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Archive for the ‘Mobile Learning’ Category

10 Trends for Global Education in 2011

January 1st, 2011

: Image via Wikipedia

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly are still part of the incoming tide but Time will level the playing field once the dust of 20th Century marketing ploys settles and people begin to demand quality over the distracting dissatisfaction of empty, entertainment-filled promises. The masses are tired of being increasingly informed and entertained and decreasingly enabled and empowered for critical thought and deep learning.

1. Ubiquitous – The Internet has brought us a host of online education choices including everything from unscrupulous diploma mills to a myriad of so-called learning games as well as apps for nearly every subject, platform, and device. This trend will continue. The challenge to identify quality amidst the quantity will grow.

2. Social – Face it, we are social creatures and the only things we learn well in isolation are survival techniques (and even then, we wish we had some others to help us). The Internet’s social layer is solidly in place so expect to see education delivered more broadly on the social grid.

3. Mobile – The mobile generation will expect mobile access to all matters beyond mere communication and game-playing. Devices are personal links to best practices and apps will be developed to meet the ever-increasing demand.

4. Pushed – Traditional supply-side education will continue to lose ground to demand-side education where location-aware apps push just-in-time learning. Instructional design should take advantage of push technology.

5. Personalized – Learning will be personalized more and more in the way of both eportfolio content creation as well as learner-specific and contextually relevant assessment. Department of Education initiatives include plans to aggregate student achievement from cradle to grave and this data will empower apps to deliver personalized learning experiences.

6. Media rich – Whether we agree with it or not, future literacy will demand our reading of symbols that go beyond mere letters on a page. The digital landscape requires a broader skill set than previous generations learned.

7. Computer free – Web 1.0 was platform and software specific. Web 2.0 has been rather device centric. However, technology has a way of becoming invisible with wide-scale adoption. Expect the same in the education arena. The Internet of things will include more than kitchen appliances. The tools of the education trade will integrate smart technologies to seamlessly deliver interactive experiences previously relegated to traditional face-to-face settings.

8. Relevant – Thanks to gps chips, technology will afford customized delivery of learning opportunities contextually relevant to the learner.

9. Augmented – Emerging technological innovations are adding ways for learners to interact with subject matter in ways previously unavailable. Virtual field trips enable learners to transcend time and space barriers. Virtual technologies allow learner avatars to transcend identity barriers.

10. Layered – Just as the social layer has been added to the globally networked world, and just as a game layer is being constructed as I write this, watch for an education layer to be integrated where Like and Comment buttons may be accompanied by a Learn This button (Similar to Apture’s Learn More plugin but more developed).

These trends will continue while civilization continues to transition from the industrialized model of nation-state institutions to the globally networked collaborative model. Despite the fact that only half the world is Internet-worked at present, an ignorant populace can only be distracted by superficial entertainment and/or narrow cultural indoctrination for so long. Eventually, the thirst for fulfillment will drive the demand for genuine and deep learning on a global scale. Will greed give way to good?

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Posted in Education, Futurism, Internet, Mobile Learning, pedagogy, Social Media, Technology

Tags: Education educational technology learning Methods and Theories Personalized learning Technology Web 1.0

How to Gather Students Around the Glow of the Monitor for Subject-Centered Learning…

March 1st, 2010

: Image via Wikipedia

Yesterday I posted a link on my Posterous concerning the history of the printing press and how this revolutionary innovation affected and ultimately transformed society, culture, and the world.

Interestingly, hand written books were generally read aloud to groups. Recalling my time in Haiti and my research into the Haitian culture, I learned about “Krik-krak” the art of Haitian story-telling. Similarly, stories were recited around an evening fire when the work was done and the day was gone.

However, the printing press allowed the mass production of written material and corporate gathering for book-reading and story-telling gave way to independent study and ultimately to silent reading.

Aside: Silent reading was not readily accepted of course. People caught reading to themselves were considered demon-possessed by those observing them moving their lips without uttering a word.

Today, teachers as guides and facilitators are gathering their students around the fiery glow of the computer monitor to focus on units of learning centered around some theme or subject matter. Web 2.0 applications like VoiceThread allow students to read, hear, and interact by gathering around a subject matter rather than around the teacher as story-teller or disseminator of knowledge.

Yet the information is not necessarily student-centered either. Though it should be appropriate for the intended audience, the subject matter becomes the campfire around which the students gather to listen, observe, hypothesize, experiment, interact, collaborate, and report.

