Handheld Learning Conference 2009

If you are interested in gaming and handheld devices for learning, then you may be interested in the proceedings from the recent Handheld Learning Conference in London. Thank you to presenters and organisers for sharing both audio and video files from the numerous sessions.

Proceedings

 

Navigate to: Photographs | Video: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday | Discussions


  Photographs:Monday 5th October – The Handheld Learning Festival
Tuesday 6th October
Tuesday 6th October – The Handheld Learning Awards for Innovation & Best Practice
Wednesday 7th October  Audio & Video:Monday 5th October – The Handheld Learning Festival“Best Practice in Action” – 11:00 – 17:00 (online discussion)
Dawn Hallybone, Senior Teacher/ICT Co-ordinator, Oakdale Junior School, England – “Consoles in the classroom”
Philip Griffin, Y6 Teacher, Radstock Primary School, United Kingdom – “Technology v Pedagogy”
Paul Hodgkinson, Co-ordinating Officer, ITSS (Durham County Council), United Kingdom – “24/7 Learning with families”
Joyce Ness, Education Consultant, RM Education, United Kingdom – “One size doesn’t fit all”
Katrina Smith, School Improvement Facilitator for/Head of ICT, Priory School Business & Enterprise College and Leading Edge School, England – “Handheld devices to enhance learning and teaching”
Adam Blackwood, E-Advisor, JISC RSC SouthEast, England – “Transforming Engagement with Proximity Communication”
Richard Scullin, Founder, MobileEd.org, United States – “mLearning in the cloud: a drop(.io) in the bucket”
Shawn Gross, Project Director, Project K-Nect, United States – “Mobile Phones for Math and Science”
Gavin Cooney, CEO, Learnosity, Ireland – “Use of mobile phones for language learning”
Derrick Welsh, Artist – “Cellphone touch screens to bring drawing messages?”
Nick Short, Royal Veterinary College, London – “Androids for Africa”
Louise Duncan, Leading Teacher / eLearning Co-ordinator, Shepparton High School, Australia – “Essential ingredients for the successful implementation of mobile learning”MirandaMod11:00 – 13:00
HHECKL11:00 – 13:00
“Pecha Kucha for 21st Century Educators”14:00 – 16:30
The Nesta Challenge14:00 – 16:00

“Learners Y Factor” – 14:00 – 16:30 (online discussion)
Burnt Oak Junior School
Loughton School
Normanby Primary School
Oakdale Junior School
Packmoor Primary School
Scargill Junior School

The Handheld Learning Awards for Innovation & Best Practice

Tuesday 6th October

Conference Opening Session – “Reflections on Learning” – 09:30 – 13:00 (online discussion)
Industry Announcements
Graham Brown-Martin – Welcome & Introduction
Opening Address – Zenna Atkins, Chairman, Ofsted
Malcolm McLaren, agent provocateur & artist
Yvonne Roberts, Senior Associate, Young Foundation
James Paul Gee, Presidential Professor, Arizona State University

Conference Session Two – “Creativity & Innovation” – 14:30 – 17:30 (online discussion)
John Davitt, International Learning Advocate
Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino, CEO and Co-Founder of Tinker.it
David Braben, Founder & Chairman, Frontier
Tim Rylands, Teacher & Innovator
Dr. Phyllis Hillwig, Chief Operating Officer, Words & Numbers, United States – “M-Learning: Challenges in the US Market”
Linda Hahner, President, Out of the blue design inc, United States – “Literacy Mobile Applications”
Dr Naomi Norman, Director of Learning, Epic, United Kingdom – “Be the best – mobile learning and the Army”
Tony Vincent, Independent Consultant, LearningInHand, United Kingdom

Breakouts 14:30 – 18:00:

Games for Learning
Social Media for Learning

Wednesday 7th October

Conference Session Three – “Inclusion” – 09:30 – 13:00 (online discussion)
Donald Clark, e-Learning Expert
Niel McLean, Executive Director, Becta
David Cavallo, Chief Learning Architect, MIT OLPC
Professor Elizabeth Hayes, Arizona State University
Sal Cooke, Director, TechDis
Sir Tim Brighouse, Former Commissioner for London Schools
Helen Milner, Managing Director, UK Online Centres
Discussion
Learners Y Factor’s Winners Presentation

