learning elearning: Promise fo Web 2.0 for mLearning

Selena has a great article here on mLearning & Web 2.0- or as many call it, Learning 2.0.
learning elearning: Promise fo Web 2.0 for mLearning

..snip..

Stephen Downes article on eLearning 2.0 summarises many of the developments on the WWW that have and will impact on how we learning takes place in both formal and informal learning environments. It’s a good article to read for background. Recent blogs by both Will Richardson & Derek Wenmouth lament the slow movement of the use of IT into the formal education area. Both of these bloggers also show the many ways in which the WWW could be used to held enhance learning. Will blogging recently on the uses of blogs in research, pageflakes as student portal and wikis & Derek with his thoughts on personal learning environments & ePortfolios.

mLearn 2006 - Presentations

For reference, here are all the presentions from mLearn 2006 this year. (Oct 22-25)
mLearn 2006 - Keynote and invited speakers

Will at Work Learning: m-Learning Tsunami

Will at Work learning make some interesting points in his article
m-Learning Tsunami

As with many articles on the coming mLearning Storm, I argue that mLearning is not coming, it is HERE- NOW! As with the generation that is promoting it, it simply fights against having any label applied.

Corporate eLearning Development: Podcasting with iChat and GarageBand

Podcasting Note:
Corporate eLearning Development: Podcasting with iChat and GarageBand

The Learning Circuits Blog: Federation of American Scientists Bland Report on Harnessing the power of video games for learning

The Learning Circuits Blog: Federation of American Scientists Bland Report on Harnessing the power of video games for learning

How to Keep E-learners from E-scaping

My boss sent me this yesterday and I thought it would be good to note it here for reference:

How to Keep E-learners from E-scaping - Jim Moshinski, July 2001.

• Objectives should be written that demonstrate the usefulness of instruction matched with authentic exercises and concrete examples directly applicable to their daily struggles in the workplace.
• The course should contain goals with specific standards of performance that can be completed in a short time.
• We should blatantly answer the question for the learner - what is in it for me.
• When instruction is divided into compact 20 minute or less learning chunks the material can be effectively presented to the learner in a digestible fashion.
• Practice ROPES - Review pre-requisites, Overview of job specific objectives, interactive Presentation of new material, job related Exercises, brief Summary.
• Build on the familiar - Learners become motivated by lessons that incorporate their beliefs and examples of things they can relate to. Online learning should tie the instruction to the learners prior knowledge and experience.
• Learners will accept moderate amounts of unfamiliar content but the designer should incorporate analogies with familiar content frequently.
• Letting the employee know how well they are learning the content and performing the new task acts as an incentive for greater effort.

Hacking Knowledge: 77 Ways to Learn Faster, Deeper, and Better | OEDb

This is one of the more intresting articles I've read recently.
Hacking Knowledge: 77 Ways to Learn Faster, Deeper, and Better OEDb

Listing everything from Health to Learning Aids, there are a lot of ideas and concepts here that we as designers normally don't think about.

Some examples:
Health
1. Shake a leg. Lack of blood flow is a common reason for lack of concentration. If you've been sitting in one place for awhile, bounce one of your legs for a minute or two. It gets your blood flowing and sharpens both concentration and recall.

Perspective and Focus
13. Turn out the lights. This is a way to focus, if you are not into meditating. Sit in the dark, block out extraneous influences. This is ideal for learning kinesthetically, such as guitar chord changes.

Recall Techniques
15. Listen to music. Researchers have long shown that certain types of music are a great "key" for recalling memories. Information learned while listening to a particular song or collection can often be recalled simply by "playing" the songs mentally.

Visual Aids
20. Learn symbolism and semiotics. Semiotics is the study of signs and symbols. Having an understanding of the symbols of a particular discipline aids in learning, and also allows you to record information more efficiently.

