Sue+Work+In+Progress

=Sue Work In Progress=

**RESOURCES IN CONSIDERATION 4/9/11**:- London Riots - Use of Blackberrys & SNS (S)
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Edmodo SNS for students/teachers (S) []

Mobilising learning: mobile Web 2.0 scenarios in tertiary education (G). []

Mobile learning environments: Place based/situated learning (S). []

Mobile 2.0 - Crossing the border into formal learning (G). []

Iphone Face Fat App []

Egypt riots []

**RESOURCE IDEAS**

Interactive publishing platform for Ipads - e book []

[] How much content is too much for mobile learning? Thought provoking article.

[] 2010 Educause article by David Gagnon re mobile learning environments - place based and situated learning

[] The Mobile Learning Edge is a book written by Garry Woodill and his site has some interesting resources we could use - articles, links, apps etc.

[] JISC mobile and wireless technologies review 2011. Very long of course but we could point them in the direction of certain pages - this also include the "Perfect Storm" diagram illustrated in the next article. Focus on pages 60/61 - cost/benefits of mobile learning. [] Mobile Learning: A perfect storm to drive changes in the workplace. Interesting thoughts/diagram here on the widespread adoption of Mlearning. Perhaps students could contribute to this blog discussion?

[] Educause conversation. How are mobile devices empowering students and how can faculty keep up? Participants:-Scott Perkins, Director of Research, Abilene Christian University-Michael Casdorph, Director of Instructional Support and Edu Design, Medical College of Georgia

[] Accessible online and from any mobile device via free smart phone applications, Edmodo has grown from a teacher tool into a district-wide resource as word of the free online service spreads through schools around the world. Edmodo is a free and secure social learning network for teachers, students and schools. Edmodo provides classrooms a safe and easy way to connect and collaborate, offering a real-time platform to exchange ideas, share content, and access homework, grades and school notices. Has 1.5 million users worldwide. Hi sue - I have logged into edmodo - its really similar to facebook - haven't had a chance to have a real look at it - but it could be a really useful resource...

[] Essa Academy was the first school in the UK to give an iPod touch to all students and staff as a way of increasing access to information and deepening and expanding learning beyond the classroom. This school was to be closed down but has moved forward greatly since the move towards iPods as a tool for teaching and learning. Abdul Chohan is a director at Essa Academy and talks about the whole experience in this vid. Not sure if his punctuation with "ok" is going to be annoying or if the vid is too long (20 mins)

**OLD IDEAS** - Ideas on different angles to take on the topic and ideas on how we can present and conduct the seminar.
 * 20/08/2011**

As detailed in the LO below, my suggestions are to take one or more of the following angles:-
 * impacts of mobile learning on formal and informal learning spaces
 * mobile learning and the effects on student and teacher locus of control
 * the relationships between mobile learning and learner motivation
 * the links between the versatility of mobile devices and student centred learning

The reason for these four suggestions is that they seem to pop up through the readings Maggie has prescribed and therefore by setting some or all of these as LOs would give our students some parallel in their focus as they work through our seminar and their course prescribed readings.

- Ideas about course objectives, course structure and content: and ideas for course design

I have detailed below proposals re seminar title, learning objectives and a couple of sample discussions. I didnt want to go too far with this until we had figured out where we are heading.

__**SEMINAR TITLE**__
 * Mobile learning – are we taking the classroom to the seaside or creating learning environments that assist student procrastination? (couldnt really get my head or tongue around the words here exactly but hoping you get my drift)**

__**LEARNING OUTCOMES**__ At the end of this seminar the learner will be able to:- Maybe reduce this to just two learning obectives? one for each week?
 * Demonstrate an understanding of the impacts of mobile learning on formal and informal learning spaces
 * Examine the effects of mobile learning on student and teacher locus of control
 * Demonstrate an understanding of the relationships between mobile learning and learner motivation
 * Evaluate possible links between the versatility of mobile devices and student centred learning