Conference Session Four – “Transformation” – 14:50 – 15:50 (online discussion)
Clare Woodward, Lecturer, The Open University & Mike Solly, Senior Lecturer, Open University, United Kingdom – “Mlearning in the developing world: not 3G but 4C”
Nabeel Ahmad, Mobile Learning Design Leader, IBM Learning, United States – “Mobile, Connected, Empowered, Transformed”

Closing Keynote – Ray Kurzweil (online discussion)

Breakouts 09:30 – 16:00:

Research Strand (part 1) – 09:30 – 13:00
Research Strand (part 2) – 14:30 – 16:00
Spotlight Scotland (part 1) – 09:30 – 13:00
Spotlight Scotland (part 2) – 09:30 – 13:00
Emerging Technologies and New Practices14:15 – 16:00
UK Policy Strand – It’s All In Hand09:30 – 11:00
UK Policy Strand – Leading Learning in Handheld Technology11:30 – 13:00
UK Policy Strand – The Impact of Mobile Learning14:00 – 15:15
UK Policy Strand – ICT Register Showcase Session15:15 – 16:00

  Discussions:

Opening Conference Session – “Reflections on Learning”
Conference Session Two – “Creativity and Innovation”
Conference Session Three – “Digital Inclusion”
Conference Session Four – “Transformation”
Best Practice in Action Session
Learners Y Factor
Handheld Learning Awards for Innovation and Best Practice
Delegate Reflections
Blog Roll for Handheld Learning 2009

Last Updated ( Wednesday, 21 October 2009 17:50 )

Plenty here to keep you busy for weeks!

Innovative Learning Environments Design Conference – Monday 19 October

Thanks to Krystie Alleaume, the Senior Project Officer for the Innovation and Next Practice Division of the Victorian Department of Education and Early Childhood Development for the following information:

The DEECD is running an Innovative Learning Environments Design Conference for educators and architects at Docklands on Monday 19 October. Six of the face-to-face presentations will be streamed online simultaneously via Elluminate.

The conference features educators who have successfully incorporated innovative practice into new learning environments. Architectural experts team up with educators to present a program featuring innovative learning environments, successful change stories and new approaches to teaching and learning.

The online sessions are outlined below. There is no cost to attend the online sessions, however you need to sign up first. Registered participants will be sent the link to the Elluminate room for their session(s). To register, visit:
http://www.education.vic.gov.au/researchinnovation/lpd/forum.htm

Keynotes
9.05am – 10.05am ‘Futurevation’: Looking to the future
2.25pm – 3.25pm Designing for purpose – but which purpose? OECD – 21C innovative learning environments

Session 1: Panel – Successful change stories: what worked and why?
11.05am – 11.50am Dandenong High School
11.05am – 11.50am Bentleigh West Primary School

Session 2 – Innovative Learning – adopting a student centred approach
12.00pm – 12.45pm Matthew Flinders Girls Secondary College
12.00pm – 12.45pm Point Lonsdale Primary School

Session 3 – Learning Environment Designs
1.30pm – 2.15pm Internal learning spaces
1.30pm – 2.15pm Creating effective age and stage appropriate external learning environments

International Digital Entertainment Festival

Hamish Curry, the Library & Online Learning Manager, Learning Services at the State Library of Victoria has kindly sent the following information:

I’d like to bring to your attention the programs we’re delivering for the International Digital Entertainment Festival (iDEF).

The full list of programs we’re delivering is available here, but highlights include –

  • Friday Oct 30 – two schools programs featuring speakers Vincent Trundle from ACMI, and Dr Joanne O’Mara from Deakin Uni highlighting her research into ‘Literacy in the digital world of the 21st century: learning from computer games’
  • Friday Oct 30 – a free screening of the gaming doco Second Skin, which will be its first screening in Australia, andintroduced by the Director Juan Carlos Pineiro Escoriaza.  
  • Saturday Oct 31 – a presentation about game development from the organisers of Freeplay
  • Saturday Oct 31 – SYN and FReeZa present their 1Up Youth Gaming Tournament.
  • Sunday Nov 1 – a forum ‘I’m a gamer and proud of it!‘ featuring James Dominguez from Screenplay, and Anna Dunne from Australian Gamer and Channel 31 show Level 3.

