Idaho Board Approves First Ever Online Class Requirement

Education officials on Thursday gave final approval to a plan that makes Idaho the first state in the nation to require high school students to take at least two credits online to graduate, despite heavy criticism of the plan at public hearings this summer.

The measure is part of a sweeping education overhaul that introduces teacher merit pay and phases in laptops for every high school teacher and student.

Proponents say the virtual classes will help the state save money and better prepare students for college. But opponents claim they’ll replace teachers with computers and shift state taxpayer money to the out-of-state companies that will be tapped to provide the online curriculum and laptops.

The rule will apply to students entering the 9th grade in fall 2012. It goes before Idaho lawmakers for review in the 2012 session, which starts in January.

The education board gave the online graduation requirement its initial approval in September after heavy opposition was voiced this summer at public hearings across Idaho. Trustees collected more feedback during a 21-day public comment period last month.

“A majority of the comments felt there should not be an online learning requirement,” said board member Don Soltman during the meeting.

Schools nationwide offer virtual classes, but just three states — Alabama, Florida and Michigan — have adopted rules since 2006 to require online learning, according to the International Association of K-12 Online Learning. The online rules vary from state to state, but Idaho would be the first to require two credits online.

The Idaho Education Association blasted the decision in a statement Thursday, saying the board “overruled the wishes of a majority of Idahoans and disregarded parental choice” by mandating the online credits.

To online learning advocates, the requirement seems reasonable. They say children need to be prepared for the world that awaits them after high school.

“There is still a live teacher. It may be at a distance, but that teacher is still instructing and interacting with the student,” said Susan Patrick, president of the International Association for K-12 Online Learning, a Washington-based nonprofit.

Kendra Wisenbaker, 28, is among those questioning the Idaho plan.

“The poor kids are guinea pigs,” said Wisenbaker, an elementary school teacher in Meridian, the state’s largest school district.

Like many of her students, Wisenbaker is on Facebook, and she spends several hours a day online. But when it comes to requiring her tech-savvy kids to learn in a virtual classroom once they enter high school, Wisenbaker is among Idaho teachers who aren’t so sure.

“I am a little conflicted, I am. It won’t work for every kid, and I think requiring it is a horrible idea,” said Wisenbaker, who also reasons that some students may thrive learning online. “But it shouldn’t be an option for saving money,” she said during an interview with The Associated Press.

In Idaho, members of the state Board of Education have said most of the opposition is directed at new education laws as a whole — not just the online requirements.

Nationwide, state legislatures tackled education policy this year and triggered protests from teachers over proposed changes to their collective bargaining rights, and how they are evaluated and paid. But Idaho has made some of the most sweeping changes, according to education experts.
The state is introducing teacher merit pay, limiting union bargaining rights and shifting money from salaries toward changes such as more classroom technology, as part of the changes backed by public schools chief Tom Luna and the governor.

The overhaul has drawn heavy criticism, including from educators. But to others, Luna is changing a system that was badly broken and they have commended him for restructuring how Idaho’s scarce education dollars are spent.

A group seeking to recall Luna over the education changes failed to collect enough voter signatures earlier this year, but parents and teachers who want to overturn the new laws did meet a June deadline to put three repeal measures on the November 2012 ballot.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/11/04/idaho-board-approves-first-ever-online-class-requirement/#ixzz1d1QWEgl7

The iPad in the EFL Classroom

With the announcement of the iPad 2 from Apple, it is expected that the next generation of computing is here. Tablet computing has become so popular that many people carry Kindles, iPads as well as the other tablets with them whilst on the go. I recently purchased an iPad and have used it in a learning context as well as in the classroom with my learners. At most, the iPad can organise my reading material for my MA, allow me to browse and download articles from journals, and give me access to twitter whilst in the classroom. My tutor is constantly referring to my iPad as the future of teaching because of the possibility of streaming course books and lessons with iPads.

So are iPads an expensive toy, or are they a useful tool for learners and educators alike? In order to answer this question, I will look at my personal experience with the iPad and its potential use with commercial and free applications available in the App Store.

Electronic Pictures in Class

The first time I attempted to use my iPad in my teaching class, many students were very engaged and interested. I was actually undertaking a professional development course and was being observed when I used the iPad for the very first time. I used the iPad to display pictures that would introduce and elicit vocabulary.

