dajbelshaw:

“Mobile learning, focuses on learning through mobile devices, allowing learners to move about in a classroom or remotely learn from the location of their choice. The movement has gained a lot of steam in recent years, and despite some criticisms, isn’t likely to fade fast – especially as new technologies that make mobile learning more practical continue to emerge and the popularity of remote learning opportunities like online colleges continue to grow.”

Even if you are approaching it from a purely practical perspective, there is so much scope. I’m starting with a small SMS project, after being inspired by the work of Zoraini Wati Abas in the Change 11 MOOC. Read the response to her mobile learning presentation on the Change 11 wiki I’m contributing to.

Reader comment on the Ipswich Queensland Times, relying heavily on idiomatic expression and anecdotal evidence to poo poo the suggestion that txting improves literacy. I’m not sure why ‘read a book’ needs inverted commas, except as the reader suggests, this is now becoming a novel concept firmly relegated to ‘the good old days’. I dunno where English Australian is even spoken these days, although I’m pretty confident I could unstood it if it were.

Thumbs up for texting | Ipswich Education | Primary and Tertiary Education in Ipswich | Ipswich Queensland Times

A good measure of how pervasive mobile learning is, that you probably aren’t aware that you are already doing it. I saw a great example this morning from @betchaboy on twitter with his lessons learned on the Yamanote line. Part photo essay, part traveller’s narrative it was put together in less than a day, entirely on mobile and then presented as part of professional development at Yokohama International School. Look it up. Very relevant as it pertains to this week’s mobile theme on Change 11.

Last weekend I helped celebrate my grandfather John’s 90th birthday. He is blessed with his seven sons and daughters, twenty seven grandchildren, and ten great grandchildren (with another four in the womb). A constant theme that runs through the Fyfield family is education, physical performance and nursing, but there is something more than that. There is a deep commitment to change.

John Adrian Fyfield was a student teacher in country Victoria at the age of 16 and worked his way through high school to become a headmaster during the Second World War. In 1967 he became a senior lecturer at Monash University and was appointed Associate Professor in 1994. He has authored several dictionaries, research volumes on education, and a book on Re-educating Chinese Anti-communists. At 88 he embarked upon a weight training program for the first time, and enjoys deep philosophical discussions with several of his close friends.

His sons and daughters have all worked in health and education. Not in ways that you might expect however. One of my uncles has spent years in the Middle East implementing information systems for hospitals. Another trains kick-boxers and is employed at a sporting school for boys with behavioural problems. Yet another built a career in nursing, and then a business in importing, building and restoring violins.

Amongst my cousins I am encouraged to hear that the tradition continues. Wether it is in the pool, on the dance floor or netball court there is a Fyfield striving for a personal best. There is also a sense of giving your best for others. One of my cousins recently returned from Tanzania where he assisted a catholic order of nuns, set up schools and taught English. Is it any wonder I am drawn to education?

My undergraduate degree was in Human Movements, yet I chose the Exercise Management stream over Education as I wanted to work with elite athletes. When I began work as a web developer and course facilitator at I was offered a position in training, but elected instead to stay in production because I wanted to work on international projects. When I taught English in Japan I saw it as a vehicle for my own learning, both physical and intellectual. What have I been afraid of?

I commit myself to change education. The Internet offers an unprecedented opportunity to bring education to the benefit of the largest number of people. Today mobile technology delivers courses into our hands at almost zero cost. The time for breaking free of an industrial model of education and recognising learning as a human birthright is now.

blackandwhitesquares:

QR Code Quilt Comes to Cambridge[UK] Gallery  -

The image of women gathered around sewing together a quilt while they talk about what is going on in their lives and community does not fit the perceived notion of teens and twenty-somethings texting on Facebook or Twitter—or does it?

The exhibition of these admittedly very nice handmade quilts is from 7th - 12th June at the Williams Art Gallery, Cambridge, CB1 2LJ.

Augmented (hyper)Reality: Domestic Robocop (by chocobaby2000)

If you want to ride with me on the commute, download the track from Gpsies.

livinglive:

Barcodes grace almost every product for sale. Given how much package real estate they command, why shouldn’t they look cool?

Since 2005, D-Barcode has been creating custom barcodes for a mostly Japanese clientele. They’ve even begun selling their wares to anyone who wants to license them, starting at $1,500 for the design, and $200 a year for licensing. A custom or exclusive use code will run upwards of $4,000—but given that companies spend millions on designing a single package, why don’t we see more detailed thinking like this? Middle managers spend weeks arguing about kerning—it’d be better if they spent more time rethinking every inch of such highly prized real estate.

HT @RinaKamilla

via fastcompany.com

My organisation uses Microsoft live, which includes a mobile accessible interface, although it has not been widely promoted to students. Students often ask how they can get university mail to their phones, but few know how.

The existing Blackboard LMS has been enabled for mobile learning, yet students are not aware they can access it on their smart phones. Students could participate more fully on their group work, wikis and discussion boards if they could do it any time, any where.

I’d like to run an awareness raising exercise with QR codes, using posters with a hidden message for students that are game enough to click. Perhaps there could be a some kind of Easter egg hunt for new students during O-week. Messages need to go out to students with QR Codes embedded, linking back to the mobile accessible parts of the universities ICT infrastructure.