IAmLearn Newsletter 2-July, 2015

Table of Contents

Executive Committee Update Read...

mLearn 2015 Conference Update Read...

Members on the Move Read...

Calls for Conference Papers, Journal and Book Manuscripts Read...

Mobile Learning Resources Read...

New Mobile Learning Organizations/Collaborations Read...

Moving Forward Read...

                                                  

Executive Committee Update 

Submitted by Dr. John Traxler, IAmLearn Vice President

Just for the Sake of Argument

Shortly before a recent keynote in Istanbul, World University News asked me for something provocative related to my intended remarks. I bashed out the following having thought it through whilst queuing for a mug of tea and typed it in before the tea was cold. World University News jumped on the ‘Arab Spring’ phrase for the title and printed it. Someone subsequently asked me if I believed what I’d written, to which I replied that I thought my job was to articulate an argument not necessarily believe in it. I am however asking readers, members of the Association, just for the sake of argument, to think through the implications and consequences, perhaps following Gramsci's ‘pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the spirit’. I’m asking, are we a small and fragile niche, borne of the sunny days before the subprime-mortgage crisis whilst we still had a monopoly of understanding mobile phones?  And has the weather changed now, giving way to stormier weather where everyone seems to understand mobile phones and doesn’t need to listen to us.

What are the implications? Do we need to broaden our base, seeking people who design, deploy, manage and merchandise mobile learning? Build a different kind of membership that goes to a different kind of conference, goes to it online? Sell ourselves and our services in the market place, as trainers, consultants and developers? Accredit our members as professionals? Find a foundation or corporation to give us core funding for five years? Affiliate to some friendly, bigger, more robust association?

Anyway, the original piece, before the Arab Spring headline, went as follows,

Digital Life and Mobile Learning 

We are talking about 'Digital Life and Mobile Learning'.  The phrase is intended to summarise the tensions and paradox between two powerful and significant ideas. These ideas are, on the one hand, the attempts in schools, colleges and universities around the world to use personal mobile devices to finally deliver learning 'anywhere, anytime', as promised twenty years ago by the e-learning missionaries and visionaries and, on the other hand, the reality of people outside these institutions using the same mobile technologies to create, transform, discuss, discard, share, store and transmit ideas, opinions, images and information. These attempts at exploiting mobile devices within schools, colleges and universities have succeeded in demonstrating that the reach of education can extended (to rural areas or marginal groups, for example), that education can be enriched and enhanced (by being more personalised, customised and localised, for example) and that education can be more engaging (for disaffected and disillusioned groups and individuals, for example) but these attempts have been resource intensive and not always produced convincing evidence. In the words of one journalist, the evidence has been 'fluffy' and not addressed the business case for mobile learning; many of the more successful projects have been the least exciting or innovative.

Meanwhile, outside these universities, schools and colleges people are using podcasts, websites, blogs, YouTube and Wikipedia to education each other, to learn from each other. It's certainly learning, but not as we know it and no longer under the control of the existing educational institutions or the existing educational professions.

So, let's unpack this paradox in slightly more detail and look at how we got here.

We are now at a point where mobile devices are cheap, robust, easy, cute and nearly universal, ubiquitous and pervasive. They are chosen, owned, used and loved by people with no experience or recollection of using computers and certainly not any recollection of using computers for learning, and they are used for everything, recreation, socialising, shopping, …..everything. Earlier, researchers and practitioners in universities working on the possibilities of using computers in education had realised that computers were static, impersonal and inaccessible for most people and that mobile technology represented an attractive trajectory from working with computers. They used mobile learning experiences that were increasingly more sensitive to the learner and their environment and increasingly exploited the location-aware, media-rich and image-capture capabilities of the technologies to take learning away from the classroom and into the work place, the work placement and the field trip. This was great. It was fun and it was worthwhile but still essentially conservative and backward looking, trying to make an education system work for a society that had literally moved on.

