Wearable Technology Enhanced Learning

Just recently we (Ilona Buchem, Ralf Klamma, Fridolin Wild) have set up a Special Interest Group dedicated to Wearable Technology Enhanced Learning, short: SIG WELL as part of the European Association of Technology Enhanced Learning.

Here is our introduction on Wearable Technology Enhanced Learning:

Wearable technologies – such as smart watches, smart glasses, smart objects, smart earbuds, or smart garments – are breaking the established ground and offer new opportunities. These devices are body-worn, equipped with sensors and conveniently integrate into leisure and work-related activities including physical movements of their users. According to the recent forecasts (e.g. Cisco, Gardner, Deloitte) for 2018, portable technologies, including mobile and wearable devices, will form the basis of personal communications with the global wearable device data traffic increasing by over 60%.

Wearable user interfaces are just starting to transform user experience, improving integration of technologies into everyday life, education, and work. Since wearable technologies are likely to shape the future relationship between humans and computers, it is essential to look beyond the still mostly desktop-driven, narrow perspective of how technologies may enhance learning. We think that the Wearable-technology Enhanced Learning (WELL) is beginning to emerge as one of the earmarks of the transition from the desktop age through the mobile age to the age of wearable, ubiquitous computing.

We are interested in research and development related to wearable technology enhanced learning and are just beginning to collect examples of how wearable technologies can be and are used to support learning. One of my favourite examples is STEMbite in which Google Glass is used to create engaging videos on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths).

If you have some good examples, just drop me a comment. Also I will soon blog about my recent research project in this area.

Charting Diversity in Wikipedia

In 2013 Wikimedia Deutschland cooperated with Beuth University of Applied Science on diversity in Wikipedia.

Now we published the report titled“Charting Diversity – Working together towards diversity in Wikipedia” or in German “Kompass der Vielfalt – Vielfalt in Wikipedia gemeinsam gestalten”. The report includes key conclusions and recommendation for fostering diversity in Wikipedia. I believe our conclusions and recommendations may be also useful to other digital communities who wish to improve diversity on any of the levels described in the report.

You can find both documents (EN & DE) on Commons following these links:

• EN: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Charting_Diversity.pdf
• DE: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kompass_der_Vielfalt.pdf

The report will be presented at this year’s Wikimania in London (Aug 6-10)– Thank you to Valentin Münscher and Sebastian Horndasch from the education & knowledge department of Wikimedia Deutschland for taking this forward!

Also there is a Charting Diversity page on meta and we welcome all comments and discussions related to diversity in Wikipedia.

As it is work in progress, everyone is invited to contribute new ideas, other or similar approaches and good examples to inspire the global Wikipedia communities.

Here is the link to the page on meta: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Charting_diversity

If you are interested in the topic you may also find useful a list of session at Wikimania in London related to gender issues in Wikipedia which Netha Hussain put together:

• https://wikimania2014.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/Creative_Ways_to_Alienate_Women_Online:_A_How-to_Guide_for_Wikipedians
• https://wikimania2014.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/Systemic_Bias_Workshop_Development_-_IEG_update
• https://wikimania2014.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/Where%27s_the_T_in_Wikimedia_Diversity
• https://wikimania2014.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/Internet_skills_and_the_gender_gap
• https://wikimania2014.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/Diversity_Workshop:_Gender_gap_strategy_into_action
• https://wikimania2014.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/Gender_and_Beyond:_Building_Diversity_in_the_Digital_Space

Proceedings of the PLE Conference 2013

I am happy to announce that the Proceedings of the PLE Conference 2013 have been published as post-prints under CC-licence. We have altogether 26 articles providing insights into some of the current state of research and practice on Personal Learning Environments. Enjoy reading!

 

Open Badges for skill recognition and recruiting

The ePortfolio and Identity Conference – ePIC 2014 – offered much room for presentations and discussions on open badges, as the extension of the title of the conference this year – “ePIC 2014, the 12th international ePortfolio, Open Badges and Identity Conference” – already indicated. Have a look at the Book of Abstracts to find out about authors and project in this area. One emerging topics seems to be the integration of ePortfolios and open badges and it was very interesting to get an insight into approaches, applications and projects in this new field.  One of the most inspiring projects/applications presented et ePIC2014 is Open Badge Factory –  an Open Badge cloud-based management system – keep an eye on this one! Another great project is the DPD project, which studied the 30 Open Badges initiatives from the 2012 DML Badges Competition – a great resource for all of us working with badges!