The iPad is incredibly useful in that it allows me to browse the Internet, search for images and download them. This saves using a desktop or laptop and printing the images out for use in class. I can save all browsed images and group them into categories (food, transport, sports, etc). I no longer have to visit the school cabinet and look through folders of pictures to find the right one. Furthermore, the iPad is large enough for students to see in class but light enough to keep in my teacher’s bag. One more thing is that you can setup a slideshow on the iPad: a teacher can arrange a slideshow with 20 pictures, show this to students and then have them try to remember each picture shown. It is especially useful for recycling vocabulary, particularly nouns. Finally, a student can be shown a picture on the iPad and attempt to explain what it is to his or her classmates, who then have to draw pictures. This becomes a useful dictation activity.

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Videos in Class

During one lesson, I used the iPad to show a short clip from YouTube to start the lesson. Obviously, you will need WiFi access should you wish to show a YouTube video in class. However, there are Internet applications that can be used to download YouTube videos as MP4 files compatible with iTunes and the iPad.

There are other ways to use the iPad with video that I have not yet exploited. Some of these include choosing one student to watch a short clip with headphones – an advertisement, for example – and then the student has to explain to others what he has just watched. This is a useful reformulation exercise. A similar exercise could include playing a short clip but only allowing students to listen to the video. The instructor would then ask students what they think the video is about. Finally, the screen capture available on the iPad can capture stills of video clips. One activity for students could include showing several stills from a video clip, and students would then have to put them in order and explain what they think would happen in the clip. Students would then compare their ideas with the actual video.

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Internet on the iPad

If you are lucky enough to have a small group of students (2-4 learners) or teach one-to-one, you could get learners to use your iPad in class. If your learners are fortunate enough to have their own iPads, this is even better. You could get students to work in groups for a web quest activity and then present their findings to the rest of the class. It is incredible that the Internet is “in your hands”, as Steve Jobs puts it, and that tablet computers (especially the iPad) require no boot time. Students could present to the class with their iPads if they have presentation software such as Keynote installed. Should your school have the latest technological facilities, you may be able to connect the iPad to an overhead projector for the presentation. Students would be able to connect to social networking sites such as Twitter or Facebook and interact with the world.

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Voice Recording on the iPad

On the iPhone, Voice Memos is included. I have used it to record seminars at the University of Sussex. However, while the iPad has a microphone, Voice Memos is not included. There is, however, one great free app available called “QuickVoice”. It is just the same as Voice Memos on the iPhone. You are able to export to your PC or Mac, replay on the iPad and record in class. This offers great potential to record your students (with permission) when they are participating in a lively debate. Recordings can then be reviewed at a later date. I have asked teachers in my local EFL School to record themselves (in groups or alone) reading from a course book tape script for a listening activity in class. It is incredibly useful having someone act out the tape script at a natural speed for a student listening exercise.

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Useful Apps on the iPad

Apart from the productive apps available for the iPad (such as Keynote, Pages or Numbers), there are many free apps available for the iPad which complement learning in the classroom. The following are my five favourite free apps.

1. British Council – Sounds Right

This app is brilliant and you can now refer to it in class. It is an interactive Phonemic Chart for teachers and students. I have used it successfully in lessons and it really engages Young Learners as well as Adults.

2. Thoughts

I came across this app when I was searching for a useful tool to show images of text and prompt speaking or discussion in class. It is a free app that allows you to capture the screen and show images of thought bubbles in class. It is possible to create a game which includes using music, the thought bubbles and a piece of paper. It is really adapted from “Pass the Paper” by David Deubel.

3. Eyewitness

This app for the iPad is great. You can browse different types of images related to current affairs and capture them by using the iPad’s screen capture. This will enable you to use the images for many activities (describe the picture, prompt discussion, etc.) in class. The good thing about this app is that people can browse images that are currently relevant, and The Guardian stores six months worth of images. In addition, pictures are normally updated daily, thus assuring a constant stream of new and interesting images.

4. Dictionary

I became aware of this app on my iPhone and have used it in class with learners of all ages and abilities. It is free and incredibly useful. It provides some phonemic spelling for particular words, offers synonyms and helps learners keep a history of words that they have browsed. I would recommend that any teacher get this app either for the iPhone or iPad.

5. Telegraph

This app is really a useful way to read the newspaper on the iPad. I haven’t used this app in class but I can see the potential for it to assist in language discussion about newspapers, prompt speaking about newspaper articles or look at interesting headlines in class. Like the apps above, it is free and incredibly engaging.

It is interesting to note that technology has become so integral to language teaching. As technology becomes ever more advanced, more affordable and more widely accessed, learners and educators will be expected to use computers, tablets or Kindles to offer a more immersive learning experience within a physical or digital classroom. If used correctly, technology can assist in incidental learning as well as offer teachers or learners additional resources at the touch of their fingertips.

