Tag: professional development

Wednesday June 16, 2010 01:00 PM

Main Points

• mobile apps are where it’s “at,” even compared to desktop app development
• it’s best to optimize your apps for specific platforms, you risk mediocrity by making a generic app
• little, detailed changes can have a huge impact; button: “dismiss” > “hide”

Raw Dump:

Apps are the thing everyone is talking about
Alps are being coming mofe robust
Complexityand small screens dontmix
Multiple-touch and multiple-key control a aren’t easily discoverable
Conceptual and contextual info is still important, info about the app and how it works with ones daily work is still info

Forms of deliveey
Curated apps
Server-based content
Hybrid

Ask for handouts

Interface builder is part of the sdk for the iPhone
It’s best to optimize apps for the plaform
Little interface changes makes a huge difference

Wednesday June 16, 2010 10:45 AM

Main Points

• the mobile phone isn’t the end of your strategy, it’s the scaffolding, it’s not the substance
• look for the sweet spot of development, too little and too many features have a negative impact on the user experience; performance support is the sweet spot when using SMS
• it’s best to develop using the 4.0 SKD since the user agreements have changed; keep with HTML and Javascript
• Instapaper is a good model for mLearning
• testing is critical

Raw Dump:

Mlearning on multiple devices (smartphone devices as opposed to Sms)
With Richard Clark

Why is he choosing to focus on smart phones?
Not flash, it’s too early, too many devices that can’t us it
He’s talking about native application development

The mobile phone is not the end of your strategy… It’s the scaffold. It builds on the roadmap you create as a mobile strategy… It’s not the substance

Produce a small video, and everything else is learning via a native app or SMS

If the scaffolding is performance support, you feed bits of info to get their work done

Key questions
What is your comfort level with technology
Who is your audience, are they open to mobile learning
Sweet spot for mobile learning is performance support
Online vs offline, are your students online? Keep in mind the limited storage of a smartphone: think instapaper a good model for mobile learning
What are the range of devices you have to accommodate
Are the apps developed for the devices it’s made for?

Development options
Common data, built-in or custom viewer
Common or no common denominator

Simple
HTML + graphics
Then add JavaScript
Then html5 and JavaScript: local databases
Cross-platform toolkits
Finally native apps
Most complex

Appcellerator and Rhodes (new iPhone os closes the door on rhodes)
Appcellerator would be a better tool to work with

Unit testing is critical, you can’t just reboot
You work in small pieces and test your logic
Simulator based testing, get others to look at it as well, accompanies user testing
Manual vs vnc-based automatic testing
Remote devices testing (perfectos mobile) testing a range of drives and locations around the world

Pragprog.com

A very technical presentation

Wednesday, June 16, 2010, 8:30a – 10:00a

Main Points

• social media = social communication + personal media
• social media is the key to unlocking the global learning environment; opportunities to [bridge and exploit] the barriers between formal and informal learning
• youth culture are the centers of innovation, they create the trends that effect everyone else
• teens use SMS to share their presence with others, not so much factual information
• phones are the first personal computers; the first private computers

Must-see video: A Vision of Students Today
Raw Dump:

The learner is mobile, not the device, not the learning

What does it mean to understand the learner?

What the user wants in mlearning?
Mimi Ito, a cultural anthropologist
Asked people to show them the contents of their bags
Use of devices to personalize their media consumption, people will go to great lengths to customize their media environment

Social media is key to unlocking the global learning environment
How can we take advantage of the opportunity of the potential of mobile learning? Formal and informal learning
Youth culture When you look at mobile are centers of innovation, they create trends that permeate through the rest of culture
The technology is just a proxy for what people want to do

Context is king. Content is core. Learning is everywhere.
How realistic is it to ask people to focus on one steam of content for 30 min?
We can’t insist on the same levels of attention, we have to change.

