Neuroscience, education - neuromyths

Checking this years keynote speakers in various events and conferences, I've picked up on a trending topic of neuroscience. Hilary Leevers, for example from Wellcome Trust is on the topic in Online Educa Berlin, whereas ISLS as Professor Elsbeth Stern from ETH Zürich. Both European and women (for once!), it's great to see that keynotes are not any more dominated by grey males (no offence!).

Welcome Trust has interesting surveys (a survey of teachers and parents, really interesting stuff!) and reports (a literature review on the topic) available on the topic here: http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/Education-resources/Education-and-learning/Our-work/Neuroscience-and-education/WTS040353.htm

Randomised Controlled Trials (RCT) in Education

I spotted this workshop as part of the conference which is organised by the Behavioural Insights Team in the UK ( http://www.bx2015.org/#!programme/c121s). The video of the session is available here.

Education RCTs: Past, present and future

What do we really know about why some children do better at school than others? What are the world's leading education researchers currently working on? In this session, academics from the US and UK will give presentations of their work and the narrative that drives it, before considering where future efforts should be applied.
Speakers include: Todd Rogers, Simon Burgess, Anna Vignoles, Sally Sadoff

As I don't know much about Randomised Controlled Trials (RCT) in education, I googled the names to see the stuff they do. My colleague also said that they will most likely publish some video recordings of the sessions - mental note to my self, check back later!

• Todd Rogers; http://scholar.harvard.edu/todd_rogers/home; 
• Simon Burgess; http://www.bristol.ac.uk/cmpo/schoolsteam/schoolsadminteam/burgess.html; http://www.bristol.ac.uk/cmpo/news/2013/638.html
• Anna Vignoles: http://www.educ.cam.ac.uk/people/staff/vignoles/, and this book, called "Making a Difference in Education: What the Evidence Says" looks really interesting!
•  Sally Sadoff: http://rady.ucsd.edu/faculty/directory/sadoff/

 

CALL for papers - Conference Theme: Transforming Education in the Big Data Era

======================================================================
ICCE2015: The 23rd International Conference on Computers in Education
November 30 - December 4,2015
Hangzhou, China
Web page: http://icce2015.zjut.edu.cn
Conference Theme: Transforming Education in the Big Data Era

Paper Submission Due: May 12,2015
Notification of Acceptance: August 4,2015
======================================================================
Organized by Asia-Pacific Society for Computers in Education (APSCE)
    http://www.apsce.net/
Hosted by: Zhejiang University of Technology,
    Collaborative and Innovative Center for Educational Technology, China

ICCE 2015 is a premier annual international forum for researchers, practitioners, policy makers, and people in the industry in the Asia-Pacific region to connect with international research communities for the worldwide dissemination and sharing of ideas for research in the field of Computers in Education.

The conference program will comprise keynotes, invited talks, paper presentations and poster sessions, workshops, tutorials, interactive events and Doctoral Student Consortia. All the accepted papers in the main conference, workshops and Doctoral Student Consortium will be published in proceedings which will be indexed by Elsevier Bibliographic Databases (e.g., Scopus, Engineering
Village and others).

Sub-Conferences:

• C1: Artificial Intelligence in Education/Intelligent Tutoring System (AIED/ITS)
•     and Adaptive Learning (AL)
• C2: Computer-supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) and Learning Sciences (LS)
• C3: Advanced Learning Technologies, Open Educational Content, and
•     Standards (ALS)
• C4: Classroom, Ubiquitous and Mobile Technologies Enhanced Learning (CUMTEL)
• C5: Digital Game and Digital Toy Enhanced Learning and Society (GTEL&S)
• C6: ICCE Conference on Technology Enhanced Language Learning (TELL)
• C7: Practice-driven Research, Teacher Professional Development and Policy of
•     ICT in Education (PTP)

Paper categories and page limits:

•     Full paper (8-10 pages)
•     Short paper (5-6 pages)
•     Poster paper (2-3 pages)

Conference Organization:

•   Conference Chair:  Siu Cheung KONG, Hong Kong Institute of Education, Hong Kong
•   International Program Committee (IPC) Coordination Chair:    Hiroaki Ogata, Kyushu University, Japan
•   International Program Committee (IPC) Coordination Co-Chair:    Weiqin Chen, University of Bergen, Norway
•   Local Organizing Committee (LOC) Chair:    Feiyue Qiu, Zhejiang University of Technology, China

ICWL 2015 Call for Papers - Submission June 2

As other years before, I'm glad to be part of the Programme Committee for the International Conference on Web-based Learning! This year it will be organised by Hong Kong Web Society.  The call for papers below.