Meanwhile in the outside world the game was getting away from the research community as people discovered as they themselves could make podcasts, share video, join groups, create web-sites, write blogs about any topic or subject that took their fancy. This all looks like education but without the educators; the educators are still stuck with institutional systems, like Turnitin and Moodle, behind an institutional paywall protecting their business, their assets and their IP. Time for some movement!

This is however not a challenge that is internal or local to the technological or pedagogic specialists within the institutions since it does in effect challenge their institutional authority, credibility and legitimacy. How are they relevant, why should we listen to them, what have they to offer? Tax-payers and businesses could be asking why the subsidise a system increasingly out-of-touch with the outside world, whilst students are asking why, at the end of a three-year course, they must sit still, silent and alone and use a pen to answer exam questions.

The recent past might suggest the possibility of an educational Arab Spring, an upheaval where the masses, connected by mobiles and social media, overthrow the established order with its institutions, officials and values. The current aftermath of the Arab Spring tells us this might not be such an attractive prospect and perhaps we should hope for a more gradual, consensual change. Institutions will blunder and stumble, individuals will resist, react, reform and eventually fit into some new order, having done the right things for the wrong reasons, conducting their pilots and their projects ostensibly for outputs and outcomes but in fact gradually coming to terms with a mobile and connected world needing new skills, new attitudes and new formats. 

In conclusion,  IAmLearn encourages you to share your perspective and opinions on this piece.  We want to create an ongoing dialogue to explore present and future plans and activities for the organization..We encourage you to express your ideas on the IAmlearn Facebook page and in our Twitter Feed

Dr. Traxler offers these questions for consideration and discussion:

• Should IAmLearn take steps to expand its narrow membership base.  What do you think?

• Would it be beneficial to create a Policy SIG, to build experience and expertise in connecting with the policy community, building understanding of our work, understanding the ‘impact’ agenda, funding priorities.

• Is it time to explore the creation of a Commercialisation SIG, to build experience and expertise in connecting  with corporates, start-ups?

• Should IAmLearn seek representation for the Association on relevant agency, national and international boards, events and publications. 

• How should IAmLearn engage with regional associations for mobile learning?

• Creating a register of members interested in consultancy (may be with some threshold such as 'has successfully undertaken two projects') or a register of members 

 

mLearn 2015 Conference Update

Setting Sail from Greece

Be a part of a once in a lifetime learning experience to a place where education meets enjoyment of life and living in the moment!

Please Remember:

1. VERY important - All bookings through the mLearn2015 website for cabins MUST be booked and paid for in full before 17 Aug 2015 otherwise the cabin may be cancelled by the Royal Caribbean

2. Deadline for the special conference package is 15 Aug, after that our special arrangement falls away and all delegates will have to arrange and negotiate their own accommodation.

The mLearn 2015 international mobile learning conference will take place from 17 to 24 October 2015, on a cruise ship “Splendour of the Seas”, departing from Venice, Italy.

Six Pre-conference Workshops will take place on 18 October 2015.

This fourteenth annual conference on mobile and contextual learning is the key research and networking event for researchers, strategists, educators, technologists and industry practitioners from all over the world.

mLearn attracts a large number of participants from more than 60 countries representing all continents, and is, therefore, the world's largest international conference on mLearning and emerging ambient technologies.

WHY YOU SHOULD GO..

1. Attend a world class conference

2. Meet top experts from around the world

3. The Keynotes – Ernest Adams and Marcus Specht

3. Enrich your life and learn about various mobile learning trends

4. Networking.... where else are you going to find a conference where we are all on the cruise ship, so ample time to discuss, talk, engage!

5. Enjoy a few wonderful medieval cities in the Mediterranean

... and much more! Treat yourself to a fantastic experience – Ticket INCLUDES ALL extras!