The usefulness of technology today is grounded it this ability to create rich, immersive environments for such gatherings. When this atmosphere is cultivated in the classroom, students and teachers are no longer in opposition to one another but are fellow-explorers navigating the new subject matter for a better understanding.

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Posted in Education, Mobile Learning, pedagogy, Social Media, Technology

Tags: Education Haiti Reading

3 Obstacles of Opportunity for Education…

February 16th, 2010

: Image by NLanja via Flickr

Social media, mobile delivery, and money shortage (the 3M’s; media, mobile, and money) are three obstacles of opportunity before today’s educational institutions. But ideas are funny little things. They don’t work unless we do. And we need to focus on the long-term, sustainable solution, not the short-term fix.

Illustration…

Assume you’re an ER doc and a patient presents with severe bleeding from a gunshot. Of course you would do everything you can to mitigate the bleeding; slow it down; even stop it. But that’s only the temporary fix to the deeper problem – the bullet.

Problem…

Education is losing vitality in several arenas. Public education suffers from lower tax revenues in a crippled economy of devalued property. They also suffer from increased competition for enrollments via charter schools and private institutions as well as new online opportunities.

Higher Ed is losing ground as well via lower endowments, lower enrollments, and increased competition from for-profits, community colleges, and online approaches.

Most are trying to slow the speed of loss (a short-term solution) just like in our earlier ER doc example. But even if they succeed in short term fixes, the long-term problem remains: Education is changing around the globe. Here’s a review of the three obstacles, why they present a problem for educators, and one way they can be turned into opportunities for long term, sustainable solutions.

Obstacles…

According to many mainstream educators, Social Media is a distraction. Students check Facebook before they check email. Many dispense with email altogether unless absolutely necessary. And text messaging is harmful. An entire generation is ignorant of the skill of written communication. How are they supposed to complete book reports and turn in essays?

Mobile phones are problematic, so say many school officials, because they encourage cheating. They also distract both individuals and entire classes. And as mentioned above, they reinforce poor writing skills by encouraging 160 character text messages with emoticons rather than Ethos, Pathos, and Logos.

Money is in shorter supply and budgets are being cut across the board. How can we educate when we can’t afford the equipment, technology, textbooks, desks, electricity, staff, … and the list goes on. Therefore we inadvertently focus on fund raisers and government handouts to alleviate our pain.

“Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.” – Helen Keller

Opportunities…

Social media has changed our world into a relationship economy. Avoiding this revolutionary platform of interaction is like avoiding the subject of Economics when teaching History, Math, or the Social Sciences, etc. Social media is made up of user generated content within a defined space. Education must adapt to this new paradigm by offering students some customization and personalization options within the curriculum.

This does not mean students decide what to learn but it could mean they are given some choices regarding sequencing when such options are viable. How about personalizing learning spaces such as furniture arrangement, location for a class one day, or choosing a teammate for a project?

Mobile phones are more ubiquitous than computers. They are the single most useful device available to the masses (Africa now has the highest per capita concentration of them) since offering access to the Internet. Students find their cell phone to be the most relevant personal belonging (Identity) they own. Yet schools ban them unless they can exert some control over their use.

It’s vain to seek to destroy this perceived enemy of our traditional education process. Rather we best befriend this new platform and embrace its use because the new paradigm is about mobile delivery to a mobile generation (Remember! It’s a relationship economy).

Money woes could be reduced by embracing the new paradigm. E-textbooks are a fraction of the cost of traditional bound and printed matter. Aggregated relationship feeds can be monetized by the educational institutions themselves rather than waiting for Doritos and Budweiser to do it.

(I’m expecting some to raise a fuss about such a suggestion but perhaps they are not aware of the way our students are monetized already within the obese educational institution).

Summary…

What society values, it should propagate through education so the next generation may carry the torch onward. We used to value colonization and we indoctrinated others accordingly. Then we valued industrialization and we used behaviorism to educate the masses. When we entered the management revolution of the mid 20th century, we changed our tactics to cognitive learning approaches.

Today we are facing a new paradigm that requires constructivist and connectivist learning strategies to educate a sustainable society that is equipped to emerge wisely from our impending collision with a future where the human and the machine are merged in a bio- and nano-tech world.

The future will be social and mobile. If the institution of education wishes to survive economically, it must adopt and adapt the new platform of interaction.