The 14th International Conference on Web-Based Learning ICWL 2015 Guangzhou, China 5 - 8 November, 2015 http://www.cityu.edu.hk/merc/icwl/icwl2015home.htm ICWL is an annual international conference on web-based learning organised by Hong Kong Web Society. The first ICWL was held in Hong Kong in 2002. Since then, it has been held in Australia (2003), China (2004), Hong Kong (2005), Malaysia (2006), United Kingdom (2007), China (2008), Germany (2009), China (2010), Hong Kong (2011), Romania (2012), Taiwan (2013) and Estonia (2014). ICWL 2015 will be the 14th ICWL conference and will be held in Guangzhou, China. The conference program will feature keynote addresses, workshops, panels, posters, demos and industry track, in addition to presentations of refereed papers that have been selected by the international program committee. A special attention will be paid on collaboration and exchange of knowledge between our local communities. We especially invite joint contributions from colleagues coming from different continents. We plan a special issue for collaborative papers expressing the spirit of ICWL, to be a truly international conference. In addition we will provide an Asian-Australian-European Research Exchange Forum for presentations from funded research projects. Conference topics Areas of interest include but are not limited to the following: * Personalized and Adaptive Learning * Computer Support for Intelligent Tutoring * Intelligent Tools for Visual Learning * Informal Learning on the Workplace * Web-based Learning for Oriental Languages Learning * Game-based Learning and Serious Games * Personal Learning Environments (PLE) * Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) * Computer Supported Collaborative Learning * Web 2.0 and Social Learning Environments * HTML5 Web-based Learning * Virtual environments and 3D graphics for e-learning * Intelligent Learner and Group Modelling * Learning Analytics * Human Factors and Affective Computing for Learning * E-Learning Platforms and Tools * Design, Model and Framework of e-Learning Systems * Deployment, Organization and Management of Learning Objects * Open educational resources (OER) * E-Learning Metadata and Standards * Semantic Web and Ontologies for E-Learning * Mobile, Situated and Blended Learning * Bring your own Device (BYOD) * Cloud-based Learning * Pedagogical Issues Important deadlines Abstract submission deadline: June 2, 2015 Full paper submission deadline: June 9, 2015 Notification of paper acceptance: July 14, 2015 Camera-ready papers and registration: August 10, 2015 Conference dates: 5 - 8 November, 2015 Paper Submission & Publication Authors are invited to submit original papers reporting on research results or novel applications in technology-enhanced learning. Submissions will be handled through EasyChair https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=icwl2015 Papers for submission should be formatted according to the Springer LNCS Authors Guidelines and have maximum 10 pages. Since the review process will be double-blind, the submitted manuscript should not contain the authors’ names, affiliations, or any information that may disclose the authors’ identity. All papers should be submitted in PDF format. All accepted papers presented at the conference will be published as a volume in Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS). Conference Co-Chairs: - Jun Zhang, Sun Yat-Sen University, China - Balta Fernandez Manjon, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain - Rynson Lau, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Program Co-Chairs: - Frederick Li, Durham University, United Kingdom - Mart Laanpere, Tallinn University, Estonia - Ralf Klamma, RWTH Aachen University, Germany Steering Committee Representative: - Qing Li, HKWS Organization Chair: - Wenyin Liu, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Local Arrangement Chair: - Xiaonan Chen, Sun Yat-Sen University, China Workshop Co-Chairs: - Zhiguo Gong, Macau University, Macau - Yiwei Cao, IMC Information Multimedia Communication AG, Germany Publication Chair: - Jeff Tang, Caritas Institute of Higher Education, Hong Kong Publicity Chair: - Elvira Popescu, University of Craiova, Romania Finance Co-Chair: - Howard Leung, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Web Master: - Zhangjun Yan, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Conference Secretary: - Christina Tai, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Program Committee to be announced About Guangzhou Guangzhou (also romanized as: Canton) is the capital and largest city of Guangdong province in South China. Located on the Pearl River, about 120 km (75 mi) north-northwest of Hong Kong and north-northeast of Macau, Guangzhou is a key national transportation hub and trading port. One of the five National Central Cities, it holds sub-provincial administrative status. Guangzhou is the third largest Chinese city and the largest city in South Central China. As of the 2010 census, the city's administrative area had a population of 12.78 million. Some estimates place the population of the entire Pearl River Delta Mega City built up area as high as 40 million, with an area of about 20,000 square kilometres (7,700 sq mi). In 2012 Guangzhou was identified as a Beta+ World City by the global city index produced by the GaWC, the Globalization and World Cities Research Network. About Sun Yat-sen University Sun Yat-sen University was founded in 1924 by Dr. Sun Yat-sen (also called Sun Zhongshan), a great democratic revolutionary leader of the 20th century. The University is located in Guangdong Province, an area neighboring Hong Kong and Macao, which is at the forefront of China's reform and opening up. Being one of the leading universities in China, Sun Yat-sen University is a comprehensive multi-disciplinary university, including the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, technical sciences, medical sciences, pharmacology, and management sciences. It has about 82,384 students studying on four campuses in Guangzhou and Zhuhai. Benefiting from its location near Hong Kong and Macao and the regional advantage of opening and economic development, the university has become an important base for training high-level talents, scientific research, providing services to society and inheriting cultural traditions. The University has also successfully built international cooperation and exchange relationships with many top universities in the world. According to the Times Higher Education World University Ranking for 2010-2011, Sun Yat-sen University was ranked in the top 200 in the world. At present, Sun Yat-sen University covers a total area of 5.972 square kilometers and has 4 campuses: Guangzhou South Campus, Guangzhou North Campus, Guangzhou East Campus, and Zhuhai Campus. The 14th International Conference on Web-based Learning - ICWL 2015 www.cityu.edu.hk ICWL is an annual international conference on web-based learning organised by Hong Kong Web Society....