Verbal and Auditory Techniques
27. Cognitive enhancers: binaural beats. Binaural beats involve playing two close frequencies simultaneously to produce alpha, beta, delta, and theta waves, all of which produce either sleeping, restfulness, relaxation, meditativeness, alertness, or concentration. Binaural beats are used in conjunction with other excercises for a type of super-learning.
28. Laugh. Laughing relaxes the body. A relaxed body is more receptive to new ideas.


This is just a sample of the 77 way out of the box ideas. I look forward to seeing how I can use some techniques with my learners..

Mobile Learning - Learn Chinese Online or Off

From: TerenceOnline: An eLearning Resource Center: Mobile Learning - Learn Chinese Online or Off

Keeping with the theme of foreign languages and online learning, I found a website that uses blogs, rss, podcasts, and other web 2.0 technologies to teach Mandarin Chinese . As China continues to be a huge player in the global economy, businesses and schools are rushing to learn the language. Chinesepod.com is a good place to start and may be an excellent resource for Mandarin Chinese language teachers to incorporate into their classroom. See the following information from their site to learn more.

Dave Mozealous: Why won't my FLV's playback when deployed via a server?

Good info for Reference:
Dave Mozealous: Why won't my FLV's playback when deployed via a server?

One possible reason is that in IIS in WINDOWS 2003 FLV needs to be configured as a supported MIME type. I continually foget this, so I am posting here for two reasons:

1. Maybe it will help someone else out
2. Maybe it will help me remember to do this

To setup IIS to support FLV as a MIME type follow the directions below:

1. Right click the site in IIS and select Properties
2. Select the HTTP Headers Tab
3. Select File Types
4. Under the MIME Map section and select New Type
5. Type ".flv" as the associated extension and "video/x-flv" as the content type
6. Select OK

Your FLVs should now play back when viewed from the server. If you use a hosting company to host your files it is best to check with them about adding FLV as a supported MIME type.

E-Learning Queen: The Thinking Person's Sims for Business and Education

Reference on simulation tools & strategy for later reading.

E-Learning Queen: The Thinking Person's Sims for Business and Education

Corporate eLearning Development: Corporate eLearning Podcast EPISODE1

Recommended Podcast-
Corporate eLearning Development: Corporate eLearning Podcast EPISODE1

About-

EPISODE#1 of the Corporate eLearning Development PodcastIn the first episode we discuss the Term Learning2.0. We had some technical difficulties during the live recording over at TalkShoe.com but most of it was "new user error".

Top 10 Freeware Apps for M-Learning- from mLearning @edublogs

Source, Leonard Low' s mLearning.edublogs.org.

• NoteM audio recorder for Windows Mobile PDAs: unlike the standard audio recorder provided in Windows Mobile (in Notes), which records to WAV file format, NoteM records to MP3 format. This saves an enormous amount of storage space, and enables the recording of complete lectures or podcasts, rather than merely brief notes. It is also much more configurable than the standard Windows Mobile audio recorder.


• iTube video downloader for iPods/PDAs/mobile phones: iTube videos range considerably in educational video, but it is still a superb resource of video content. Unfortunately, the Flash Video format used to package UTube videos isn’t really playable on anything, particularly not mobile devices. iTube allows users to download YouTube videos in MPEG and MP4 formats - the formet of which plays on most PDAs, and the latter of which plays on iPods and many mobile phones. Playability of video content on PDAs is considerably assisted by the following application. (previous blog post)


• TCPMP video player for Windows Mobile PDAs: The Core Pocket Media Player (TCPMP) supports many more codecs than the standard Windows Mobile Media Player, making it much easier to download and use video content for mobile learning. It also has some excellent capabilities beyond what the standard player can achieve, such as stretched full-screen playing of videos, making videos both easier and more enjoyable to watch on a PDA. Another one to try out is SOMPY Media Player.


• Opera Mobile web browser for J2ME (Java) Mobile phones: Usable on most mobile phones and some PDAs, Opera Mobile is the best mobile web browser I’ve ever used on any mobile platform. If you’re deploying mobile web content, encourage your users to try Opera Mobile. (previous blog post). PDA users might prefer Minimo, the PDA version of the Firefox browser with many features in common such as tabbed browsing.