Members on the Move

Instructional Design for Mobile Learning hits Canvas.net 

IAmLearn Executive Member-at-Large Rob Power recently helped to design and deliver a free micro-MOOC called Instructional Design for Mobile Learning (ID4ML). Over 2100 people from all corners of the globe participated in the free online course, which ran from May 4 – June 6, 2015. Power partnered with Robin Bartoletti (Texas Women’s University) and Whitney Kilgore (iDesignEDU) to redesign and deliver the course, which was first offered on the Canvas network in 2013.

ID4ML featured three distinct one-week modules. The first week included defining mobile learning, examining participants’ experiences with mobile learning and mobile technologies, and an exploration of useful tools and apps for enhancing teaching and learning. The second week explored the instructional design process for creating mobile reusable learning objects, including Power’s Collaborative Situated Active Mobile (CSAM) learning design framework (highlighted in his mLearn 2014 paper presentation with IAmLearn members Dean Cristol and Belinda Gimbert). Participants also used free online tools and downloadable apps to help them turn their designs into prototype mobile RLOs. The third week featured a “mobile mini-unit” where participants explored mobile apps that students could use to increase productivity and to save and share links to online resources.

Participants in ID4ML also had a chance to learn about IAmLearn from Association president Marcus Specht, who was featured in one of two Google Hangouts Broadcast interview sessions.

The second Hangout session featured Rob Power, who talked about his work at the Advanced Learning Technologies Centre at College of the North Atlantic-Qatar, and his research on the CSAM framework and mobile RLOs.

Response to the ID4ML MOOC has been extremely positive, and included the following comments posted on Twitter:

"Thank you for ID4ML! I'm not a teacher but as a web developer / lifelong learner I found the class exceptionally well done. I've been taking MOOCs at coursera, EdX, Udemy and Lynda.com for several years now and this course ranks near the top for an engaging mix of media types and interactive projects."
Canvas User (May 30, 2015)

"One of the most creative, most applicable & certainly THE cutest #mooc #id4ml...!"
@maja_prolece via Twitter (May 25, 2015)

"Woot! Just finished my first MOOC. ID for mLearning. Fantastic course & facilitators thx #ID4ML @xPat_Letters@robinwb @whitneykilgore"
@LeghamLemming via Twitter (May 25, 2015 )

Dr. Agnieszka Palalas was also on the move this summer and attended the e-Learning Guilds’mLearnCon 2015-“Learning in Context” in Austin, Texas, June 10-12.  She captured insightful learning moments with renowned mLearnCon speakers and m-learning design and development experts Joseph Ganci, Phil Cowcill , and Krista Hildner.  They discuss the benefits of attending mLearnCon, including networking and sharing best practices. In addition, each of these experienced mobile learning practitioner answers Dr. Palalas’s questions pertaining to the practice of m-learning and perforemance support and the future of learning and training with mobiles.

Joseph Ganci  is thrilled about the ongoing growth and potential of accessing learning wherever we need it: “we are going to be learning all the time…wherever we go we are going to have the ability to  not only learn but apply the learning in the moment, when we need it.”

The complete video compilation is coming soon to the IAmLearn Facebook. We invite you to watch it and share your comments and reactions. See you on our Facebook.

http://www.elearningguild.com/mLearnCon/content/3800/mlearncon-2015--mobile-learning-conference--expo--home/

Proof of Concept of  Mobile System to Request a Visual Insight of a Geographically Bound Location

Submitted by Dr. Laurent Antonczak 
MINA [ Mobile Innovation Network Aotearoa ]

We have been working on a project with the theme of Development of technologies to support education and would love your feedback on ways in which you would incorporate this tool into mobile learning.

This project aims to discuss and develop a mobile system where-by, one user can request a visual insight of a geographically bound location. Such a system is important since there currently exists no smart phone application in this domain. Applications of the proposed system could range from the trivial, such as users requesting to view the queue at a restaurant, to the important, such as emergency services surveying an area blocked off by debris, or police viewing a large area during during an “Amber Alert”. A possible application for mobile learning would be networked or collaborative learning in outdoor situations. Since smart phone use is so prevalent, coverage of the systems network should be high. This project also aims to incentivize the usage of such a system - which is important due to the inherent costs to a potential user. These cost manifest themselves in terms of battery usage, time, and potentially mobile data usage.