ICALT 2015 - Call for papers open until January 20, 2015

This year again, I'm pleased to be part of the Program Committee of the 15th IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies (ICALT2015)! The conference will be held in Hualien, Taiwan from 6-9 July 2015.

The call for paper is out with a deadline of January 20th, 2015 for the submission of papers (Full Paper, Short Paper, Poster).

See more about the conference here.

Emerging technologies keep transforming not only the ways people learn but what they learn as well. Access to learning is nowadays moving beyond defined pathways and discrete courses. It rather integrates formal and informal learning experiences throughout life. Learning is structured around flexible curricula that accommodate needs of diverse student audiences, and offer access to courses, content, and resources through a variety of platforms, devices, and contexts. This change of the way people access learning poses quandaries for educational organisations, researchers, practitioners and policy makers, especially with regards to the development of advanced technologies that accommodate the needs of a new generation of learners; the choice of appropriate technologies; and the application of learning technologies in emerging learning contexts. 

Study on Khan Academy - non of the teachers used flipped classroom...

Khan Academy is a really intriguing platform. I remember the first time when hearing of it, it was in 2009, Khan himself presented it in the BigIdeasFest in California. He had just received a big grand from Bill Gates to develop it further. I had a hard time imagining what was so cool about it. After all, it was a very classical way of "frontal teaching" where a teacher walks you through a problem. Well, this was in 2009, life before the hype on MOOCs, flipped classroom hype, etc... :)

So after lots of talk about Khan Academy, today, I was glad to find this piece of research on teachers' use of Khan Academy: How Are Teachers and Students Using Khan Academy? (comment: Funnily enough, the starting point of Khan Academy was not to be used as part of formal educational context, but rather as a "catch up tool" when the teacher wasn't really doing his/her job as ought to.)

An interesting finding:

While Khan Academy videos are often associated with the flipped classroom model in which teachers assign instructional videos to be watched at home, none of the teachers in this study used that model. And though some educators have used Khan Academy videos as a launching point for project-based learning models, none of the teachers in this study reported using that model.

So instead of an innovative new way of using the resources, teachers often resorted back to their usual classroom organisation, namely to using Khan Academy resources as part of a rotational model (some use it, while others use pen&paper and a third group receives face2face lesson), for remediation purposes or as part of self-paced studies.