Certainly seems like lots of relevant and interesting sessions! Thanks Hamish for passing on the information.

WikiEducator

Free eLearning content by and for teachers is being developed at the WikiEducator wiki. 

Homepage
Homepage

What is it and who developed it? The website states:

Sir John Daniel, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Commonwealth of Learning was the founding patron of WikiEducator. The project has adopted a community governance model which is coordinated by WikiEducator’s Open Community Council, building on the work of the Interim International Advisory Board. Ambassadors for WikiEducator promote the project around the globe, and our technology roadmap helps us make the future happen.

WikiEducator’s technical infrastructure is supported by a financial contribution by the Commonwealth of Learning (COL) to the Open Education Resource Foundation an independent international non-profit head quartered at Otago Polytechnic New Zealand. The servers are hosted by Athabasca University, Canada.

There are ways for interested teachers to get involved with WikiEducator. The website explains how:

Get Involved ~ There are so many ways…

Thanks to @wizdommy for the information on WikiEducator!

Free Elluminate moderator training

Krystie Alleaume, Senior Project Officer at the Innovation and Next Practice Division of the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development has sent Bright Ideas the following information:

 Would you like to learn how to run your own Elluminate session?

Have you thought about the potential of using Elluminate with students or teachers?

We have arranged a series of moderator training sessions for Term 4: ‘Getting Started with Elluminate’ and ‘Next Steps with Elluminate’. Details and dates are below. These sessions are completely free, but places are limited to 15 per session, so get in quick!

To register, visit: http://www.education.vic.gov.au/researchinnovation/virtualconferencecentre/use/training.htm

Getting Started with Elluminate – Moderator Training (Part 1)

This 90-minute class is designed for anyone new to Elluminate who wants to learn how to facilitate an online class or meeting. The class will teach moderators classroom management skills, methods for establishing social presence, classroom capture and basic content management. The class will offer hands-on practice to reinforce the Elluminate features taught during the session. After completing this class, you should attend the Next Steps with Elluminate Live! for Moderators.

Dates:

Tuesday, October 20, 2009, 3:30 – 5pm

Thursday, November 5, 2009, 3:30 – 5pm

Tuesday, November 17, 2009, 3:30 – 5pm

Tuesday, December 1, 2009, 3:30 – 5pm

Next Steps with Elluminate – Moderator Training (Part 2)

This 90-minute class is the second class in the moderator training series. Participants must take the Getting Started class first. In this class, more advanced classroom and content management skills will be taught. Additionally, classroom collaboration tools such as Application Sharing will be taught. Participants will have the opportunity for hands-on practice during the session.

Dates:

Tuesday, October 27, 2009, 3:30 – 5pm

Tuesday, November 10, 2009, 3:30 – 5pm

Tuesday, November 24, 2009, 3:30 – 5pm

Tuesday, December 8, 2009, 3:30 – 5pm

It is well worth the time and effort to learn how to be an Ellminate moderator.

Host your own webinars – for free

LearnCentral are encouraging educators to run webinars via LearnCentral public Elluminate. Any educator can use these resources for free as long as:

the events must be 1) education-oriented, 2) free (you’re not charging those who attend), 3)  recordable, and 4) open to anyone to attend.  We’re really excited to see what you do with this capability, and are hoping that it allows you to regularly gather other educators around curricular interests in “historic” ways.

The current instructions are below.  This is a new service, so your feedback and help are greatly appreciated!

Before Scheduling a Meeting

We ask that you go through the live or recorded free Elluminate training (http://www.elluminate.com/support/training/index.jsp) before hosting a session, and suggest strongly that you attend another session as a participant to see how an Elluminate session works.  Please don’t go in without any actual experience–it won’t be good for you or your attendees!  🙂 This is an honor system, but we do ask that you are prepared as we don’t want these free sessions to reflect poorly on Elluminate!

