IADIS 2011 mobile learning: the meta takeaways

This conference wasn’t big, nor full of headlining Big Names In The Field.  It’s been a while since I’ve haven’t been to a conference where Big Names filled the rooms and where presenters, having travelled from afar, were feasted on like leftovers.  I have to say that this is one of the things I appreciated the most about this conference, where every session I attended drew equal amounts of participants and everybody seemed to be on a level playing field in terms of what they had to offer.  The attendance was incredibly globally diverse, and I couldn’t get enough of the diversity of contexts that we work in ranging from “our institution had an iPod program” to “in my country no institution has a hope in hell of having an iWhatever program, so what advice do you have for me?”  It was one of the few conferences where at least one presenter didn’t have to be dragged off the stage because they were overtime but still had 10 critical slides left, and where every question and answer session was fairly engaging.  I had expected a little more display of flashy gadgetry, but again, the mobile learning problems that presenters focussed on were real, and not really about the “look what we are doing with all our toys” variety.  So my biggest takeaway is that stepping outside of your usual conference circuit and into the smaller, less headliner sphere can be really rewarding.  And definitely for a topic like mobile learning, there is perhaps more to be learned from developing countries than from countries where gadgets know no boundaries.

Avila, Spain

IADIS 2011 mobile learning: a pedagogical model

One of the most relevant presentations for my institution was presented by a Finnish team describing a pedagogical m-learning model for decentralized tourism education.  Tourism students resided in their place of learning for classes etc at a ski resort approx 50 km from the institution, but extended their learning within the environs of the ski resort. The institution was important to the model in providing ICT support, language teacher support, and school services, but the resort and the communities in the Lapland area were the real place of learning and made heavy use of mobile devices to gather information from the various locations.  Again, in an applied learning context this model made total sense to me, where the institution really takes on a different role in supporting the learner, and the use of mobile devices in the actual place of learning is not just an add-on but an essential component.  This model gave me a lot to think about in terms of when and why m-learning is so useful to applied education.

IADIS 2011 mobile learning: the quest for a device neutral platform

Avila, Spain

Ok, there were no less than 2 presentations that I attended that presented projects that attempted to create device neutral m-learning platforms. Some of these were pretty technical and challenged me, but the takeaway for me is that we are all facing the problem the incredible number of device options and how we address m-learning in that landscape.

The Poznan University of Economics (Poland) presented their work on something called the MILES interfaces, which even with my limited technical knowledge, appeared to be nothing short of brilliant.  Basically, of some sort of backend interface (SOIL, service oriented interface language based on XML) it allows the appropriate “template” to be pulled up for the appropriate device, and adjusts media size etc according to the device.  Basically, an “interface adaption system” that extends to Web 2.0 tools such as wikis or blogs.  Sorry folks, that’s the best I can do.

The Moule project based in Italy seemed addressed the device issue in a different way, but the presentation was less about the technical and more about its application in higher ed.  The technical is described here and makes heavy use of GPS, (and  I believe QR codes but I could be mixing that up with another) as a way of extending the learning experience beyond the classroom and more embedded in the real world.  This is a very tangible and valuable idea for me, and again has concrete relevance in the types of applied learning programs we do at the JIBC, which are so often embedded in workplaces and less in the classroom.  The Unidroid project (also Italian) explored the same kind of institutional application of mobile learning by building on the compass, camera, accelerometer, and the GPS, in conjunction with QR codes, mainly around orienting students to the campus, schedule information, bibliographic management, and language lessons.

I’m pretty sure there was at least one more device neutral platform presentation that I either attended or missed, but the notes aren’t digging it up.  That’s all for this topic.

 

 

IADIS 2011 mobile learning conference: the keynote

Avila, Spain

I attended the IADIS M-learning conference in Avila, Spain, and after leaving a comment over on Miami Learning’s blog, who captures his impressions on the sessions, I feel like I need to expand on my own.

This was actually the first hotel-based conference I’ve been too where I had consistent access to the wifi (surprise!) and the first European conference where I was fed more than adequately in relation to the cost.  Bottles of wine flowed at full- course sit down conference lunches, and conference dinner wasn’t chicken, but was nonetheless outshined by an unforgettably wonderful tapas dinner the night before.  It was also the first conference where I closed the laptop, shut off twitter, and really focussed on listening.  A little bit 5 years ago, but I truly felt like I got more out of the presentations–not every presentation is an obvious “wow” full of interesting twitterable takeaways, but by spending more time focussing on finding a gem in each presentation I felt like I got my money’s worth (which is a lot considering the 600 euro conference fee!).

Food aside, the conference opened up with a great keynote by Marcus Sprecht (@marcuspecht) from CELSTEC at the Open U of Netherlands.  I’ve become accustomed to expecting great presentations on interesting things at the Open U in Netherlands, and this didn’t disappoint (I’ve now added the OUNL to my list of international dream jobs).  Marcus’s presentation was really about innovation, as CELSTEC seems to really be pushing the envelope as far as m-learning applications go. Marcus talked about sensors in relation to augmented perception, mainly in the context of museum tours, but it wasn’t hard to see how this might be useful to health professionals with the introduction of bio sensors.  In fact, Marcus made this kind of extension in relation to MetaMirror, an iPad app that detects what you are watching on TV and enhances the experience by providing additional information.  He suggested that this type of experience could apply to medical equipment in hospitals and labs.