ICWL 2014: the 13th International Conference on Web-based Learning

One of my favourite conferences on e-learning is the International Conference on Web-based Learning. This year it takes place in Tallinn, Estonia on 13-16 August 2014. Also one of my favourite Nordic capitals! And I'm also glad to be able to serve as part of the Programme Committee again :)

The call is out now at:
http://www.hkws.org/conference/icwl2014/

Find below the conference topics and areas of interest. They include but are not limited to the following:

* Personalized and Adaptive Learning
* Computer Support for Intelligent Tutoring
* Intelligent Tools for Visual Learning
* Web-based Learning for Oriental Languages Learning
* Game-based Learning
* Personal Learning Environments (PLE)
* Computer Supported Collaborative Learning
* Web 2.0 and Social Learning Environments
* HTML5 Web-based Learning
* Virtual environments and 3D graphics for e-learning
* Intelligent Learner and Group Modelling
* Learning Analytics
* Human Factors and Affective Computing for Learning
* E-Learning Platforms and Tools
* Design, Model and Framework of e-Learning Systems
* Deployment, Organization and Management of Learning Objects
* E-Learning Metadata and Standards
* Semantic Web and Ontologies for E-Learning
* Mobile, Situated and Blended Learning
* Cloud-based Learning
* Pedagogical Issues


Paper Submission & Publication
==============================

Authors are invited to submit original papers reporting on research
results or novel applications in technology-enhanced learning. Submissions
will be handled through EasyChair:
https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=icwl2014.

Papers for submission should be formatted according to the Springer LNCS
Authors Guidelines
(http://www.springer.com/computer/lncs?SGWID=0-164-6-793341-0) and have
maximum 10 pages. Since the review process will be double-blind, the
submitted manuscript should not contain the authors' names, affiliations,
or any information that may disclose the authors' identity. All papers
should be submitted in PDF format.

All accepted papers presented at the conference will be published as a
volume in Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS).


Important Dates
===============

Abstract submission deadline: March 1, 2014
Full paper submission deadline: March 8, 2014
Notification of paper acceptance: April 15, 2014
Camera-ready papers due: May 8, 2014
Conference dates: August 13-16, 2014


Conference Organization
=======================

General Co-Chairs:
* Howard Leung, City University of Hong Kong
* Mart Laanpere, Tallinn University, Estonia

Program Committee Co-Chairs:
* Elvira Popescu, University of Craiova, Romania
* Rynson Lau, City University of Hong Kong
* Kai Pata, Tallinn University, Estonia

Steering Committee Representatives:
* Qing Li, City University of Hong Kong
* Ralf Klamma, RWTH Aachen University, Germany
* Yueh-Min Huang, National Cheng-Kung University, Taiwan

Workshop Co-Chairs:
* Yiwei Cao, IMC Information Multimedia Community AG, Germany
* Terje Väljataga, Tallinn University, Estonia
* Jeff Tang, Caritas Institute of Higher Education, Hong Kong

Publicity Chair:
* Mohammad Smadi, Tallinn University, Estonia

Poster Chair:
* Vladimir Tomberg, Tallinn University, Estonia

Local Organization Chair:
* Kairit Tammets, Tallinn University, Estonia


Please refer to the conference website
(http://www.hkws.org/conference/icwl2014) for more information.

Travel hints: places in Sevilla and Triana

I've now spent about 5 and a half months in Sevilla. It's been a great discovery so far, I'm loving it. Here are some of my favourites.

To visit:

• Metropol Parasol: http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Attraction_Review-g187443-d1015407-Reviews-Metropol_Parasol-Seville_Province_of_Seville_Andalucia.html
• Coffee and cakes: I never was able to fit in, it's always full, but I've been told by many how nice it is. The street, CALLE REGINA, is really nice, lots of nice places and shops & boutiques http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Restaurant_Review-g187443-d3747203-Reviews-La_Cacharreria-Seville_Province_of_Seville_Andalucia.html
• Flamenco places, La Carboneria is pretty fun. http://www.sevillaflamenco.com/sevilla-flamenco-bars.html#.UqybVIXy_yV, although I totally prefer my local joint called Tronio. But you have to go in late, like only at midnight and be ready for the long -long night! http://www.tusevilla.com/item/sala-tronio-flamenco-en-triana/

Tapas:

