Will Woods either through his twitter account @willwoods or his blog: http://technocrappy.wordpress.com

A nice extra, the iSpot project has resulted in an 8 year old girl finding and naming a newly found spider! How great is that?!

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The future of #HigherEd and #apps & #web two free report by Pew

The American Pew research center publishes a wide variety of human research topics. On many occasions these reports are linked to educational technology or trends, which is great when you are interested in training/education with innovative technologies.
Two reports that caught my attention were
The future of higher education : "tech experts believe market factors will push universities to expand online courses, create hybrid learning spaces, move toward ‘lifelong learning’ models and different credentialing structures by the year 2020. But they disagree about how these whirlwind forces will influence education, for the better or the worse".
While everyone knows by now that the future of higher ed is in a fast evolving state, and giving rise to a lot of new initiatives, the results of this report are of interest. Mentioning MOOCs, more particular the xMOOC kind: "as of mid-2012, Coursera’s massively open online courses (MOOCs) were provided free to its students—enabling unfettered, global access for millions to engage with some of the country’s most prestigious universities. Other start-ups such as MITx, 2tor, and Udacity are attracting similarly staggering, six-figure student enrollments". 
And yes, I feel that as a university we all need to build a masterplan which incorporates strategic higher ed goals and practices to refocus and gather an educational, qualitative space within this global higher education global evolution.
This report is of interest as it shows that all of us have no clue, and at the same time we are all pointing towards different global ed future movements. Ranging from full online learning as the key factor to high prized face-to-face, old school appreciated learning. Overall the authors of the report conclude that experts expect more-efficient collaborative environments and new grading schemes; they worry about massive online courses and the shift away from on-campus life. Overall a nice read and food for thought.

Another report that is of interest for a paper I am writing is the one on the future of Apps and the Web: 
My interest in apps versus web resides in the fact that many apps or applications can be integrated into curricula or training as learning tools. The same can of course be said about the mobile web. But this dichotomy (which in my mind will become obsolete once technology allows us all to get full access no matter where or when via personal devices; which by that time will not even be called mobile, just learning devices at most). But for now as a teacher and trainer we still need to choose between mobile apps or mobile web to add specific learning options.
The report is also a nice read and I just take out the following excerpt as it links apps to controlled content versus content openness... which I feel is relevant for all learning future (no critical thinking without openness!): "Many responders challenged the structure of the apps-Web question. Among their arguments: The world ahead is not either apps or the Web. A more hybrid world is likely. Moreover, the tussle between controlled content and user experiences on the one hand and openness on the other hand will play out in other ways. As one anonymous writer put it: “Apps will continue, as will app stores, but they’ll continue to be mass-market outlets for lightweight products on the one hand, and very narrow vertical outlets for very specific platform-dependent professional tools on the other, while the entire middle-ground will continue to belong to the Web.”

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South African #mLearning projects and calls for collaboration

If you are looking for ways to connect to South African researchers engaged and passionate about mobile learning. Look at the people mentioned in this post and connect with them. They are wonderful mLearning experts and … open to collaboration.

As mobile learning gets more broadly accepted, meeting inspiration people around the world gives rise to new ideas. Here are some ideas I encountered in South Africa. The University of Pretoria invited me to exchange some notes on mobile learning and innovative educational technologies and the meet up was simply amazing.

El-Marie Mostert and Linda Venter are experts in eLearning and using new technologies in a University setting. But in preparation of the future of learning, they are now in a team to look at how mobile learning can fit within their curricula, where new initiatives can be taken (based on needs, availability of people and willingness of already fully booked teachers to engage). Quite a challenge as we all know. As a result of their quest, I am writing up some practical mLearning options to create easy mLearning options to add to the overall curriculum (I will share them later in the next few weeks).

As I was down there I was amazed by the technology already being embedded in daily live:

e-Tags that scan your car for highway toll calculation (a chip that sits on the window shield, and opens the gate as your car approaches the toll booth).

A solar oven (cooking water in a big kettle in less than 10 minutes, 25000 watt of heat!)

Computer rooms on wheels

… it was amazing to see how mobile is quickly becoming part of normal life.

Adele Botha and Ronel Callaghan are setting up mobile living labs in rural areas that have no connection, mobile living labs. They want to team up with all of us that feel mobile education can make a difference. If you are interested in the project, join Adele and Ronel, or look at this video down below to see what vision Adele has on mobile learning.