I hope that technology is embraced by other educators and language schools, as the benefits of connecting the classroom to the rest of the world are invaluable. Although it can be very expensive for a school to integrate these new technologies, an interactive whiteboard can be no more expensive than purchasing board markers or erasers over a three-year period for twenty classrooms. It is exciting to think about the future of language teaching, with the potential for digital course books available to students or teachers. On a final note, I have written this blog post entirely on my iPad, which illustrates the point that anything is possible nowadays on a small tablet computer.

This article was originally posted at http://voxy.com/blog/2011/03/ipad-efl-classroom/

Will Health Data on Mobile Devices, iPads, Be Private and Secure?

There have been many recent and public events involving security breaches of electronic medical records and other patient data in hospitals. The unfortunate event in Tucson, Arizona where a Congresswoman was shot, led to the firing of three curious clinical support staff members for improperly accessing EMRs at  the University Medical Center where the Congresswoman was being treated. In Iowa, five total hospital employees were disciplined (three fired) for violating federal law by viewing the medical records of hospitalized University of Iowa Hawkeye football players.

Beyond curiosity, one would think that people want to access medical records information from newsworthy people and events to try and sell the stories to the media who obviously would pay large sums of money to be the first to break the story about something like Michael Jackson’smedical past. But, then I wonder why a Las Vegas man, would go through the trouble of organizing a patient records scheme where he used private hospital files to solicit business and clients for a personal injury attorney. He obviously has some decent planning skills and would be better off in Wall Street, where schemes such as this go largely unnoticed, and can go on for quite some time.

I began to think about the possible issues stemming from physicians rapidly adopting mHealth applications on tools such as iPads, Android devices, Blackberries, and others. I posed the question on a Center for Democracy and Technology forum about Health 2.0 and HIPAA, as I thought about physicians moving around a medical facility with a device in hand containing lots of private patient medical information.

Barry Chaiken, MD, former chair of HIMSS and chief medical officer for Imprivata, shared 5 Key Considerations for Hospitals to Ensure Mobile Device Security in Becker’s Hospital Review.

Here they are:

1. Keep data in a cloud: Perhaps none of the data can be saved on the actual devices, because of their portability.
2. Get creative with passwords: More sophisticated authentication is evolving, so its necessary to have a unique password.
3. Limit how devices are utilized: Hospitals and medical centers should configure access so that the hospitals control what is seen and accessed through a cloud.
4. The ultimate goal should be zero breaches: Hospitals are at risk for losing not only patients, but also lots of money in remedying security breaches.
5. Keep up with trends in technology: Hospitals should stay updated on the latest trends in technology and security applications.

Outlining preventative steps such as Dr. Chaiken’s will help reduce the risk of security breaches as the mHealth market continues to grow, and physicians adopt mobile devices as a convenient way to help deliver efficient and accurate patient care.

This article was originally posted at http://www.medicalrecords.com/2011/02/04/blog/will-health-data-on-mobile-devices-ipads-be-private-and-secure.html

eLearning Design: Interview with The eLearning Coach, Connie Malamed

It’s been an incredible year for the learning industry. Innovations in mobile technologies, the arrival of the ipad (was it just this year?) and the continued evolution of social learning,  are just some highlights of a year that saw learning design continue to mature along side emerging and maturing technologies. What a ride! Useful tools and helpful resources in a wide array of media help make consulting, managing, designing and developing much easier than even 24 months ago.  One such helpful resource is Connie Malamed’s eLearning Coach blog.  I had the pleasure to chat with Connie to find out more about her and her design insights.

MA: For those who don’t know you or your blog, can you briefly share your story?

Connie: Like many people in our field, I’m passionate about education and training and think it’s a path to solving individual and world problems. I’ve been designing and creating learning experiences for over 20 years and love this career (except when I’m working till 2AM).

At some point I realized it was time to start sharing what I’ve learned, so I started a blogazine about Instructional Design and online learning, called The eLearning Coach. My focus is on providing practical advice as well as learning theory to those just starting out in the field as well as to experienced designers and developers. A wonderful unexpected byproduct has been how much I’ve learned by meeting people, researching new ideas and interviewing others.

Because I have a background in art too, I felt compelled to research and write a book that presents visual communication principles based on cognitive science rather than intuition. The book is called, Visual Language For Designers: Principles for Creating Graphics that People Understand. There’s a hard back and Kindle version on Amazon.

MA:  I love your blog because there is a pragmatic approach to your posts. How does this pragmatism render in your designs and/or consulting?