• Duo Tapas: My overall favourite tapas at Alameda, not your regular kind :) http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Restaurant_Review-g187443-d2067276-Reviews-Duo_Tapas-Seville_Province_of_Seville_Andalucia.html
• Casa Morales: Close to the Cathedral, their "lomo de atun con queso" (or something similar) is great. Sit at the back.http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Restaurant_Review-g187443-d2359820-Reviews-Casa_Morales-Seville_Province_of_Seville_Andalucia.html
• El Rincón Gallego del Pulpo: Calle Harinas, 21in the center of Seville. Greatly prepared seafood from Gallecia, try pulpo á feira, Berberechos (steamed) and the cheese was heavenly too. They didn't have zamburiñas (a type of scallop) but we were told that they are good too.
• La Chala has inspiring new type tapas and a nice setting at the Plaza de la Puerta Real: http://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g187443-d7218058-Reviews-La_Chala-Seville_Province_of_Seville_Andalucia.html
• The plaza in front of the Salvador church gets super busy for tapas and drinks, a nice place on Sat or Sun, no special recommendation on which bar to go to. http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Attraction_Review-g187443-d2167889-Reviews-Iglesia_Colegial_del_Salvador-Seville_Province_of_Seville_Andalucia.html

My hood, TRIANA

• Drinks by the river on the Triana site offers the best view on Sevilla. I often sit at Cafe de la Prenza on Calle Betis as it's really close to home.

• La boca el Leon: This is also a good people watching place close to the Triana bridge, at plaza altozana 5. Their tortilla con patatas is really yammy.
• La Comidilla is easy and very nice: http://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g187443-d4477667-Reviews-La_Comidilla-Seville_Province_of_Seville_Andalucia.html
• Market hall in Triana: http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Attraction_Review-g187443-d624429-Reviews-Mercado_de_Triana-Seville_Province_of_Seville_Andalucia.html
• La Antigua Abaceria: Tapas place just down below my apartment. Awesome cheese plate! and very nice wines, I always take the one from La Mancha! http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Restaurant_Review-g187443-d3746489-Reviews-La_Antigua_Abaceria-Seville_Province_of_Seville_Andalucia.html

• Paloma Blanca: Better than your average tapas in Triana, the tuna tartar is great! http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Restaurant_Review-g187443-d2360731-Reviews-Blanca_Paloma-Seville_Province_of_Seville_Andalucia.html
• Las Colondrinas II: This tapas place looks very nice with tiles and is always full: http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Restaurant_Review-g187443-d1965505-Reviews-Bar_Las_Golondrinas-Seville_Province_of_Seville_Andalucia.html. It's "sister place", La Colondrinas II has better tapas, I think. Their artichoke salad is very special!

A great talk about simple laws that govern growth

I especially like the part starting at 9.3 min. where he talks about how cities are network:

"cities are network and the most important network of cities is you. Cities are just a physical manifestation of your interactions, our interactions, and the clustering and grouping of individuals"

However, a word of warning: read the comments and the critical discussion! 

"Physicist Geoffrey West has found that simple, mathematical laws govern the properties of cities -- that wealth, crime rate, walking speed and many other aspects of a city can be deduced from a single number: the city's population. In this mind-bending talk from TEDGlobal he shows how it works and how similar laws hold for organisms and corporations.

Physicist Geoffrey West believes that complex systems from organisms to cities are in many ways governed by simple laws -- laws that can be discovered and analyzed."

2 unrelated figures: edX Moocs and 1/3 of students who didn't have any cognitive cain

Right now, we are probably living some of the most interesting moments in education since years, maybe even since all my life. At least it feels like it, after having worked with technology enhanced learning since 2000.

I was just reading the TIME magazine and these two figures popped up. One is related to MOOCs, Massive Open Online Courses, a single phenomena that since 2008 seems to be raddling the entire model of Higher Education institutions. MOOCs are providing access to higher education: without entry requirements, without cost and at a massive scale. This figure is from MIT

the edX platform we launched with Harvard 17 months ago has enrolled 1.25 million unique learners—10 times the number of living MIT graduates. Read more

Ain't that just insane? I really love how well the figure, "10 times the number of...." represents the scale and what kind of potential is there to enable access to good quality content through MOOCs.

And here is the other figure that  caught my eye, this is related to the cost of Higher Education in the US, nothing to do with MOOCs.