I hadn’t really paid much attention to augmented reality as a current must-explore elearning topic, but I left the presentation feeling like it had important relevance to the kinds of programs we deliver at my institution.  Quite frankly, I’m not sure I would feel the same way if I was at a traditional university.

Marcus also put forward a few think-about-it questions regarding mobile learning in general, a few of which I captured.

1.  is your content accessible by mobiles and by what devices, browsers, etc?

2. is there a link between your content and thereal world that suits your goals?

And a takeaway:  think about contexts in terms of mobile situations vs. desktop situations.

Showcase presentations and request for feedback

If you attended the online course showcase at JIBC or were interested in viewing the presentations, BC Campus has pulled together some of the showcase presentations and panel discussions together into a nifty page, where they can be downloaded.

There is interest from participants in having this event again, and those discussions are underway.  I may or may not be involved in planning a future event, but in the interest of getting some feedback on this one and recommendations for a future event, I hope you’ll fill out this quick form.  What worked? What would you like to see next time? Let us know!

 

Teaching presence, PLN’s and lurking

I was happy to hear that an article I submitted to the Journal of Distance Education has been accepted and am grateful for some great anonymous constructive comments.  I still feel like more peer review is better than less, so I’m posting it here for critique and comments.  The article is about how instructors negotiated their teaching presence while teaching in international online courses.  In it I challenge how we currently think about and measure teaching presence, since from a sociocultural perspective it becomes necessary to examine other contextual conditions and factors that influence the practice of online teaching.  I suggest that positioning and identity are important concepts in understanding this practice.

This was  also where my head was when I commented on George Siemens’ thought-provoking post on PLNs.  His post generated a number of interesting comments but the topic of lurking was largely binary–lurking is good or lurking is bad, with some legitimate peripheral participation thrown in the mix.  I agreed with most of his post, with the exception of the second last paragraph, where it was suggested that lurking is negative, and that newcomers shouldn’t sit on the periphery.  There were several commenters who challenged this, pointing out that communities of practice are a process of moving from the periphery to the centre (Lave and Wenger themselves illustrated this through examples of the apprenticeship model of teaching learning) and that identity construction is a key part of this process.

As with online teaching, I think it is difficult to talk about participation however broadly defined–regardless of whether it is an online course with discussion board, a PLN, or a network–without talking about positioning and identity.  George’s response was thoughtful, pointing out that the rules and norms and expectations of PLNs vs. communities are different.  I suspect there is truth in this, since broadly speaking they may become cultural practices with rules and norms.  At the same time, I have to challenge this idea, since it begs the question for whom and in what context?

In my own reading of communities of practice literature (Lave and Wenger, Wenger) and even activity theory (Engestrom) they don’t account for how participants are positioned and positioned by others, or how identity/ies are negotiated in discursive spaces such as online communities, PLNs, or networks.  Critical to understanding this is getting at the why’s of participation, and more importantly non- participation/lurking/observing only.  Language socialization research has been on to this for a while, examining, for example, how ESL learners resist classroom practices, dominant cultural norms, and positioning by others as being deficient in the dominant language (c.f. Norton, 2001).   This isn’t to say that lurking is always a form of resistance, since as some of the commenters suggested, lurking can also be a learning activity.  Lurking may not be taking, and sometimes it may be good to be a lurker.  Lurking might be marginalization, as it might also be silent learning.  Lurking can be laziness, but it can also be the most active kind of participation that an individual can engage in if they are unable to contribute for whatever reason (eg. language).  As with online teaching, the dynamics of participation are constantly being negotiated, and without greater discussion of this, we may end up with a laundry list of PLN best practices, much like we already experience with online teaching.

Showcase wrap up–instructional design

In an ed tech landscape dominated by emerging technologies and web 2.0 conversations, instructional design is hardly the sexy topic du jour.  We lost about 30% of the attendees in the afternoon portion, which may also be an indication of what people are interested in seeing these days (or perhaps it was the pending snowfall, which almost certainly generates paranoia in  Vancouver).

The instructional design category had 5 groups of presenters, and it was interesting to see what this category shared with and how it diverged from the extended LMS category.  All of the presenters in this category represented courses in WebCT/Moodle/Blackboard LMS’s, yet most of them stretched the LMS in some way, through the addition of flash-based interaction to present content (UBC), or to provide a better solution to an LMS feature (BCIT), or through the use of additional tools such as Wimba or Adobe Connect.

Each of the presentations in this category were so different, so this category ended up being really rich.  Here are some strengths of each of the presentations:

1.  UBC Earth and Ocean Sciences:  We didn’t have enough time (our goof) to let UBC really show all that they had to show, but they managed to wow us with some really amazing flash animations to present content, and stunning design of all course elements–graphics, style sheet, everything.  This submission was an inspiration for the importance of “look and feel” as a component of instructional design, demonstrating the importance of approaching the design across a package of courses within a program.