Connie: I guess I’m pragmatic in the way I think about design and implementation simultaneously, which might not be the best approach for brainstorming. So when a client or the content requires a creative approach, I also think through the ramifications of the idea. For example, if we decide to use photos and audio of 10 customers in an eLearning course, I’m simultaneously thinking about how we can save costs by getting 5 narrators who can perform two unique voices each. Head in the clouds…feet on the ground.

MA:  In your blog, you expertly discuss the value and interplay of cognitive psychology, visual communication/design, information design, and learning theory in learning products/solutions. What is the typical pushback you experience from clients about any elements of this philosophy and how have you overcome it?

Connie: Hey, I’m slogging around in the same mess that everyone else in our field experiences. Clients who don’t understand that less is more; that visuals are often better than text; that creative storytelling is more engaging than lectures; or that just-in-time information and performance support are often more effective than a grueling 8-hour course.

I truly like and respect my clients and want to help them, so I try to meet them where they are at and attempt to educate them about the most effective approaches to learning. Often, I can only make incremental changes in their thinking. Then I just do the best I can with what I’ve got.

MA:  I’ve found a common up-front inhibitor for producing effective learning products is clients or SMEs insisting that adding more content to a learning product is better. What are some of your best practices to help content stakeholders understand that simple, streamlined content focusing on the single-most important actions the learner needs to know and do is better?

Connie: A few things that have worked for me are getting clients to stay focused on the skills and actions that their employees need to perform, by consistently pulling the client back to the key goals. I’ll ask, “Will that extra information help learners get the most important skills they need?” Sometimes this can be difficult when working on certain types of compliance courses, where pure knowledge is the end goal. Also, I find that Bob Mosher’s Five Moments of Need is a good model for explaining when an audience needs performance support and when they need training.

MA:  What do you see as the top three most important learning design trends (meaning a trend that broadly encompasses visual design, cognitive psychology, information design, and/or learning technology) in the last few years that will have the greatest long-term impact on the eLearning industry. How?

Connie: One trend is the broader recognition of the importance of visual thinking. For example, in March of 2010, the Obama administration appointed Edward Tufte (design thinking guru) to an advisory panel. The visual problem-solving book, The Back of the Napkin, was Amazon’s #5 Business Book of the Year. And a few months ago, news outlets around the world announced research findings that showed doodling can improve concentration. This heightened awareness should eventually impact and improve the visual side of eLearning.

Another trend is the mainstreaming of information graphics and data visualizations. There’s been a huge jump in the number of information graphics (online and offline) used to explain data and concepts in newspapers, magazines and on websites. As people learn how to understand infographics, they’ll be used more in online learning.

A third trend I’m seeing is a greater acceptance of the “less is more” philosophy, mostly due to the fact that people are oversaturated and overwhelmed with information. If this persists, it could improve the clarity of instructional visuals as well as the technologies we choose. For example, businesses might be more likely to implement micro-courses or visual performance support tools on smart phones, realizing that people have limits with how much they can absorb at one time.

MA:  In one of your posts , you mention you do not to use ADDIE as framework for developing online learning. (I also do not use ADDIE as a framework.) Can you shed more light as to why?

Connie: The ADDIE model, though very worthwhile, seems to be geared to creating Instructor-Led Training. I think we need a model that fits the eLearning design process and that also fits our current project, audience, content and client.

If you’re creating a high-end interactive course, then you might want to create serial prototypes to get the job done. If you’re using a Rapid Development approach, Design and Development might merge. If your project is very large and complex, then you might perform many different analyses at the start. I still think it’s good to learn a formal or classic approach first (I learned Dick and Carey’s method in Grad school) and then modify things as you gain experience.

MA:  What’s next for you in the next few months? Where will you be speaking or what are your current projects? Where do you see yourself in 1-2 years?

Connie: Presenting is a great way to share knowledge and to continue to learn from your audience. I enjoy speaking about how to design for the human mind, so in the next few months, I’ll be presenting at the ASTD’s TechKnowledge Conference in San Jose and also at the eLearning Guild’s Learning Solutions conference in Orlando. In the long-term, I’d like to write more books, particularly self-published eBooks. Then you can update them and send out a new version to your audience whenever the book is revised. Really, I have endless ideas of what I’d like to do. We’ll see what the future brings.

Thanks so much Connie! Great interview!

Source: marianklein.com

No Longer Alone With E-Learning

No Longer Alone With E-Learning

In past, online learning programs suffered high dropout rates and poor satisfaction of students because of the tedium of endlessly sitting alone at a computer working through exercises without social stimulation. But with the advent of inexpensive, robust and feature rich Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) and video conferencing software that situation is very rapidly changing.