Check out the video by Michael Wesch

Social media is social communication and personal media
Peer sharing, social viewing, locative meeds, transmedia

Phones are the first personal computer… Dunno about that, in this context perhaps
Personal because it is private
Small screen is personal and private… This is important

SMS is about sharing presence, together while apart… Not information… As used by these teens

Mobile Internet adoption in Japan was driven by transcarrier SMS
This has changed in the past five years to a web enabled drive
Mobile is the most preferred way of accessing social media, we are at the beginning of the surge of mobile social media, will grow as the technology grows

Social networks creates ambient information enviornment, the technicians would take a simple system and work it to their own needs

Ambient story telling, geoloction based social networking of a database, the example was a building that had it’s own twitter feed, app for creating a narrative, monitors, etc.

The social wrapper provided the key to the learning in a project that provided phones to high school students
Provide access and sharing of content and role switching of teaching and learning

Transmedia getting mobile devices to link to other devices
Assumption that children have other children to learn from… Pokemon is complex

How quickly can high education change innovation comes from the periphery?

Tuesday June 15, 2010 04:00 PM

Main Points

• ePub as an alternative to PDF’s, DOCX, & TXT
• ePub falls into local access as opposed to native or web apps
• ePub is a content format and is dependent on a reader or viewer app; these readers are available in a number of different platforms (both dedicated and client-based)
• benefits compared to other forms of local-accessed content: content is formatted by the reader and is personalize by the user
• cons: even though there are a variety of robust development tools, ePubs are relatively complicated; there is some considerable variability between the readers with regards to functions (links, multimedia, etc.)

Raw Dump:

Creat content for cross platform
Performace support system – mobile learning
We’ll be talkng about developing epub format, wildly popular as a content format, why epub? Open standard, lots of different platforms!

Based on XHTML
Wiki.mobileread.com

They’re using a document camera to show their devices

No links in Aldiko
Readers will reformat your text
Best fit quick offline access to text
There is a lot of functionality
No direct way to get epub onto a blackberry you have to use mobireader
Stanza no links as well
ipad books does support links
Browsers can read epub files on your server
Ebook readers google search

XML marker: a recommended editor
A pretty complex package structure, a lot of manual format
Use an epub validator to check your manual work
Threepress Consulting, inc.

Easy way: InDesign and “help & manual”, open source: Sigil

Conversion tools: Calibre (Word Docs have to be saved as filtered Html)

Epub addin for Word, just download from Silke and Eric to beta test

No annotation, no background images, no external links, simple design, etc…

Tuesday June 15, 2010 01:00 PM

Main Points

• mobile is what’s in your pocket (is it?)
• the learning environment is highly distracted
• the devil is in the details, an effective implementation takes this into account
• mobile is not eLearning light! skills development isn’t linear, consider that content will be spread apart and disrupted, wrap each nugget before and after with context
• context is king, content is queen
• games and social networks are the future (now?)

Raw Dump:

Session 201 context content and collaboration: keys to successful mlearning
What is mobile learning? We’ve traded books for mobile devices, but we don’t have to go into a classroom anymore. How has our context shifted as we’ve gone mobile.

Mobile learning is for everyone 72% of workers are mobile
63% prefer to use a smartphone over a laptop
Ipads are replacing the goto impulse of a laptop
Presentation is being delivered though an iPad
Most knowledge workers over 60% slready have smart phones

Mobile is what’s in your pocket
People are also working on multiplier tasks in a short block o ftimee
Reality is that the environment is highly distractive

Devil is in the details
Useage patterns to learning strategies
Dealing with mlearning constraints

We are learning to accomplish things, not self edification
What technology is common? Portalle provesssors with memory, pim, content display, data access, media play, doc editing…

We use laptops not so often by for longer periods of time, mobile devicse are accessed often but for short periods of time

Mobile is augmentation, cognitive: these devices do things well that we don’t do well, were accessorising our brains

Ways of using these devices: content compute, capture, and communicate between others

Roles, cognitive, mobile
Intro, activate cognitive and affective, motivating example 
Concept, recinceptualize, new model
Example, recontsxtualize, another exmaple
Practice, reapply, a new prboewlm
Feedback, reflect, evaluation rubrics

Mobile is not eleanig light!

You can’t apply skills development analysis for mobile learning… Because the learning is interrupted… Not a nice flow from a to b, thing how your learning networks together, not linear

Formal learning is small snippets and then there’s tons of reference materials
Is formal all there is?

