NCVER 'no-frills' - catch up on presentations

 Summary of presentations which I missed or were presented during concurrent sessions. 

First up with Dr. Zuleyka Zevallos (NSW Behavioural Insights Unit), Michelle Pisano (Centre for Educational Statistics and Evaluation). Michael Lau and Derek Hennessy (Training Services, NSW) on 'using behavioural messages to retain vulnerable apprentices and trainees. Report found here. Covered an overview of the problem, the solutions and findings. Non-completion a perennial challenge, completions has been around 40% for many years when the ideal should be at least 65%. The study utilised a digital support and outreach solution to try to engage with apprentices early as most who terminate, tend to do so at the beginning of their apprenticeship. Detailed how behaviourial prompts via SMS could reduce the drop out rate.

Evidence from international research shows behavioural messages prompting at the correct time is effective as educational interventions. Sought to change habits and to assure apprentices seek help when required, rather than give up and leave without seeking support. SMS sent at pivotal point of apprenticeship, beginning at sign up and continuing every two months. Used to improve apprentices' self-efficacy and included messages on apprentice rights, reminders of milestones etc. Example messages detailed where user name is used, purpose of training services introduced and followed through, and call for action to follow up through links to websites.

Solution tested with 3 variants. Control group received no SMS, and other two groups received 6 SMS across the year - as 'fair-go messages' and 'incentive and control' messages. Results indicate short term outcomes. SMS well received by learners with those who would have not sought help, engaging with resources and conversations. Significant reduction of learners dropping out from the two groups receiving SMS after 12 months. 'Fair go' group seemed to have better retention.

The interventions now adopted across NSW and  the 6 messages implemented as business as usual. April - what to expect of workplace learning; May - reminder to have training plan; June - reminder of how to 'keep on track'; Sept - checking to see if progressing to more complex skills; Oct - making sure not being asked 'over-work'; Nov - congratulations on completing first year, reminder to log changes in training contract. All have links to relevant resources and contacts for follow up.

Tips to implement similar interventions include: emphasising behaviourial principles to boost proactive self-help behaviour; include personalised message; optimise links to ensure they are mobile friendly and possible for completion 'on the sport' i.e. NO long messages; consider timeliness of messages (during breaks - 11am to 12 pm); decide how replies are responded to; have a dedicated phone number which is 'manned'; implement a process for how to manage support.

Good, pragmatic and impactful project.

Followed by Associate Professor Tim Corney and Dr. Fiona MacDonald from Victoria University on 'there has to be more to it: supporting young people through VET to successful completion of apprenticeships in traditional construction trades'. Related papers - on youth transition.

Another presentation on the challenges of increasing completion rates especially amongst younger apprentices, and women in male dominated apprenticeships. Provided an overview of the projects to find out how to support young people as they transition from school to work; what support structures work; how the culture of male dominated workplaces. Data gathered across several streams including NCVER data, surveys and interviews. Looked into pathways from school, choice of occupation, and the stigma of VET. 

Employers often place the onus on young people to work through challenges, however, initial transition into a workplace presents considerable challenges. Findings from the two projects reveal the importance of the 'informal' support beyond the workplace as being important to resilience. 

Integrating innovations at work and learning with Professor Stephen Billett (Griffith University). In this presentation, the argument is proposed that workplace learning and workplace innovations are often addressed separately, but both are interdependent and should really be looked at integrated. Used a project in Singaporean SMEs to provide context. Identified 3 kinds of innovations - strategic, work practice, and procedural. Each provides specific ways of thinking and acting through which workers are able to engage with the process and learn. Procedural innovations are especially thought of as coming from worker initiated actions. 

SMES included precision engineering, aged care and a range of service, distribution, finance and educational enterprises. Overviewed the work undertaken and premises informing learning and innovation at work and why both are intertwined. Of interest is the process of employee-driven innovation. Summarised the ways workplace innovations arise through the conduct of work. Argued that innovations did not arise through start-ups, incubators etc. but are actually day to day processes to keep enterprises viable in competitive market driven society.

Used PIAAC has a base of data to identify prevalence of problem-solving and how this occurs regularly across all occupations with no real difference across cohorts on the basis of educational level. Although life long learning etc. focuses on individuals, all workers are expected to innovate and much of this is carried out in work teams. 

Summarised the studies' contexts and findings. The importance of dialogic interactions was identified as a key process for innovation to take place and continue. The 3 distinct kinds of innovation were also identified - strategic, work practice and procedural. Each had a different pattern of initiation, approval, and implementation. Strategic and work practice tended to be top-down but procedural (which was the most common) were bottom-up with support from the workplace. Then presented the zones of employee-driven innovations and learning as individual innovations will not have impact unless supported by workplace approval and promotion. 