More and more frequently, institutions are brining an animated, personal element to their electronic learning programs through the use of voice to voice communication of electronic video conferencing. With the continuing growth of faster, less expensive video-conferencing hardware and software and the rapid expansion of broadband access has made video conferencing for educational purposes more accessible than ever before.

The equipment requirements of online learning and video conferencing continue to drop, giving the flexibility of using a web camera or the most expensive networked video camera that a user cares to purchase. This technology is now being utilized by many other sectors, but its broad applicability in the online learning field is very clear.

Giving the ability to co-operate in new and unique ways, through new concepts such as “Wiki’s” which allow users with correct access to edit and re-edit information on a subject, as well as virtual whiteboards on which many users can work at once, technology is providing online learners with engagement and co-operative learning advantages not even presently available to institutional students.

Because of the new methods of collaboration offered by distributed internet technology, video conferencing, “Wiki’s”, and other advancements, some believe that online learning is becoming more relevant than institutional coursework for many kinds of graduate and post graduate studies. Time-crunched business people trying to juggle family, career and learning are increasingly making use of online MBA programs as well as online language courses as a way to simultaneously hone their technology skills and to accomplish more in the small windows of time that they have available for study.

Many students of online learning institutions are interested in pursuing education while maintaining a career, family, or both. Because of these technological advances, electronic learning is coming to be regarded as highly as institutional education despite early resistance from traditional bricks-and-mortar educational institutions. As technology continues to advance, the lines between online and offline worlds continue to blur, with full-time institutionally enrolled students taking electronic courses over the summer or in addition to their regular courseloads as a way of fast-tracking through a degree program. Online learning is definitely the wave of the future, and as technology advances it becomes more accessible and more enjoyable for potential students the world over.

Source: http://www.languagestudyabroadprogram.com

Students Are Motivated to Take Online Courses

Susan Patrick, President, iNACOL

Susan Patrick, President of iNACOL writes into the Chicago Tribune to voice her support for online learning initiatives in Chicago Public Schools. She finishes off her letter with a valid point, that students actually are motivated to take online courses, because they like it, and because online better influences their learning.

What’s more, students want to learn online: a national study showed 40 percent of middle and high school students want to take online courses.

Despite what critics say, there is no evidence that children in online or hybrid classes are any less socially adjusted than those children who attend brick-and-mortar, traditional schools.

In fact, one study showed virtual school students had better socialization skills due to the flexibility in their scheduling and more frequent social interactions in activities both organized through their schools and through increased flexibility to attend extra-curricular activities and clubs.

One size does not fit all for schooling — students are ready to go online to expand learning opportunities.

The most important thing to remember about online learning is that it can meet each child where that child needs the most help.

It provides gifted students access to more rigorous courses online, while offering struggling students the flexibility in pacing to master the lessons they need when they fall behind and stay on track for graduating with a meaningful diploma simultaneously.

Source: edreformer.com

Report: E-Readers, LMS Driving Growth in Higher Ed Mobile Learning

Although it’s still a small segment of the overall ed tech market in the United States, mobile learning is growing in colleges and universities. According to new data released by market research firm Ambient Insightthis week, that growth is projected to be in the double digits in terms of dollar expenditures through 2014, driven by e-readers and mobile versions of learning management systems.

Excluding traditional computers (laptops, netbooks), the market for mobile learning technologies in the United States was $632.2 in 2009 across all sectors. That gave the United States the lead in mobile educational technology adoption for the first time, surpassing Japan, South Korea, and the UK, according to the new report, “The US Market for Mobile Learning Products and Services: 2009-2014 Forecast and Analysis.” And that figure will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 18.3 percent until it reaches $1.46 billion in 2014.

In overall mobile learning market size, academic institutions are lagging behind healthcare and behind private consumers, who are the most rapid adopters, particularly during economic downturns.

“The current US Mobile Learning market is being driven by consumers and healthcare buyers, who increased spending on mobile learning even at the height of the recession,” the report indicated. “Consumers always gravitate to education and training during recessions. There is currently a boom in demand for secondary, career, and vocational education in the US. It is not surprising that a great deal of the Mobile Learning content across the app stores pertains to topics taught in secondary institutions.”

Ambient Insight projected that the CAGR for mobile learning technologies in higher ed–again, discounting traditional computing devices like laptops and netbooks–would be 11.7 percent over five years, from a modest $96.87 million in 2009 to a still-modest $164.7 million in 2014, when it will represent about 11.2 percent of the overall domestic market. That’s more than a three-and-a-half point a decline from its 2009 share of about 15.3 percent. The growth in higher ed is also slower than the predicted compound annual growth rate in K-12 of 15.1 percent through 2014, though the overall volume in higher ed is still higher. (K-12 spending on mobile learning technologies will increase from $70.9 million in 2009 to $143.3 million in 2014.)