36% of college graduates had not shown any significant cognitive gains over four years. Read more

Just imagine, these are people who pay for their education. And those are the prices that people pay in the US, not in Finland! ...it's amazing how little ownership people take of their learning... This is the dark side of the moon - really. The bright side, it's the MOOCs and how they demonstrate that there are takers for good learning opportunities!

The unfortunate thing is, what studies will probably find out later, is that most ppl who take a MIT MOOC are already well educated and do it just out of curiosity or as a hobby. They never probably were the ones who were deprived from good educational opportunities in the first place.

US Common core state standards and OER that travels well

I've followed the US Common core state standards (CCSS) initiative (http://www.corestandards.org) with some interest. It's not so much from the point of view of harmonising eduction or setting the same standards across the nation, but I'm more interested in it from the Open Educational Resources (OER) point of view.

One of the main problems for educators who want to use OER as part of their lessons is to find good resources that match their curriculum needs at the moment. Interestingly, the US has the same problem here as we have in Europe: each state/country has their own standards, curriculum topics and descriptions. Additionally, in each state/country topics are taught at different times, in somewhat varying order, etc. (and I'm not touching the issue of different styles of instruction/pedagogy here). This makes it almost impossible to find resources related to a certain curriculum topic from the different state/country. Why? Because the metadata descriptions on which many of the search mechanisms rely upon (at least in repositories and referatories) and their meaning differ from state/country to another. In other words, there is little semantic interoperability.

Let's take an example of mathematics and a targeted competency that is described in the national curriculum. It could be formulated as "Pupils know the symbol rules for whole and rational numbers". In Spain, this is only taught at the first year secondary school when students are 13 years old. But in Finland, this is taught in primary school when students are 12 years old. (NOTE, this is only an illustrative example, I'm totally making the specs up). So the Spanish learning resource which teaches "symbol rules for whole and rational numbers" is described in metadata using "secondary education" and 13-14 years, whereas the Finnish one is described in metadata using "primary education" and 11-12 years. So when the Spanish teacher uses her search criteria relevant to her national curriculum, she will totally miss the Finnish piece OER on the same topic because of lack of semantic interoperability.

From the metadata and search point of view, the CCSS initiative has  put the finger on things (i.e. curriculum topics) that are common across the states and also helps increase semantic interoperability across the stats. I came across an example of this at OER Commons. They use CCSS in their metadata to tag resources that originate from different states but that comply to certain given CCSS topics. See the example here: http://www.oercommons.org/browse/collection/common-core-reference-collection.

Another interesting commonality that I see with CCSS and OER in Europe is related to my previous work on finding OER that "travel well" (see for example here). Basically, in Europe, not all the OER are interesting for sharing across the borders, but only the ones that are useful to others (e.g. curriculum match). But how do we sort out the useful ones from the less useful ones? The CCSS work has figured that out in an interesting way. 

Now, what could we do in Europe? If you have ideas on that, I'll be interested in hearing :)

 

Concerted effort for learning materials

It is really interesting to see how governmental initiatives are picking up on creating educational material, mostly nowadays OER. An announcement by U.S. Secretary of Education at the Global Education Summit

... we're poised to make the first free, U.S. government-funded digital learning materials—designed to improve postsecondary training in high-demand careers—available for use and improvement. We're excited to see how providers around the globe use and customize these materials for the needs of their learners.

The report that he mentions:
A NEW FACE OF EDUCATIONBRINGING TECHNOLOGY INTO THE CLASSROOM IN THEDEVELOPING WORLD

A great way to recognise non-formal learning through open padges

Chicago is incorporating learning into summer youth programming through partnerships with youth-serving organizations, museums and cultural institutions, philanthropists, businesses and citizens by exploring the themes of Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics (STEAM) learning. This represents the first-ever citywide implementation of a badge ecosystem.

 Read more...

Hypecycle and MOOCs

A good article on the hype around MOOCs

“It would be a tragedy if you substituted MOOCs in their current form for regular courses,” she said in an interview. “But it would be a creative breakthrough if you take advantage of MOOCs and other forms of online coverage to make more space and more time for students to apply concepts and methods appropriate to their field to real problems.”

Read more: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/07/09/higher-ed-leaders-urge-slow-down-mooc-train#ixzz2YpGqlReW
Inside Higher Ed

A MIT course certificate from a "fully automated" course

This is an interesting development of MOOCs - a "fully automated course"!

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), one of the world's top-rated universities, has announced its first free course which can be studied and assessed completely online.