An opportunity for educational change

Via Derek Wenmouth, comes a link to this blog - not just any 'new normal' will do - by Lesley Murrihy a NZ primary school principal. It is a call, like several other blogs/articles, for the current Covid-19 'rapid change in educational delivery' to be a lever for change within the educational system. Lesley, writes well about the need to use the learnings, wrought by the pandemic on society across the globe, to be an opportunity to sit back and think about what the actual objectives of education are. In particular, the role of education in addressing the societal equities brought about by the shifts in the last several decades to globalisation and marketisation of everything.

As someone who has benefited through the social mobility availed through access to education for my parents' generation through the sacrifices undertaken by my grandparents, I have always been aware and a supporter of the advantages conferred by being literate and 'educated'. We the benefits, also come the responsibility to 'feed it forward'.

In NZ, the reform of vocational education (RoVE) has provided a once in a life time opportunity to create a vocational education system which 'puts learners at the heart' of their learning. Due to the 'Level 4' restrictions in NZ across April, the formation of one of the pillars of RoVE, the merger of all the polytechnics and institutes of technology in to one NZ Institute of Skills and Technology (NZIST - interim name) was decidedly low key. There were no major announcements apart from the main NZIST board being formed and individual boards appointed for all the 'subsideries'.

The need to rapidly then shift to distance learning, due to having to be in 'lockdown' and work from home for over 5 weeks, created a mass professional development objective across the entire educational sector. Therefore, we now have two unique 'once in a lifetime' opportunities to go forward with.

The blog by Lesley, indicates the need to be circumspect and to identify the objectives of education. In NZ VET, some of this was completed through the RoVE process. It is now important to perhaps review these objectives, in light of what has now taken place across the pandemic. NZ will have to remain, for the near future, 'an island of itself'. The NZ government's decision to 'go hard and go early' has led to the possibility of eliminating the virus. However, to keep the virus at bay will mean keeping external borders closed and strong social distancing measures. High earners of income like tourism will struggle and other parts of the economy, will have to shift to meet new challenges. VET's role is to support training and education and be 'agile' and flexible to meet industry needs as many may have to seek retraining.

The mass 'training' of the VET workforce to be able to 'deliver' to learners remotely, will now be an advantage. How this is leveraged will be important. The opportunity is now there to provide education 'when and where' learners require the learning. Instead of institutionally directed learning, the possibility of co-created curriculum with learners, is now even more achieveable. What is now required is time to think through the best ways to meet learners' needs given the access we now have to wider understanding and capability of technology-enhanced learning.

mlearn newsletter - catch up on mobile learning news

Unable to get across to Sydney this week for the annual mlearn conference :(

As a consolation, caught up with the mlearn newsletter to see how the mlearning community is progressing. The newsletter had several good overviews on mlearning. Summary of a two below:

1) Professor John Traxler (8 minutes) presents on challenges going intothe future of mlearning.  Need to move into sustainable mlearning. Discussed the requirement to move into a BYO environment and the importance of providing students with skills to critically evaluate the information they will need to continually access when they leave the gated community of education.  Still reluctance amongst educators, maybe in the formal, pre-tertiary sector to free students from the closed school learning management system. Etiquette in how to work with mobile phones within an educational contexts.

2) Marcus Specht, Welten Institute (16 minutes)  video

Learning design / instruction design for augmented reality – important to ensure augmented reality object is appropriate to context. Example provided is a museum guide whereby the museum objects are connected to audio commentary (through QR codes for instance). Use of infrared sensors to be able to locate user so that appropriate augmented information is provided – i.e. what is the person looking at. Vocational education example is of a head mounted camera providing virtual instruction (e.g. virtual projected hands of expert) on to machinery requiring maintenance or repair. Also covered wearable technologies and their potential for mlearning.

Paper referred to:

Dimensions of Mobile Augmented Reality for Learning: A First Inventory – 2012 - see pg. 117.

Also recent article in NZ Stuff on availability of hardware for virtual reality etc. for how well NZ is set up for implementation of educational VR.

Future of learning (education)

Just settling back into things at work this week. A few articles from last week and this week to mull through and digest on the future of education.