Some of the inhibitors for the growth of commercial mobile learning technologies in higher ed, according to the report, include free content oniTunes U and the development of free, home-grown mobile learning platforms at both individual schools and large education networks, such asAbilene Christian University, Boston University School of Management,Bridgepoint Education, Career Education Corp., and Walden University(part of Laureate International Universities Network).

But what’s driving the growth, according to the forecasters, are learning management systems and electronic readers.

“A major catalyst in this segment is the emergence of native platforms designed for the higher education market,” the report said. “For example, the products from Inkling, Emantras, Irynsoft, Blackboard, Multiply IT, andStreaMe are being marketed heavily to the academic buyers, particularly the higher education buyers.”

The report cited Blackboard’s mobile learning platform, Mobile Learn, as “the most significant product, in terms of a market catalyst.”

However, players in open source are also helping to drive growth, according to the forecast. “The integration of mobile technology into popular open source platforms is also acting as a catalyst in the higher education segment. In July 2010, Moodlerooms and DubMeNowannounced a new platform called joule Mobile, ‘an application that will extend the online classroom and deliver on-the-go access to joule, Moodlerooms’ enterprise learning management platform.’ The platform is middleware supporting multiple mobile platforms, including Apple iPhone, RIM Blackberry, Android, Symbian, and Windows Mobile.”

New tablet and e-reader device suppliers, including enTourage, Kno, andMobifusion, are also driving growth, Ambient Insight said.

One other–and as yet somewhat unknown–factor that could cause some disruption is Apple’s iPad, along with the rest of the company’s iOS devices.

Sam S. Adkins, Ambient Insight’s chief research officer, told us that while it’s too soon to say what kind of impact the iPad will have, “We are tracking it closely and will be able to plot market trends in a few quarters. I will tell you that ‘the game is afoot,’ and there is a growing onslaught on the college book store cartel. If you look at products like Inkling, which are essentially app stores that aggregate major educational publisher content, then you can see the new ‘experiment’ in selling direct to students/teachers. Cengage and CourseSmart already do that.”

He further explained: “As you know, CourseSmart is a joint venture among leading educational publishers including Pearson, Cengage Learning,McGraw-Hill Education, Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishing Group(Macmillan), and John Wiley & Sons. In the last year, they have completely overhauled their retail site as a Web store selling mobile learning directly to students. The iPhone/iPad viewer apps are free in the Apple App Store, but the fee-based mobile content is Web-based. They are bypassing the Apple App Store and the college book stores. … [A]gain, it is too soon to tell, but this looks like an end run around the college bookstore ecosystem.”

Ambient Insight’s “The US Market for Mobile Learning Products and Services: 2009-2014 Forecast and Analysis” is available now. Further information, including an executive summary, can be found here.

Source: campustechnology.com

eLearning in the enterprise vs. eLearning in education

I had an interesting chat with the IT teacher of Catholic High about eLearning. I’m following the subject for a very long time. In the early eighties I bought one of the earliest eLearning authoring tools called OpenICE from Dialog Video (a Swiss company which seems to be history now – the only trace of OpenICE I could google was in a document in the download section of The Morrison Company.

There is a lot of money spent on eLearning both in enterprises and in academic, but the stellar success stories are few and far between. A common fallacy I observed is to spend a lot of money on a LMS or LCMS and have no budget, time and energy left for content. When you hear statements like “Once the LMS is in place we’ll ask our SME [Subject Matter Experts] to contribute content” you know your eLearning project is doomed.

Creating good eLearning material is hard and time consuming work. Brian Chapman published research findings in 2007 that put the ratio for slideware to eLearning conversion at 33:1, the creation of lightly interactive courseware at 220:1 and the creation of full fledged simulations at 750:1. So that tiny water cycle simulation of 10 minutes took more than 3 working weeks full time to be created. The study is currently to be updated and you can participate.

Another fallacy is the failure to integrate eLearning systems into the infrastructure. In corporate learning that means eLearning needs to be accessible from the tools I use in the job (a great widget to have is “related learning”) and get away with enrolment procedures for short term learning (that enrolment is carried over from academic). In academic eLearning the failure lies in the lack of integration into other delivery methods. If enrolments, progress control, time planning etc. are not fully integrated into presence learning it will not fly.