Know your audience! Are they independent are they willing to network

Beyond formal, if you want to use a new fomat then you might need some intro formal materials, a marketing campaign

          Job aids, collaboration
SMS,

Content is king. Context is queen. Switch these two. Context motivates… What motivates is is this important to me right now? We should sketch out what our learers are doing and then what they need.

Context where and when for the following
SMS
Voice
Document
Audio
Video
Interactive

SMS as a quick way out to get access to deeper resources, use SMS to request information

How can we support learning in context before during and after? When you ask people how their learning is going right after the lesson forces people to reflect.

With pcs the more features the better the user experience
With mobile there is a sweet spot 20% will give you 80% of your user experience
Replace features with content… Focus it down!

Future directions for mobile
Games
Social networks
Others

Tuesday June 15, 2010 10:45 AM

Main Points

• we, as designers, must understand the relationship that people have with their mobile devices; with out this understanding, we can make decisions that have a negative impact to our entire strategy; it is important to establish our philosophy as much as a strategy
• if mobile doesn’t fit for our students, then we mustn’t force this approach
• mobile as a reinforcement tool, as a way to extend learning
• mobile increases access to learning
• consider a phased approach to deploying mLearning
• would it be possible for us to develop an mLearning strategy around Nursing CE programs?

Raw Dump:

First concurrent session
First pillar is learning design
Second is mobile: intimate devices we can’t abuse that relationship that people have with their mobile devices, important to understand your audience and hoe they use their device, this can have a negative affect on your entire strategy, what is your philosophy
Third: technology what is the best platform, keep in mind cost of data transmission
Communications: customers may not yet be able to understand how thwese devices fit into their learning
Measursurement: kpi’s what that full Analytics

What’s the approach? Whatls ghe business challenge
What are the knowledge gaps?
Use mobile tech where its best needed

Know your learners, environment, budget, technology platforms (mobile in all different fo rms)
Based on this info you can map out your next steps

Common wusrtions
Which devices do learners use?
Besept delivery of mobile content?
How to best measure learning participation and how are you going to adapt training approach accordingly?
How does mlearning integrate into your current?

A phased approach
Pilot
Data collection, test moblie medium build a relationship with your users, collect and analyzer feedback

We have to respect that were in peoples personal space, be careful of which content you’ll be pushing

Phase b
Develop deeper engagement, extended pilot continue the baseline of adoption to get more people together using your rich tools, reach out to other departments dose anyone want to posh content to them? Marketing conent for exa ple

Phase c
Bulid rich and reengaging mlearning conent, develop effective mlearning and communications roadmap

You gotta starry with you strategy and your audience, keep the testing simple and basic

Mobile as a reinenfircement tool
Extend previius training materials, you can subdivide the audience into content related areas
Research Chalk – blackberry deployment, featured onsline and offline access, gives info about training programs, progress, etc
Can be training during the work in retail

Increasesed access to learning
Looking to improve knowledge about products
When there’s tons of stuff to keep track of, it’s hard
How do you tie incentives into learning over mobile
Mobile website rapid updating of content
Data device types email and usage

Improving engagement
Provide instant feedback
Blended learning situation
Game: survey
Scavenger games using SMS
Look into using common short codes

Think about the relationships we want and need to build with our students
If mxobild doesn’t fit then don’t force it, there may be opportunities later
Get the data! Set your kpi’s

2.5 to 3 min for a each nugget of a mlearning course
Mobile web good for light content, use chalk for entire static courses

Nursing ce. Via mobile? Whoa… Could we pilot a program like that? What is that audience like? Messages sent out periodically… Every day, more often?

I did want to mention a very cool, free iPhone App, mLearnCon 2010, that was developed for this conference. This is definitely a solution that C&I should look into.

It is a native app that updates from the web and it features information about all of the sessions, the speakers, maps, twitter interface, and a customizable schedule that you can add and remove sessions from. I can create my own graphical calendar of events for the week!



My favorite new, productivity tool is the $.99 GoodReader. It’s a fantastic document viewer, file management and sharing tool. I also paid an additional $.99 to unlock its FTP features.

The free or lite version is fully functional, it’s just limited to no more than five documents.