To Schedule a Meeting

To schedule a meeting in the LearnCentral public-use Elluminate room, please create the event using the calendar for this group by going to the events tab here and clicking on “Create Event.”  Please check the calendar first and take care not to schedule over another event.  Please also leave at least 30 minutes before and after each event (so that you and the organizer who follows you both have time to come into the room to prepare before your events).

The URL to put in the calendar event, or to give out to others to attend, is https://sas.elluminate.com/d.jnlp?sid=lcevents&password=Webinar_Guest. You can also use this shortened version:  http://tinyurl.com/lcparticipant.  Participants do not need to be members of LearnCentral to attend the event, but please encourage them to join!

Once your event is scheduled in the group calendar, you are welcome to also add it to the calendars of other groups you are a part of.  If you believe your event might be of interest to the LearnCentral community as a whole, please email me at stevehargadon@elluminate.com so that I can place it on the community calendar.  You also need to email me for the moderator log-in information of this is your first time holding a LearnCentral Elluminate meeting. 

Please keep meetings to under two hours in order for others to be able to use the room.  If you need a session that is longer than two hours, please contact me directly.  Also, the LearnCentral Elluminate room has limit of 300 participants.  If you believe that you will need to accommodate more than this number, please contact me directly as well.

The Actual Meeting

When you enter the room, there will be one or two standard slides that we ask that you leave in place.  Any slide you want to upload should be placed after our default slides. 

You will also need to start the recording.  There should be a pop-up box asking if you want to do so.  You should wait until your formal session is about to begin.

If you need to set up a telephone bridge, see the instructions in the Elluminate manual at http://www.elluminate.com/support/docs/9.5/telephony/index.jsp.  You’ll need to have your own conference call system and dial-in number. 

Ending a Meeting

When your session is over, please clear the room of all participants, yourself included.  The room must be empty for the recording to process.  If you have participants who have left the session running and don’t exit on their own, you can click on them in the participant window, then right-click to manually remove.

After a Meeting

When your meeting is done, you will need to find your recording link and place in the post-event URL.  Here are the steps:

1.  Go to the Recording Table is at https://sas.elluminate.com/drtbl?suid=D.40F698971780B7AEE5FAD85F5E2D6D.  Look for the date and time of your session for the link (you can change the times to reflect your time zone).  When you have found your session, right-click on the “Play” link to copy the URL. 

2.  Return to the LearnCentral and find your event.  It’s usually easiest to do so by going to the group calendar in the “Host Your Own Webinar Group” or by using the top “Event” menu item and then selecting “My Events.”  Click through to your actual event details page, then click on the “Edit Event” button.  Scroll down to the “Other” box and click on “Expand.”  You’ll then see a “Post-event URL” field, and you should now past the link to play your event recording. Then click the “Submit” button at the bottom to save these changes.

3.  Repeat this process for each listing of the same event if you’ve put the event in multiple groups.

Feedback

We hope you have fun and find lots of good uses for this service!  Please give us your feedback and ideas by posting in the discussions of this group, or by emailing Steve Hargadon directly at stevehargadon@elluminate.com.

 A great way to save time, money and the environment! As a regular user of Elluminate, this is a great tool.

21st Century ready students: start with the teacher

Here are two recent presentations by US educator Brad Flicklinger on 21st Century learning that you should find inspiring (you’ll need QuickTime to view them):

21st Century skills part 1. 

 21st c skills 1

The “Spot the skills” slide is especially relevant – six skills that demonstrate 21st Century learning:

  1. Creativity and innovation
  2. Research and information fluency
  3. Communication and collaboration
  4. Critical thinking, problem solving and decision making
  5. Digital citizenship
  6. Technology operations and concepts

Also “spot the skills” for teachers:

  1. Facilitate and inspire student learning and creativity
  2. Design and develop digital -age learning experiences and assessments
  3. Model digital-age work and learning
  4. Promote and model digital citizenship and responsibility
  5. Engage in professional growth and leadership

Watch the video to find the answer to the question “How do we know when someone has 21st century skills?”