There seems to be very little fruitful cross breeding between corporate and academic eLearning, which isn’t surprising when you look at the core differences:

Enterprise learning	Academic learning
The main purpose of employees is to contribute to enterprise goals (mostly: make money). Learning is an expense, not an outcome	The main purpose of students is to learn. Knowledge and skill acquisition is the main outcome (not grades in case someone has forgotten)
Learning works well in homeopathic doses: 10min here and there related to a current job need	Learning works best with multiple avenues of delivery (watch for a later post on this)
Learning is very skill focused, so the main delivery is training*	Learning is wider and education focused*
Learning has no priority, its purpose is to “get the job done”	Learning is the top priority, its purpose is to “get the job”
Learning is focused around a career	Learning is focused around a curriculum
Learning needs are only partly planned (mostly by the HR department) and a lot of needs arise based on the nature of job roles and projects. Learning goals change more often as careers and market demands change	Learning is planned out well in advanced, often by an external body (e.g. the ministry of education) for multiple years
Success is indirectly measured: can the learner implement in the day job what (s)he learned in the training? Did the ability arrive?	Success is measured by passing exams. This is a challenge since learning to pass an exam is only loosely related to the acquisition of ability
Collaboration is strictly encouraged. Good working teams adopt “no comrade gets left behind” attitudes.	If you collaborate during an exam you are out, so there is a natural tension.

* In case you don’t see the difference between education and training: Most parents should be OK if their teenage kids come back from school and state: “Today we had sex education“, but rightly will go berserk if they would hear: “Today we had sex training in school“. — and yes I know that sexual education is the most controversial topic in education, an epic battleground between enlightenment and denial.

Source: wissel.net

Blackboards to Blackberries: Mobile Learning Buzzes Across Schools and Universities

While educators today are grappling with new terms like “coursecasting” and “tweetup,” the mobile generation has begun to flex opposing digits in ways that imply evolution has taken another dramatic leap forward.

The benefits of utilizing technology to advance learning methods have been hashed, rehashed, and largely swallowed. What is still being seen is how institutions adapt their pedagogies to deliver educational content in a way that exploits these technologies effectively.

Generation M: Students with cell phones

Today’s students live in a world enveloped by the Web. They read their news from online publications, publish their content on blogs, and share up-to-the-minute updates using Twitter.

And for the last few years they’ve been doing all this on their phones.

In the 2009 Parent-Teen Cell Phone Survey, conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates, 75% of 12 to17-year-olds own cellphones (up from 45% in 2004).

With advances in technology, this decade has seen a leap in mobile content delivery, resulting in a new generation of mobile learners, distinct from the communities of “tethered” e-Learning.

American students spend 7.5 hours a day absorbing and creating media – as much time as they spend in school. They multitask across screens to cram 11 hours of content into those 7.5 hours. And most of these activities are happening on smartphones equipped with audio, video, SMS, and mobile applications (Kamenetz, 2010).

Student nomads: The extended learning environment

Mobile learning is based on utilizing the functionalities of both handheld computers and mobile phones. When the iPod came out, “Podcasting” created new ways to distribute content. Similarly, convergent devices like the iPhone and phones using the Android operating system are extending the boundaries of education.

While teaching methodologies were initially borrowed from pedagogies used in e-Learning, mobile learning has expanded into the converged space of Internet and telecommunications, creating a wider net of in-class and out-of-class learning opportunities. (See Figure 1.)

Figure 1: Mobile learning has created a wider net of learning opportunities.

New forms of content dispersion like coursecasts, mblogs, and Twitter feeds have become popular with the ubiquitous availability of technology across campuses. These new “bytes” of learning enable both faculty and students to take education beyond the classroom experience, changing how students now conceive terms like “classroom” and “content.”

Hotspots: Mobile learning on campus

Duke University was the first to use mobile devices to access symposia, class material, and school news through iTunes. The program, called iTunesU, enabled faculty and students to create and carry course material with them on their iPods (Brown & Metcalf, 2008).

iTunes U is now used by several institutions, including MIT, Stanford, and University of California Berkeley, offering access to courses, faculty lectures, interviews, and more.

In 2008, Abilene Christian University launched the first-in-the-world mobile learning initiative. This initiative was created to provide opportunities for students and faculty to experiment with new forms of social, informational, and media access on next-generation digital platforms including the iPhone and iPad (Abilene Christian University, 2008 – 2009).

Ninth grade teacher, Ashley Wilbur from the Howard School of Academics and Technology, Tennessee, began looking for learning alternatives when she realized her students had the same English texts they had used the previous year.