__**ACTIVITY SUGGESTIONS**__ **My thoughts - maybe look at engaging activities that create meaning for the students ie a scenario based seminar that gives them a reason to engage to create their own authentic learning ie. 'The institute you work at has decided that each student is to have an ipad as a compulsory piece of equipment, and you are the only teacher who has any knowledge or interest in mobility teaching' etc - then structure the activities around what they can do to learn to deal with a particular scenario? OR the school has earthquake damage and you are relocated to a church camp near the seaside - how could you ensure your students learning is not affected....hmmmm Get the students in the seminar to create their own resources e.g. videos and audios and post these online - share data through their mobile phones, make a phone tree...set them a challenge of going to the remotest place to send a message to our seminar....get them to create a resource they could use in their own teaching....Get them to write a story....Give them strict guidelines about timeframes, feedback, maybe put them into groups for some of the exercises - or pair them up so they can communicate with each other - people love engaging if it has meaning for them personally and they love learning if they already know what they are going to be doing and why.**

**In the seminars I took part in last year - these were the things that I felt were the most valuable:** **Getting to know other people on the group through various regroupings and pairings** **Being involved in a scenario - just makes it fun** **Creating a useful resource to take back into teaching** When our students arrive in our classrooms be they virtual or face to face, do they present with a tabula rasa (blank slate) perception of **__where__** to learn? Or has technology developed the thinking that learning should be as ubiquitous and nomadic as their personal online social interactions are?
 * Activity 1 Suggestion - Forum Discussion**

The following reading which was written in 2007, discusses the pros and cons, benefits and challenges of differing mobile technologies in relation to teaching and learning. In your opinion, and with Crobeil & Valdes-Corbeil's thoughts in mind, what impact do you think mobile technologies have on the student and teacher locus of control? Reading: Corbeil, J. R. & Valdes-Corbeil, M.E. (2007). Are you ready for mobile learning? //Educause Quarterly Magazine. 30 (2). 51-58.// []
 * Activity 2 Suggestion - Reading and Forum Discussion**

In relation to course structure and design I offer the following suggestions. These of course are just designed to eminate further discussion around how it will all work.
 * No more than two readings - perhaps one each week as Maggie's reading pile for this section of the Trends course is quite decent and the less we give them the better maybe - I think this is a great suggestion
 * Perhaps maximum 6 activities over the whole course - 3 per week perhaps - something like 1 reading per week, 1 discussion per week and 1 different activity such as a synch recorded guest speak or perhaps a create debate type activity
 * One discussion forum each week related to each reading
 * Some sort of podcast/video item around which they engage in a debate perhaps - pros/cons type of thing? Maybe use the create debate site however not sure about them going outside of our learning space wherever we decide that to be
 * Maybe a recorded synchronous guest speaker interview - dont know who we would get though. We could maybe have an activity prior to the guest speak where students posed questions that they wanted asked then we post back the recording with the responses enabling further discussion
 * As there are two seminars running at this time, and looking at the complexity of the prescribed readings (x 2 each week) I am thinking that the students wouldnt want to spend more than 4 hours per week on our seminar so we should load the work accordingly perhaps
 * Obviously our seminar has to cross primary, secondary, adult etc from both public to private, commercial to state sectors as we have quite a diverse group of students in our Trends course
 * Do we have some sort of rotational roster when the seminar is in progress where one person is the "master" of the activity or discussion but there is a "backup" observing as well just in case anything goes wrong/ to offer discussion provoking thoughts
 * During the two weeks of the seminar should we set the rule that the rostered master and the backup should check their allocated discussion twice a day to ensure quick responses to our participants
 * Perhaps it would be helpful, right from the beginning of this design and development phase, that we adopt our roles as TL, QC, SME, and ensure that we keep these roles active even when the seminar is in progress
 * During the seminar we should communicate any issues or concerns to each other via Skype - aiming to check Skype twice a day?
 * Ensure navigation is clear and concise and that our students can find their way to the discussion forum section that we want them to post in
 * Provide an Ask a Question section in case they dont know what to do