Dennis Kriel has something completely different going: a simulation game aimed at teachers to understand the options that mobile learning can offer. If you want to help him out with screening the game or adding educational screenplays to add to his game, give him a tweet. He is very open on how the game is developing and looks for extra scenario’s to get the game ready for roll-out. He is also an OER believer, so ready to share. What he does is use Articulate Storyline to get a game together that is based on energy and learning outcomes. So sometimes if you choose to go for a mobile development option, it takes a lot of energy (energy level goes down), but if you finish it it can provide optimized learning results so the learning percentage goes up. If the learning level percentage is up to a specific point, you get extra treats (relaxing on a couch, sight seeing…). It is still a work in progress, but it already looks really nice.So if you feel like adding to his project, or simply exchange ideas, look at his project as it develops here:

http://mlearn.denniskriel.me/art/mLearningSim%20N%20output/story_html5.html

 

Darryn Knobel has a facebook project going on veterinary health and diagnostics. In this facebook based peer-to-peer interactive course for veterinary students, the students go out to remote farms and screen cattle for parasites or other diseases. The students then take pictures and post them to a closed facebook group so they can discuss each of their findings and diagnostics. The amazing thing is that most of the students interact through their mobile in any location (at the farm, at university, at home), so their mobile devices are the central connectivity device. It is a nice project and Darren clearly has a great time being the guide-on-the-side who helps his students to stay on track whenever necessary.

And last but not least… What scenery! The campuses I visited are truly amazing: open, green, pleasant atmosphere, … wonderful. 

Here is the movie related to the mobile living labs and mobile South Africa project that is getting into shape for roll out by Adele Botha, Ronel Callaghan and team mates:

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Sharing last nights presentation on #mobile #MOOC and learner interactions

Below you can find the slides I used for the CIDER session that was organized by the Canadian Institute for Distance Education yesterday. If you want to hear the whole story with more information on each slide and the somewhat coherent story behind the slides, you can have a look at this 57 minute recording session. The recorded session starts with an introduction delivered by the wonderful Dan Wilton, and takes off at 7 minutes into the recording.

The slides cover MOOCs and gradually focus towards the research I am currently rolling out to see whether mobile access has an impact on learner interactions in an open, online course.

First research data mlearn2012 mobile access in mooc course from Inge Ignatia de Waard

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Free CIDER session on #Ubiquitous #MOOCs and learner interactions

Tomorrow, Wednesday 7th November, I will be presenting one of the free CIDER sessions organized by the Canadian Institute of Distance Education Research. The title of this 40 minute presentation (with interactions during or after) will be: Looking at Ubiquitous MOOC Learner Interactions. During this session, I will take a look at what MOOCs are and how ubiquity affects learner interactions. 

Starting from the history of MOOCs and their general design, the session will gradually focus on the different learner interactions, mapping preliminary results of a research I am conducting into the effect of mobile access on MOOC learner interactions. 

MOOCs are a contemporary course format that allows students from all parts of the world to connect and interact on specific topics. Traditionally MOOCs use a lot of social media to promote networking and collaboration between learners. These social media in combination with learner created content exchange leads to a specific learner dynamic. In order to analyze the learner interactions I am using the Community of Inquiry framework. This enables research to look at social or personal interactions vis-a-vis academic or intellectual interactions. The reason for looking into these categories of learner interactions is to look at ubiquity or mobile accessibility on open, online courses and whether this ubiquity has an impact on learner interactions of any kind. The research will bring mobile learning and MOOCs together, both of which are contemporary educational formats that have opened up new pedagogical and educational opportunities to increase the effectiveness of learning online.

Details to connect:
When: Wednesday, November 7, 2012 - 11am to 12noon Mountain Time (Canada)
*Local times for CIDER sessions are provided here.

Where to log in for the session: Online through Adobe Connect at:
https://connect.athabascau.ca/cidersession/

Pre-configuration:
Please note that it is extremely important to get your system set up prior to the event. Make sure your Mac or PC is equipped with a microphone and speakers, so that you can use the audio functionality built into the conferencing software. The Adobe Connect platform may require an update to your Flash Player; allow time for this update by joining the session 15 minutes prior to the scheduled presentation.

Registration is not required; so all of you are welcome!

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free eBook with 61 tips for #mLearning from eLearning Guild

The eLearning Guild has published a free eBook, sharing 61 tips on mLearning from a wide variety of mobile learning experts. The report focuses on: 

• Do you know how and when people use mobile devices?
• Are you targeting the specific times your learners have access to online content and learning?

Knowing these details can be the difference between success and failure for your mLearning project.

From the importance of stakeholder buy-in to the benefits of iterative development, this complimentary eBook, 61 Tips on mLearning: Making Learning Mobile, provides ideas to help you maximize the effectiveness of your mLearning. Drawing from the experts who will be presenting at The eLearning Guild’s 100th Online Forum in December 2012, “mLearning: Making Learning Mobile,” this eBook gives valuable insights in areas including:

• The Why and How of mLearning
• Design and Content
• The AV Club: Tech, Techies, and You
• Trial and Error
• Attracting and Retaining Your Audience

Download your complimentary copy now: http://bit.ly/PR20ZA

You do not need to be a member of The eLearning Guild to access this eBook, so please feel free to share this link with your network.

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