Working in partnership with Emantras and Hamilton County Virtual School, Wilbur now uses Mobl21, an application which enables teachers to create and publish text, video, and audio content in the form of short quizzes, flash cards, and guides.

Teachers were able to use Mobl21 to complement courses, and make learning assets easily available to users and groups, through desktop, social platforms, and iPhone / iPod Touch.

Future-speak: teaching the digital natives

As many in the mobile learning industry state, several challenges exist that need to be addressed in order for mobile learning to have a permanent place in mainstream education. These include technology limitations of teachers, costs of devices and infrastructure, and the slow rate of adoption in educational institutions.

What is equally true is that mobile learning has moved beyond the hype. The ubiquitous availability of technology, the growing potential of smartphones, and the thousands of learning applications have brought m-learning into our daily lives.

Today more people turn to their mobile phones to look up answers, search for information, and consume e-books. Side by side with these capabilities, is a generation of digital natives steadily moving towards graduation, and bringing with them, comfortable familiarity with technology.

These developments will soon push more schools and institutions into the interactive sphere of mobile learning, enabling teachers to move from being deliverers of knowledge to the more active role of mentors in student education.

References

Parent-Teen Cell Phone Survey. (2009) Princeton Survey Research Associates International.

Kamenetz, Anya. A Is for App: How Smartphones, Handheld Computers Sparked an Educational Revolution. (2010) http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/144/a-is-for-app.html

Brown, Judy & Metcalf, David. Mobile Learning Update. (2008) Judy Brown, David Metcalf.http://masieweb.com/p7/MobileLearningUpdate.pdf

Mobile-Learning Report (2008-09) Abilene Christian University.http://www.acu.edu/technology/mobilelearning/documents/ACU_Mobile_Learning_.pdf

http://www.learningsolutionsmag.com/articles/508/blackboards-to-blackberries-mobile-learning-buzzes-across-schools-and-universities

Catch the ELearning Train – From Classroom to ERoom

Have you heard the new buzz word – eLearning? It has come to the forefront in the last couple of years. But, what does it really mean?

ELearning is a method of instruction where the teacher and student are located in different locations or where there is a time gap between the two, but by using internet technology, the instructor is able to teach a specific topic or skill. The advantage here is that this can take place from any location in the world and at anytime that they are able to get together online.

So now that we know what eLearning is all about, how can you take advantage of eLearning and what is it you should look for? Many people look at the internet as a great source of information, but only look at what information that they can get for free or can buy through videos or e-books.

There are many videos and e-books available for sale on the internet, but once you have spent your money, do you know what to do with the information? Do you any anyone to contact if you have any questions? Can you bounce ideas off of another person studying the same information? How do you find someone that is studying the information?

While these may seem like simple things to think about, it really has a large impact on your ability to learn new skills, especially if you are working to make a career change utilizing the internet. Learning is a very dynamic process and everyone learns a little bit differently. But even with this, interaction with other is almost always the best way to learn. Adult learners tend to be more visual and interactive than even when they were in school. They have experiences now that allow them to look at everything a little differently. They will tend to question ideas more.

With knowing this, live training has been found to be the best format for learning. The ability to interact in small groups, to ask questions, and to be able to share with others is crucial for learning.

So from this, we know that live training is important and people learn best from this. With the environment like the internet, where interaction is mainly through writing and words, how does one find the interactive training that works so well?

Look for a training program that does more that just give you eBooks and videos. Look for one that offers live conference training. Look for one, where you actually can develop a relationship with your trainers. They should act more as a mentor than as a teacher. Look for a place where the class sizes are small so questions can be asked.

While it is true that the internet is a fountain of information, how you can gain skills and knowledge is still all about interaction and sharing. While the old fashion classroom in colleges is still one method of learning, they are starting to offer more and more classes through distance learning. While this is a step in the right direction, many of these courses and programs will still not give you the skills that you will need to succeed on the internet. eLearning for you needs to be more skill specific and there are training organizations on the internet that cater to those wanting to learn these skill sets. Pick a specific skill that you need to learn and then find the right training program to meet your needs.

So what types of skills should you be willing to pay for? Look for classes or programs that are small business oriented; including topics as internet advertising, internet marketing, and basic finance, but tailored specifically for your specific business market. Others skill sets you will need and need to learn will be building a landing page, search engine optimization, list building, blogging, copywriting, and sales pages.

In today’s internet environment, there are trainers, coaches, and mentors whose businesses cater to those just starting out building an internet business. Tap into this new resource and take advantage of their expertise and experiences. You will not regret it.

Ann Moss is a professional coach for Mastermind Pros Success School, a leader in online training.

Source: mbas.co.in