My presentation was dedicated to Open Badges fpr skill recognition and recruiting and provided some insights from the project “Credit Points”. You can find my slides on SlideShare (and below) – if you have an queries, don’t hesitate to contact me! You can also check my project “Beuth Badges” at Beuth University in Berlin.

Badges for skill recognition and recruiting from Ilona Buchem

Open Badges for Employment

Open Badges for employment is the focus of my current research in the national project Credit Points and in the ongoing project Beuth Badges at Beuth University, in which we design and develop multiple sets of open badges to recognise and communicate skills and competences of individual learners in diverse contexts and learning paths.

It is a new area of research and there are yet many interesting research questions to ask.

I have presented some of the first ideas related to using open badges for employment application at the EDEN 2014 Conference in Zagreb (Croatia) on 13th June 2014. It was a great conference with a vibrant network of e-learning scholars, researchers and practitioners. Big thank you to organisers and participants. It was a pleasure to meet you all!

You can view my #EDEN14 presentation on open badges and employment on SlideShare.

Open Badges for Employment from Ilona Buchem

Personal Learning Environments: Current Research and Emerging Practice

“Personal Learning Environments: Current Research and Emerging Practice” is the title of the Special Issue of Journal of Literacy and Technology with selected research papers that were submitted to the PLE Conference 2013 in Berlin and Melbourne. This is the second Special Issue published with papers from the PLE Conference 2013. The 1st Special Issue was published with elearningpapers and focused on PLEs in smart cities. Both Special Issues provide first-hand insights into current discussions, studies and concepts related to Personal Learning Environments from our global PLE Community.

As the Guest Editor of both Special Issues I would like to thank all authors for the cooperative spirit!

Hope to see you at the PLE Conference 2014 in Tallinn this year! And lots of fun to all of you attending our parallel event in Kuala Lumpur!

CfP: Creative Mobile Learning and Teaching (#CMLT14)

Call for Abstracts

We invite extended abstracts (max. 4 pages, deadline 13-07-2014) to be presented and discussed at the 3rd Workshop on Creative Mobile Learning and Teaching (#CMLT14) at the EC-TEL Conference 2014 in Graz, Austria. The workshop on Creative Mobile Learning and Teaching focuses on innovative uses of mobile and wearable technologies to support creativity in learning and teaching, i.e. teaching and learning how to be creative as well as teaching and learning through creative practice. We invite researchers, instructional designers and developers, students, educators and practitioners  to share and create innovative, creative mobile learning applications, concepts and scenarios.

Creativity is becoming the new value and norm for a modern society and is vital to our survival, crucial for scientific innovation, social, cultural and economic progress. Already today many of the fastest-growing jobs and emerging industries rely on creative capacity, such as the ability to think unconventionally, inventing new scenarios and producing novel solutions. How can new technologies, including mobile and wearable technologies, be designed and applied to enhance creative learning and teaching? Which innovative pedagogical approaches to using mobile and wearable technologies can foster creativity in learning and teaching?

As there is a gap between creative mobile pedagogies and innovative mobile technologies, it is important to bring both sides together to embed creativity into the TEL agenda. The key question emerging is how mobile and wearable technologies can be designed and applied to enhance creative mobile learning and teaching in academic, scientific, work-based, social or everyday settings. This workshop focuses on identifying innovative approaches, practices, designs and developments harnessing the potential of mobile and wearable technologies to enhance creative learning and teaching.

The organisers of CMLT14 are:

• Prof. Dr. Ilona Buchem (Germany)
• Prof. Dr. Isa Jahnke (Sweden)
• Prof. Dr. John Cook (UK)
• Ass.-Prof. Dr. Dimitris Apostolou (Greece)
• Prof. Dr. Neil Maiden (UK)

For detailed information about the Call for Abstracts visit: http://cloudworks.ac.uk/cloud/view/8749 

You will find further information about the workshop on our homepage on Cloudworks: cloudworks.ac.uk/cloudscape/view/2908

Mobile Learning & Creativity

I am proud to announce that our Special Issue on Mobile Learning and Creativity with the International Journal of Blended and Mobile Learning is now online!

You can find the editorial by Ilona Buchem, Isa Jahnke & Norbert Pachler here (PDF), in which describe the rationale for this Special Issue:

“Creativity has been proclaimed as one of the so-called key 21^st century skills and as the driving force of economic development in post-industrial era. With the ‘creative class’ (Florida, 2002), comprising different types of creative workers, tackling complex, societal problems ranging from solving economic problems, through creating innovative technological solutions to devising new ways of social entrepreneurship, the role of creativity will arguably increase dramatically in the years to come. Already today many of the fastest-growing jobs and emerging industries rely on workers’ creative capacity, such as the ability to think laterally, inventing new scenarios and producing novel solutions. To face this demand, both education and business have to embrace new technologies and design new ways to foster the creativity of students and workers.”