2. Emily Carr:  We knew Emily Carr was going to have a course that looked good, but this was the best looking Moodle course I have ever seen.   As a bonus, Jane Slemon wowed us with an inspiring presentation that told a story of seeking metaphors between art and science.  It should be a mandatory presentation for K-12 educators, since it really nailed the whole idea that art and science can co-exist quite nicely, and in a way that combined reflection, knowledge and application of these two disciplines.  It also really stretched my own conceptions of what instructional design can look like for online.

3.  Another UBC presentation (by Brian Wilson) got a short time shrift, but it was enough  time to  really nail the potential of voice for solving educational challenges.  Outside of language learning I haven’t seen a course that actually uses a voice board well, despite the fact that they have been around since at least 2003.  Brian presented a UBC dental hygiene course where the voice board was  a key component of its delivery, and the rationale for its integration.

4.  Rob Chong’s JIBC presentation really stretched our ideas of blended learning, and instructional design for contexts where blended involves the workplace and the institution.  This was the most well-thought out example of blended learning that I’ve seen, with a complex instructional design that required negotiating complex workplace environments. The wizardry of this example was in the instructional design, and not in the technological bells and whistles.

5.  Like Rob’s presentation that looked for a creative answer to an instructional challenge, BCIT’s presentation focussed on the development of a flash based glossary tool that could provide a much more learning value than a standard LMS glossary tool.  In both of these presentations, the designers could have taken an easy road and created a much easier alternative.  By not doing so, the learning experience for students was greatly enhanced.

5.  VCC wrapped up the day with a presentation on the e-apprentice Automotive Service Technician program, which faced the challenge of making a lot ( a ton!) of content easily navigable and digestable to students, while keeping them engaged and motivated in a program that they juggle while working as apprentices.  Again, as in other presentations, this was made possible by stretching the LMS and getting creative with the presentation of content.

There was so much good variety in this category that it left me hungry for even more inspiration.  All of the people who presented in this category were obviously very good instructional designers, and I appreciated that there are so many design options to be explored, yet it’s so easy to continue to do what is comfortable and familiar.  This was one of the goals of the day, and I think we succeeded in beginning a conversation that will hopefully continue.

 

Showcase wrap up–Extended LMS

We’re really happy with how the online course showcase went last week–there was great attendance, interesting discussion, and fabulous presentations.  Karen and I were pretty strong task masters and still managed to be behind schedule pretty much the whole day, but strangely we finished 5 minutes ahead of schedule.

The amazing Leva Lee of ETUG fame diligently took notes on the presentations in the PB wiki which provides a nice summary of the presentations and some of the discussions. Scott Leslie from BCCampus set up some of the presenters to have their sessions screencasted, which will be made available on the BCCampus site at some point.  The second of two panel discussions was recorded, and hopefully we can make that available too.

Tony Bates has already done a really nice reflection on the showcase over on his blog and it was my intention to pull some threads together between the two categories of submissions:  extended LMS and instructional design. Here are some notes that I jotted down for the extended LMS category (instructional design to follow in another post):

Themes from extended LMS category:

1. There are some risks and challenges in moving beyond the LMS.  The four presenters in this category all seemed to have a certain amount of technical knowledge that allowed them to set up their systems, stretch them, and innovate.  How feasible is this if you don’t know what to do with Drupal, WordPress, or Mediawiki on your own server or how to get it on there?  My guess is that a great relationship with your IT department is required to make this a feasible option for some instructional developers.

2.  The four presenters in this category had a genuine desire to be relevant to students and social network systems they use.  So, this wasn’t just about technical tinkering…they are passionate instructors who were looking for creative solutions to instructional problems.  At times this discussion threatened to go off into “they’re all net gens and need and want this stuff” territory, but ultimately it really did seem to be more about the educational value vs. the cultural/generational value, despite the acknowledgement that these don’t necessarily need to be polarized.

3.  Extended LMS leads to discussions about the value of openness, the challenges of openness and how this is negotiated on the continuum of public and private spaces.  This applies to student assignments in addition to content, with the presenters representing various levels of openness in both areas.  It was very thought provoking to hear  the rationales for openness, perhaps highlighting the contextual differences in our institutions.

4. Going beyond the LMS allows for creative options but also challenges.  However, I was left with the impression that extending the LMS is critically important when the instructional/learning context requires it.  There are also some real opportunities to be explored as a result of the affordances of extending the LMS.  Therefore, in my mind it’s no longer a question of “should we?”, so much as “when should we?”, or “when is it the better option?”.

 

 

Session Descriptions Posted

We’ve finalized the schedule and have all the session descriptions posted.  Almost 100 people have signed up, and we’ve promised to feed you all!

Registration for the online showcase

Registration is open  if you’d like to attend the online showcase event in person at the JIBC in New West now closed.  Event details at the online showcase site.