• ADB Idea Library allows the user to create and organise pictures, sounds, text - and other files - into collections. Great for getting learners to assemble their own ideas and demonstrate the construction of knowledge.


• CERDISP screen sharing for Windows Mobile PDAs: the Windows CE Remote Display application enables you to put a copy of your PDA screen on a computer monitor or light projector to share it with other users. It includes a zoom tool for making the screen more visible, and uses your PDA’s standard computer cable and ActiveSync connection to do this most useful of tasks. (previous blog post)


• XSForms/XSDesigner for Windows Mobile PDAs: allows creation of mobile databases, complete with user forms to make it easy to both add and search data. Enables students or teachers to remotely log data for research or learning purposes, and can be customised to synchronise with a desktop PC Access database. (previous blog post) Another database program to try is HotWax.


• BUZZeeBee (formerly ProximityMail) for Windows Mobile PDAs: allows spontaneous, ad-hoc creation of wirelessly connected, proximal messaging groups, using free Bluetooth technology. I haven’t tried out the new BUZZeeBee version of the software yet, but the wireless, group-based text communication and sharing enabled by this product has many uses in education. (mentioned in this previous blog post)


• SmartFlash Flash player for Windows Mobile PDAs: a much more flexible and powerful player than the standard Adobe Flash Player. Plays Flash files without needing to embed them in a web page, as they must for the standard Flash player.


• PaintWinCE for Windows Mobile PDAs: not everyone’s a fan of doing things in text, or even audio. For learners with a visual learning preference, consider using Mobile Pencil - which turns a PDA in to a portable sketchpad/notepad - just draw with the stylus. Complete with a number of different pencil effects and colours to make it easier to communicate graphically, using a PDA. Similar applications include Pencil Box and Mobile Pencil.

Other useful PDA applications I couldn’t fit into my top 10:

• Magic SS, a screen capture tool for PDAs,


• Pocket Multi-Owner Hack, to enable up to 4 users to have their own profiles within a single PDA


• XNView, a multi-format image browser and basic image editor,
  


• LittleTimetable or PocketTimeTable to record class timetables on a PDA,
  
  
• Splashblog, which has a fantastic mobile interface to enable moblogging,


• Pocketfeed, which allows you to sync RSS feeds to take with you to read on your PDA, with OPML support,


• HP Mobile Printing, to print files from your PDA directly to a wireless printer.


• YanceyWare Reader for creating and reading large hyperlinked e-books,


• Flite text-to-speech engine


• Pocket AniEd, to create animations on your PDA.


• PocketTADS, to create text adventures,


• PocketDict english dictionary


• PocketExam for designing and delivering quizzes on Windows Mobile PDAs


• PocketPDF, to create PDF files on your PDA, and


• a multilingual text file reader


• PC-Cillin for Wireless antivirus program.


• Software developers can use PocketZeus to write, debug.comile and run custom applications on their PDA.

Finally, while it isn’t really mobile software, but ratherm runs on a PC, Levelator makes the process of creating podcasts (for playback on pocket media players, PDAs and even mobile phones) so much easier it deserves a mention. Dropping an audio file on the application creates an output audio file with the volume optimised for playback, without having to fiddle with levels in Audacity. (previous blog post)

mlearning m-learning mobile-learning mobile+learning podcasting iphone apple web+2.0 learing+2.0 eLearning

Note: More mLearning resources to explore

• QuizFaber - QuizFaber creates multiple-choice quizzes for the mobile web.
• Flickr - features a mobile version of Flickr.
• Mobilicio.us - Mobilicio.us allows you to remotely access your bookmarks, and Del.icio.us mona allows you to remotely save bookmarks.
• Remote Podcasting - Gcast.com allows you to call a phone number to leave a message, which is instantly published as a podcast.
• Create-A-Scape is a free resource for creating location-based learning experiences on Microsoft Mobile Pocket PCs called “MediaScapes,” and was workshopped at this month’s Handheld Learning 2006 conference in the UK.