The five selected best papers we included in this Special Issue can be found here, Volume 5, Issue 3. Also, the papers can be found in the ACM digital library. Please make sure your article search is for the whole ACM guide, not just the ACM and affiliated publications.

These papers are:

• Isa Jahnke: Teaching Practices in iPad-Classrooms: Alignment of Didactical Designs, Mobile Devices and Creativity (pages 1-16)
• Maria Ranieri & Isabela Bruni: Empowering Creativity in Young People Through Mobile Learning: An Investigation of Creative Practices of Mobile Media Uses In and Out of School (pages 17-33)
• Sobah Abbas Petersen, Emma Procter-Legg & Annamaria Cacchione: Creativity and Mobile Language Learning Using LingoBee (pages 34-51)
• Steve Wright, Ben Short & Gale Parchoma: Supporting Creativity in Craft Brewing: A Case Study of iPhone Use in the Transition from Novice towards Mastery (pages 52-67)
• Jennifer Masters: Creative Teaching and Learning Strategies for Novice Users of Mobile Technologies (pages 68-79)

Congratulations to all authors for starting the conversation with us on how mobile learning can foster creativity.

NB: We have started the discussion on mobile Learning and creativity in the TEL community a few years ago and held a workshop on Mobile Learning and Creativity at the European Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning in 2012 (EC-TEL 2012 & #MLCW12) and the workshop on Computational Tools Forstering Creativity in Learning Process at the EC-TEL 2013 (EC-TEL 2013). You can find out more about the two workshops on creativity in TEL here:

• Mobile Learning and Creativity Workshop 2012: Cloudworks.
• Computational Tools Fostering Creativity in Learning Process 2013: CCL2013.

I believe there is yet much to explore – if you are interested in projects in cooperations related to Mobile Learning and Creativity please let me know!

Open Access E-Book on Digital Media & Diversity

Digital Media & Diversity has been the focus of my research and teaching at Beuth University of Applied Sciences Berlin. In the last three semesters students in my courses related to the Internet and the Society, including current developments and uses of Web 2.0, social media and mobile web, have been writing essays on digital media and diversity as part of their coursework. We have put some of the most interesting essays into an e-book, which has now been published under the CC-licence as an open access book.

I am very glad we can make these essays available to everyone as they present capsuled time recordings of how digital media impact our lives nowadays. The book is divided into thematic sections focusing on specific societal issues including health, politics, economy and culture.

Let me just say: A big “Thank you” to all my students who co-authored the essays and to students who worked on creating this publication!

Enjoy reading (in German)!

DigitalMedia_eBook

When is a LE a PLE?

When does a Learning Environment (LE) become a Personal Learning Environment (PLE)? This is a question that has been guiding some of my recent research on PLEs. I have take a psychological perspective on PLEs and wanted to find out when people feel that they “own” a learning environment. I have based my research on the theory of psychological ownership by Pierce et al. (2001, 2003) and conducted a number of studies showing that the scale of psychological ownership – which so far has been used to measure the feeling of ownership in organisations – can be applied to capture the feeling of ownership of learning environments. You can find more details in this publication.

Just recently, I have presented the approach of psychological ownership and selected research results at a workshop dedicated to Personal Learning Environments at University of Potsdam. The workshop was organised as part of the project eLIS, which takes a different, technology-driven approach. The contributions and discussions showed once again that there is a wide range of understandings of what PLEs may be.

My personal view is that PLEs and customisable, integrated platforms are two different things. A PLE is an environment which is constructed by an individual out of available elements. Customisable, integrated platforms are always constructed by someone else but they may be appropriated individually and become a part of someone’s PLE.  You may find more about my views on PLEs in the presentation below.

Persönliche Lernumgebungen from Ilona Buchem

Literature

Buchem, Ilona (2012). Psychological Ownership and Personal Learning Environments. Do possession and control really matter? Proceedings of the PLE Conference 2012, 12 July 2012, Aveiro, Portugal. URL: http://revistas.ua.pt/index.php/ple/article/viewFile/1437/1323

Pierce, J. L., Kostova, T., Dirks, K. (2001). Toward a theory of psychological ownership in organizations. Academy of Management Review, 26, 298–310 (2001)

Pierce, J. L., Kostova, T., Dirks, K. T. (2003). The state of psychological ownership:  integrating and extending a century of research. Review of General Psychology, 7, 84–107