First up, an article from the Guardian via Thom Cochrane, on ‘smartphones killing personal computers’ . A somewhat ‘one sided’ viewpoint, supporting the rise of the ‘smartphone’ with the comments providing a bit of a wake-up call. My take is that very very soon, the smartphone will be the one piece of hardware that does everything device. However, at the moment, not quite there yet, especially with mobile access to the web still comparatively expensive in NZ. Access to wifi has improved considerably though and one of the proposals for a ‘new’ Christchurch City is to ensure there is freely accessible Wifi throughout the city centre. Tablets are the main compromise at the moment, obviating one of the major disadvantages of smart phones, the small screen. Having now enjoyed reading off my Ipad, I am not too willing to read off my blackberry. However, a recent trip to China and Singapore, reaffirmed that reading Asian script off a small screen is actually quite reasonable as you can fit more characters on to a small screen then words using alphabets.

Next up, an updated ‘future of education’ brochure via email from Knowledge Works Foundation. Glossy and attractive layout, detailing a series of ‘trends’. They propose five ‘trends using ‘buzz words’ These are increased focus on skills required of all learners for – pattern recognition (the visual web), the ‘maker’(user/consumer created) economy, the new civic discourse (rise of democracy through citizen action), platforms for resilience (increasing flexibility and creativity to cope with rapid change), ‘amplified’ organisation (extending human capacity through technology requires new ways to do things) and ‘altered bodies’ (new understandings of how to link biological brains with technology to improve outcomes e.g. for the disabled). Also summarises the impact technological change has on individuals, organisations, systems, society, economy and knowledge.


And their latest blog, summarises the key trends from the New Media Consortium report for schools. These are the challenges posed by the abundance of information off the www to educators; school resources becoming more and more based in the cloud; technology continues to profoundly affect the way we work, collaborate, communicate, and succeed; expectations of ubiquitous computing are now commonplace; and innovation and creativity are increasingly perceived as high value.

Things have shifted in the last 5 years with regards to access to the mobile net and these changes are reflected in how we make use of both the hardware and software as tools. Deploying these tools cause us to change the way in which we do things, leading to a loop of manufacturers/developers, working to meet percieved consumer demands. In the end, as summarised in the future of education brochure, it's the human innate drive to 'play', tweak, innovate, improve which will always make things interesting and slightly unforecastable. It's this 'unknown' that makes life always interesting for all of us. Perhaps, to 'prepare' the next generation for the future, requires little intervention in the form of nurturing our children to keep their sense of curiosity and wonder, for education to NOT quench our desire to experiment and learn.

updating on mobile learning and web 2.0 / 3.0

Doing preparation for a workshop / presentation at Wintec next week, for their staff development day – Inspire.  There will be two workshops, one of Web 2.0 and moving on to Web 3.0 and the other on mlearning. The main objective is to provide tutors with some tools they can start 'playing' with and for them to match one tool to their teaching context and hopefully try it out with their students.

As updates, have looked at the following over the last two weeks.

Found Shelley Terrel's site via one of the posts on the MobiMOOC course. The site has some good examples of mlearning using podcasts etc. mainly in the context of language learning.

Also some new web 2.0 sites on carl anderson's site with access to one of his latest presentations on mlearning as being a disruptive innovation  and another with ideas for new additions to the digital backpack.

MobiMOOC

Have registered for the ‘massive open online course’(MOOC) on mlearning facilitated by a host of mlearning practitionerswith several participants from NZ and other places I have met/worked with.

Have been lurking at the moment due to work being rather busy. The course is hosted on wikispaces and communicates through google groups. Over the last week, there has been a large number of emails as course members introduce themselves to each other.

At present, things have settled down somewhat as focus returns to the main event, with week one facilitated by Inge de Waard. There was an elluminate session to kick things off. This ran 5am here in NZ and one Australian participant has already emailed a request for a more workable time for us in the antipodes!  The session had a good overview of mlearning (now on slideshare) with two examples from Inge’s Institute of Tropical Medicine’s work with health workers in Peru and a professional development portal for physicians.

Of interest is that the course encourages everyone to participate and offers examples of levels for participation. A good idea due to the number of people involved and individuals seeking to meet different objectives from being part of the course.