Brad goes on to discuss how we can embed such skills into the curriculum and how can we ensure all teachers are skilled up. He also addresses the issues many teachers have with technology:

  • lack of time
  • lack of equipment
  • lack of confidence

as well as the teachers who are ‘blockers’.

21st Century skills part 2

21st c skills 2

In this video, Brad suggests that teachers complete an online, self-paced Web 2.0 course such as the SLAV Web 2.0 Learning with the Web or the Syba Signs Web 2.0 course. However, Brad suggests that teachers could take up to a year to complete the course so that the course is truly self-paced and there is less pressure on the teacher.

In the course that Brad uses as an example, teachers are then challenged by their school Principals to produce a curriculum unit (or artefact) that embeds Web 2.0 into it, therefore using, refining and sharing their newly acquired skills. This is an excellent idea as it promotes sharing and learning as well as getting teachers comfortable with their skills and seeing how they can be used directly in the curriculum. So steps to doing this are:

  1. Pick an ‘artefact’ such as a podcast that shows 21st Century skills.
  2. Embed these skills into the curriculum using rubrics so students and teachers know what to expect.
  3. Use online support such as Atomic learning (be aware that they are sponsors of Brad).
  4. Reward teachers who support 21st Century learning (for example, Principals give teachers digital cameras etc. to use in curriculum development. Brad suggests that funds could be sourced from Regions/Districts.)
  5. Principals should be leading the way. If teachers are expected to have blogs, then the Principal should have a blog and be reading the teachers’ blogs.

So if we want 21st Century students, we need to start with the teacher. Or if you listened to Brad’s presentations, start with the Principal. Or if you really listened, start with the Region/District. The question is, can we do this? Can we get our Regions to make this happen? Maybe it is already happening?

Times are changing

Adrian Camm (formerly of Mooroopna Secondary College) and featured here on Bright Ideas in February has created an inspiring animoto video:

 

(If the embedded video is taking too long to load, click this link to access the animoto instead.)

Focussing on the way the Powerful Learning Practice program has impacted on learning and teaching at Mooroopna Secondary College, Adrian is now in a new position as Head of Mathematics at McGuire College.

Although not all of us can be a part of the PLP, the animoto is useful in identifying how some schools have changed with the times, and unfortunately, some have not.

Networked Schools – Classrooms Using New Technologies to Connect and Collaborate

Hear how two teachers use a variety of online environments to connect students in rural and remote schools with experienced educators.

Where: Online in Elluminate. You don’t need to leave your desk – the program comes to you.
Sign up at: http://eventactions.com/ea.aspx?ea=Rsvp&guid=2a3a72ee67194e03b3c1138c9645e2a9

When: Thursday 20 August at 4pm

Who:
Gary Schultz is a teacher of 25 years. With a career path through Physical Education, Science, Information Technology and Work Education, to developing Dimboola Memorial Secondary College teachers integration of ICT into classroom practice. Gary was awarded the 2008 Most Outstanding Secondary Teacher of the year for his work in changing the ICT culture of the college. He is currently working at the Horsham Regional Office in the position of Wimmera Virtual School Project Officer.

The Wimmera Virtual School project is a pilot project that encompasses eleven secondary colleges around the Wimmera area in the North West of Victoria. The project is attempting to address disadvantage in rural and remote schools by developing a Blended Learning model of provision. Currently there are eight VCE subjects being provided that include the use of video conferencing, online content, digital recorded content and also face-to-face teaching.

and

Adrian Camm is the Head of Mathematics at McGuire College and has responsibility for senior Mathematics and Physics. He is now taking a leadership role in promoting effective use of emerging technologies across all faculty areas. Adrian is also a member of the Powerful Learning Practice International Cohort where he engages with international educators on 21st century learning.

Adrian has created a VCE Physics Unit 3&4 Virtual Learning Community that links students across the state of Victoria to experienced educators and textbook authors. Come and learn how the initiative created opportunities for students to interact with each other, educators and knowledgeable adults in authentic learning experiences.

For more information see: http://knowledgebank.global2.vic.edu.au/2009/08/03/networked-schools-two-great-stories-from-classrooms-using-new-technologies-to-connect-collaborate/

Thanks to Tamara Carpenter from KnowledgeBank for the above text.