Snippets and Thoughts from mLearn 2007 – making the connections - 16-19 October 2007, Melbourne

Wednesday 17 Oct
Prof Glyn Davis, Vice Chancellor, Uni of Melb
– equity, privacy, security

Prof Angela McFarlane, Prof in Ed, Grad Sch of Ed, Uni of Bristol, UK - Devices & Desires
– Hilda Kruger’s Learner Contexts for Learning Diagram
- importance of teaching people how to be constructivist learners
- m-learning – what, when, where you need it
- provide triggers/opportunities to revisit/reflect/recall what you’ve done/learnt – this needs to be built into the pedagogy
- “we’re throwing technology at unstable pedagogy”
- “effective teachers use technology effectively”
- developing the confidence of staff to use technology is paramount
- finding ways of sharing the learning with and without technology
- using mobile technology to create

Eddie Gule – The Higher Education Institute, UK - who work with the Carrick Institute
- LAMS – Learning Activity Management System

Marc Niemes, President, e-Learning Industry Assoc of Victoria – mlearning, RU Rdy 4 it?
- http://elearning.org.au
- Top 3 things I wanted out of the conference: 1. info about the accessibility of mobile technology; 2. ways of enthusing others to incorp mlearning into training; 3 useful ways of using mlearning/elearning
- Top 3 things the audience voted on using ‘keepads’ from a selection of 9 choices (determined by 3 audience members expressing their 3 top things they wanted out of the conference) were: 1. how mlearning works and what’s available; 2. what mlearning is being done with students; 3. what mlearning tools works with what types of learning
- Marc used to work for ANZ online learning services
- ‘Wisdom of the Crowd’ theory, James Surowiecki, 2004
- Corporate want their employee’s learning ‘tracked’

Leonard Low, CIT, Selected Outcomes: The Australian Standards for m-Learning
- BLIPTV allows you to download video in a range of formats
- 2D barcodes – special, free software allows your mobile phone to ‘read’ a 2D barcode or QR code. Free software to create 2D barcodes is available from: kaywa.com; kwikmart; telemetronics
- Jane Fischer from RMIT – knows of a high school using this technology with students

Thom Cochrane, Unitec, NZ – Mobile blogging: A Guide for Educators
- we need to find ways of engaging staff to adopt mlearning/elearning – developing communities of practices of education
- www.vox.com – closed/private blogging community, possible e-portfolio platform, which allows MMS blogging
- wordpress, shozu
- SMS Blog capability – www.letmeparty.com

Thursday 18 Oct
Charlie Schick, Product Manager, Nokia - The Mobile Lifestyle: How the fusion of the mobile and the internet have changed the way we live, learn and play
- charlieschick@edubba.com
- we live in a ‘hyper-connected age’
- Getting the phone onto the web – what ‘services’ can mobile technology support? Why is ‘5’ the magical number – people usually want to be connected to their 5 closest friends and family via the mobile phone
- dopplr – add travel schedules and network with others who may also be in the same city/location – link to Facebook
- twitter – can be linked to your mobile phone
- people are the key – ‘connecting people’ – making use of ‘tribal knowledge’ – where people are teaching people to learn
- we need to adopt more ‘collaborative’ approaches – and move away from our ‘industrialised learning
- ‘me and mine’
- ihubs – created via Bluetooth

Sally Drummond – New Practices – Digital Youth Awards

Pasi Mattila & Jukka Miettunen, City of Oulu, Educational Office, Finland – ‘The Path to the School of the Future’
- change management required for better pedagogy
- creating mobile learning platforms
- ‘developing 21st century people, without being taught by 20th century teachers in 19th century learning environments
- white paper - Microsoft for the School of the Future (SOF)
- we need to change the structure of the physical learning environment
- Habbo
- media literacy skills; life management skills
- Chancellor College – Australian Mentor School

Dr Agnes Kukulska-Hulme, Institute of Educational Technology, UK – Self Service Education: Smartphones as a catalyst for informal collective and individual learning
- User driven innovation
- technology coffee mornings; paperbag lunches – education.au/Nancye Stanelis – how can we market these effectively to get staff involved in sharing/learning
- buddy support system – 2 experienced staff work with 2 inexperienced staff
- staff were using SmartPhone to capture own reflections on work issues
- making assumptions about a project before you begin

John Traxler, Uni of Wolverhampton, UK – Flux within Change
- conversational framework
- Illich
- Helen Beatham – ‘dual paradigms’

Susanna Mann, Uni of Sydney – Mobile technology as a mediating tool for learning in the convergences from technology, collaboration and curriculum perspectives
- Sydney Powerhouse Museum
- scaffolded problem solving
- interaction with others
- we need to improve f2f teaching methodologies
- formal – converge/connect/context – informal = providing formal content in an informal context

Gavin Hawkins, Sarah Corey, Lynn Ball, Stow Heath Junior School, UK – 21st century assessment for 21st learners
- peer & self assessment
- self reflection/evaluation
- using ‘synchron-eyes’ – software which enables students working on PDAs to share their work on the classroom interactive whiteboard; with young maths students
- ‘eduinnova – groups of 3 students work together – mixing experienced learners with less experienced learners
- developed e-Portfolios for their students – publish ‘my best work’, web based, can be viewed by teachers, parents, peers; ownership is with the children
- how learners self assess themselves
- elearning foundation

Calvin Taylor, Monash Uni – Hunting mobile literacies: listening to the experiences of students
- epistemological limits of literacy

Marcus Ragus, TAFE Tasmania & Ian Whitehouse, GlobalNet ICT – ET comes home
- embedded technology

Daniel Dacey, www.necs.info

Markus Feisst, Rami Omari, Andreas Christ Hochschule Offenburg, Germany
- researching eye tracking navigation of small mobile devices

Jim Plummer, TAFE SA – the day of the RFIDs
- “teaching is a privilege”

Jacqueline Bates - Sloodle – moodle mixed with Second Life