There are already online degree courses, but the MIT proposal is unusual in that it is inviting students anywhere in the world, without charge or prior entrance requirements, to study for a certificate carrying the MIT brand.

...the MITx version has been designed for online students, with a virtual laboratory, e-textbooks, online discussions and videos that are the equivalent of a lecture. It is expected to take 10 hours per week and will run until June.
More

When I first read it, I thought that there won't be any teaching or assessment work required from the teacher, but I guess it wasn't that automated after all.

One Laptop Per Child News report on a downturn of their success

Since 2009, I've been following quite closely what's happened with 1:1 computing initiatives. One reason of course was that I managed a large-scale implementation in Europe on netbooks and I needed to know what's working in the field and what not. The OLPC project was always something that was an inspiration, but also to a certain degree, a worry.

With our project, we really quickly realised that although both projects were working on enabling students' access to ICT devices, our goals were rather different. Whereas the OPLC project was about reading, writing and arithmetic (i.e. replace bad teachers or the lack of teachers in general), our project was not about substituting teachers, but about changing pedagogical models in schools.

In a recent article on OLPC news, the downturn of OLPC was discussed. I found the following passage an interesting remark which fits with our own feelings of OLPC - it was always hard to find any supporting evidence for their really appealing storyline.

The underlying core issue was - and continues to be - that OLPC never bothered to invest in building supportive evidence for its own narrative about the impact of its work. This makes it easy to (rightfully or wrongfully) criticize the project and gives OLPC precious few solid arguments to counter with. - See more

Can German dual-education system become an export item?

The PISA study is often used to evaluate the success of a national education system - something that makes every Finn (e.g. me) very proud of our education system. But how do we know that the PISA study is evaluating the right thing? The fact that the youth unemployment figures hit high numbers in many European countries begs the question - are the national education systems providing the youth with right skills to survive in today's and tomorrow's world? And on the other hand, is the labour market doing its part to provide jobs for the youth? 

The Economist had an article on the topic, namely, it looked at the dual-education system in some of the European countries:

With youth unemployment in Germany and Austria below 8% against 56% in Spain and 38% in Italy, Mrs von der Leyen [Germany’s labour minister] has won Europe’s attention. Germany recently signed memoranda with Greece, Italy, Latvia, Portugal, Slovakia and Spain to help set up vocational-education systems. 

Interestingly, we do not hear often talks about German's education system in conjunction with the PISA results ( results in 2009 were not statistically significantly different from the OECD average, but read this one for more). But when the youth unemployment is discussed, Germany is often mentioned with its below EU average rate.

The myth of an educational paradise also starts to crumble when we take a look at the job market: In October 2010 Finland had a youth unemployment rate at 20 per cent. (a quote from this paper)

The Economist's article offers some interesting insights and recent studies in the field, but also points to a sort of a warning at the end against the idea that the education system alone can do miracles:

Yet the system existed in the 1990s, when Germany was the “sick man of Europe” and had high unemployment. German success today surely owes more to its labour-market and welfare reforms of a decade ago and to unions’ wage restraint. In an ageing and shrinking population, demography also helps, as fewer German graduates choose among more open jobs.

Workshop preparations for "Open Education 2030: Exploiting the Potential of OER for School Education"

I'm preparing for a foresight workshop on the topic of  “Open Education 2030: Exploiting the Potential of OER for School Education”. It will be organised at the IPTS in Seville - and I'm already here!

So, my IDEAL vision on “Open Education 2030” is the following:

In 2030, Open Education Resources are not only considered as content, but people and their networks make an important contribution to opening up education through better online and offline collaboration opportunities.

Here are a few words of my background and what I want to bring to the workshop.

Since 2000, I have been involved with the topic of digital learning resources, back in the day they were often called Learning Objects. I’ve worked on various aspects ranging 

• from  metadata (e.g. application profiles and multilingual vocabularies to describe learning resources, different standards) 
• to issues related with the quality of learning resources (e.g. review mechanism by experts and end-users, rating & tagging) and  
• with findability of resources (e.g. search across multi-lingual federation of repositories, recommendation systems, social navigation). 
• I’ve also extensively worked with school teachers in various European countries on the use and reuse issues around learning resources and on exchanging good practices.