Calls for Conference Papers, Journal and Book Manuscripts

Recent Publications:

Andrews, T., Dyson, L. E., & Wishart, J. (July 03, 2015). Advancing ethics frameworks and scenario-based learning to support educational research into mobile learning. International Journal of Research & Method in Education, 38, 3, 320-334.

Abstract:

The ubiquity of mobile devices and their use for collecting and sharing data require a reconsideration of approaches taken to managing ethical concerns in the educational research context. In the mobile age, the concept of educational research extends beyond traditional understandings and contexts due to: the wide range of mobile learning research settings, the immediacy with which mobile devices connect to socialmedia, heightened privacy concerns and uncertainty about informed consent. This paper explores some of the ethical challenges and proposes that ethics frameworks and scenario-based learning can be powerful tools to assist educational researchers to better understand the ethical complexities of research using mobile devices and social media. An ethics framework for mobile learning research and several exemplar scenarios created during two workshops are presented. The authors make a case for this approach to be used for professional development for mobile learning researchers which may include teachers researching their own mobile learning practice

Journal Manuscripts: 

Canadian Journal of Science, Mathematics and Technology Education Special Issue on Learning Technologies 

• Deadline for Submission of Full Manuscripts: Friday, February 12, 2016. 

• Learning technologies provide creative ways for learners and instructors to achieve a variety of learning outcomes.
• The guest editors invite manuscripts that address educational learning technologies in Canada and internationally, including these topics:

  

•   Adaptive  systems    

•   Tutoring  systems    

•   Online  Learning Environments    

•   Computer  Supported Collaborative Learning Environments    

•   Computer Mediated Communication    

•   Mobile applications supporting  learning       

•   Modeling  system  usage  for  learning  outcomes    

•   Discussion  forums and peer help    

•   Flipped classroom and video lecture use    

•   Systems  supporting second language learners    in    STEM    courses    

•   Informal  learning through online  videos    

•   Communication  and  learning tools  

  Please    forward   any   questions    regarding    this  issue    to   Guest    Editors:        

    

Alexandra   Makos,     Clare   Brett,    and   Jim    Hewitt   

Curriculum,  Teaching    and    Learning    Department    

Ontario   Institute    for    Studies  in    Education,    University    of   Toronto    Toronto,    ON  

alexandra.makos@utoronto.ca   

jim.hewitt@utoronto.ca 

clare.brett@utoronto.ca       

    

Mobile Learning Resources

Submitted by Yulin Song 
Here we link two educational technology journals in China which have papers exploring mobile learning and teaching. Both of them are open access online. Hope you will find them enlightening.


1 《中国电化教育》 China Educational Technology

http://zgdhjy.jse.edu.cn/

2   《中国开放教育》 Open Education Research

http://openedu.shtvu.edu.cn/

New Mobile Learning Organizations/Collaborations

Dr. Laurent Antonczak, at MINA [ Mobile Innovation Network Australia ] announces an Australasia collaboration with RMIT(Melbourne).....

Hi everyone,

We are pleased to announce our new Australasia collaboration with RMIT (Melbourne) and the new Call for Paper for the 5th International Mobile Creativity and Mobile Innovation AKA #mina2015:

 http://mina.pro/2015cfp/

Looking forward to hear from you :-)

–––
Laurent Antonczak
MINA [ Mobile Innovation Network Aotearoa ]

Moving Forward

Thanks to everyone for your ongoing feedback and contributions as we continue to strengthen the IAmLearn Newsletter as a resource for our membership.  We encourage our readers (your0  to share your feedback, ideas, responses, debate also in our other social media sources including Facebook, Twitter and the IAMLEARN website- any member can contribute to the website once logged in, so please share your event and project updates, as well as resources.  We are members of a dynamic, vital and diverse learning community.  Our dialogue spans boundaries of space and time.  Lets keep it going strong.