With the usage issue in Europe, the idea of cross-boundary use of learning resources is a less researched area - and in my opinion, one of the most crucial one. We tend to take it for granted that school teachers can, and want to, use and reuse learning resources that are in a language other than their mother tongue is and/or originate from different countries than they do. In addition to lingual and national boundaries, there are also the local curriculum and educational/school cultures that set boundaries. We now know that some resources travel-well, meaning that they cross these boundaries more easily than others, but more work needs to be done to make sure that these resources are readily foundable and accessible to all with a good community structure around that supports the reuse in new educational contexts (see the links below for references).

As mentioned, my vision of education in 2030 relies heavily on the idea of networks, being networked and how social influence is passed through such interactions among individuals (e.g. learners, teachers). Last year, as part of one project that I managed, we published a neat booklet called “Teacher networks”. As part of the book, we also elaborated visions on how teaching profession would look like in 2025.

Some links to references:

• Travel-well criteria for learning resources http://lreforschools.eun.org/web/guest/travel-well
• Vuorikari, R., &Koper, R. (2009). Evidence of cross-boundary use and reuse of digital educational resources. International Journal of Emerging Technologies in Learning, 4(4), 51-56. doi: http://online-journals.org/i-jet/article/view/1028
• Scenarios on Teaching profession in 2025: what does the future bring us?http://www.etwinning.net/en/pub/collaborate/modules/teaching_profession_in_2025.htm
• Booklet: Teacher networks - Today’s and tomorrow’s challenges and opportunities for the teaching profession

Inspirational videos/websites for education in 2030:

•          Sugata Mitra: Build a School in the Cloud 

•          Daphne Koller: What we're learning from online education 

•          Duolingo (a free language-learning website and crowdsourced text translation platform): 

Survey from schools in Europe: teachers' and students' confidence in ICT related tasks

This really interesting study came out earlier this year about the use of ICTs in schools across Europe. I was really intrigued by the issue around the confidence in ICT related tasks. Here are a few bits to ponder...

The survey asked teachers and students in different levels of education (Grade 4, 8, 11 in general education and 11 in vocational education) about their confidence in performing 20 ICT-related tasks.   

• In general, they can be divided into operational skills and social media skills. 
• The survey finds out that 
• teachers' operational skills, when averaging out across education, are at 3 and social media skills are at 2.4 (1 being "none" and 4 being "a lot") 
• students' operational skills, when averaging out across education, are at 2.8 and social media skills are at 2.6 (1 being "none" and 4 being "a lot") . For details, see the paper!!

What surprises me is that students do not estimate having such high confidence in their own skills! In general, and on contrary to what we usually think, teachers still seem to have more confidence in their own ICT-related operational skills than students do! 


Wastiau, P., Blamire, R., Kearney, C., Quittre, V., Van de Gaer, E. and Monseur, C. (2013), The Use of ICT in Education: a survey of schools in Europe. European Journal of Education, 48: 11–27. doi: 10.1111/ejed.12020

ICWL conference, submission deadline extended (May 10 and 17!)

ICWL is an annual international conference on web-based learning. This year it is taking place on 6-9 October 2013, in Kenting, Taiwan http://icwl2013.tajen.edu.tw

• Abstract submission deadline: May 10, 2013 (Extended)
• Paper submission deadline: May 17, 2013 (Extended)

*CALL FOR PAPERS*

The conference program consists of high quality technical papers that are reviewed and selected by an international program committee. Papers are solicited on all technical aspects of web-based learning and related technologies, including but not limited to the following topics:

• Personalized and Adaptive Learning
• Computer Support for Intelligent Tutoring
• Intelligent Tools for Visual Learning
• Web-based Learning for Oriental Languages Learning
• Game-based Learning
• Personal Learning Environments (PLE)
• Computer Supported Collaborative Learning
• Web 2.0 and Social Learning Environments
• HTML5 Web-based Learning
• Intelligent Learner and Group Modeling
• Learning Analytics
• Human Factors and Affective Computing for Learning
• E-Learning Platforms and Tools
• Design, Model and Framework of e-Learning Systems
• Deployment, Organization and Management of Learning Objects
• E-Learning Metadata and Standards
• Semantic Web and Ontologies for E-learning
• Mobile, Situated and Blended Learning
• Cloud-based Learning
• Pedagogical Issues
• Practice and Experience Sharing

The submission web page is:http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=icwl2013.