MOOCs are really an interesting concept and this is the second one I have 'participated' in. The first one on Connectivism stretched my understanding of how to deploy a variety of elearning tools, towards providing learning opportunities. In the main, both this and the previous course, requires intermediate levels of digital literacy as participants have to be able to navigate through a series of wikis, email or discussion forums and archive for themselves, the learning they glean through the course content and interaction with other course members. The real important skill is to be able to sieve through the large amount of information, work out the important bits to save, archive these somewhere for later retrieval (like on this blog) and then to be able to remember you have archived the items when you need the information!  So far, not many 'gems' as yet as the course is still in it's beginning stages. However, I never discount opportunites to learn serendipitous offerings as everyone has different approaches and come to innovative solutions to solve their individual requirements. So I am looking forward to further learning as the course proceeds.

mLibraries seminar with Professor Mohamed Ally - afternoon sessions

After lunch, there is presentation on ‘measuring institutional m-learning capability: Exploring frameworks and models. First requirement is a mobile friendly learning management system (eg. Moodle). Need to have good hardware & software support via a proactive, well informed IT department. Assemble a mobile development team (content expert, elearning/computer expert, librarian, editor & a project manager). Design for delivery on any mobile device using an intelligent agent. Ensure learning support organised. Establish service standards for students and ensure they are followed. Examples shown of the Athabasca University Digital Reading Room (DRR) and the use of mlearning by students learning English as a Second other language.

Technical and design issues to do with implementation then presented. Important to make use of the advantages provided by mobile learning. Example of interactivity which may be in the form of object (proactive inquiry, using buttons etc), linear (moving back & forth within content) or support interactivity (generalised / student focused feedback). Interactivity needs to be up to date, have capability to undertake construct &/or reflective interactivity. Other forms are simulation interactivity and hyperlinked interactivity. Two most highest levels are non-immersive contextual and immersive virtual interactivity making us of virtual environments. When delivering to a range of different mobile devices, one approach is to adjust the size of the display to the size of the screen which signals a change to the style sheet to allow for appropriate display.

In order to bring success to mobile learning need for training of librarians, teachers/instructors. Empower the learner. Provide open access resources and design ONCE for delivery on any technology. Begin with a blended approach. Establish a research institute for mobile learning/library. Hire the right people. Do NOT wait for the technology to become state of the art – start NOW. Conduct continuous information sessions on mobile learning/library. Send message that the organisation has to make the move. Build success stories.

After afternoon tea, the participants workshopped a ‘roadmap’ on where to now & shared potential collaborative activities.

Activities around NZ – Waikato University using MIT open source apple app & adapted to requirements of the University of Waikato. John Clayton has been working on Mobile Moodle. Wintec a few small elearning projects which have been small – maybe moving directly to mlearning might springboard more activity. Victoria University & Massey doing some projects. In Auckland, there is Unitec project from Thom Cochrane. Gregor Ronald from University of Canterbury provided overview of projects around Christchurch.

There is a need for a more consolidated NZ based mobile learning organisation to lobby for cheaper access to mobile data, share ideas, collaborate on projects etc. One way to start is to set up a SIG on Ako Aotearoa or a more open site like basecamp which has appropriate tag like mlearningnz or mlibrariesnz.

mLibraries seminar with Professor Mohamed Ally - morning sessions

Yesterday, I attended the mLibraries symposium featuring Dr. Mohamed Ally from Athabasca University, Alberta, Canada.

Dr. Ally’s visit assisted by LIANZA, Ako Aotearoa (where the presentations at this seminar are archived), ExLibris and various universities and polytechnics in NZ. In Christchurch, his visit in Christchurch is hosted by the University of Canterbury.

Day began with welcome from Sarah Jane Saravani including usual housekeeping matters.

First keynote from Dr. Ally on ‘global action in terms of mobile libraries and mobile learning’. A change from the library itself being mobile to students being mobile and wanting to access learning anytime and anywhere. In much of Asia & developing countries there is a direct move into the information highway is wireless and therefore mobile. Concerted national and international moves into harnessing mobile services (banking, , libraries, education etc.) to reach populations who currently are disadvantaged by lack of access to mainstream (wired) technology. In education, important to not only provide mlearning but also other student services (leanring support, library etc.) which support their learning.

Then a session on ‘implementing mobile library, mobile learning and preparing the business case’ focused on strategies possible to leverage mobile learning in NZ. Classrooms & workplaces without walls and countries without boundaries along with students expecting access to learning are already here now. Uses Patti Mae’s TED presentation as an example of where technology is moving towards including technology as sixth sense. To cater to nomadic computing, a nomadic environment needs to be considered. Instead of a digital divide, there is more a learning divide, caused by lack of access to mobile wireless devices. Therefore, need to account for move into the wisdom age, a progression from agriculture, industrial, information and knowledge age.

Second keynote on’ effective practice with m-learning in tertiary and vocational education, trends, measures and emerging resources. Need to break content into small chunks, design as learning objects, store in repositories for easy access and metatag, retrieve and reuse. Intelligent learner objects the next step in order for student learning to be maximised. In presenting learning content, need to chunk to prevent info. overload, use advance organisers to help process details, dual-coding hypothesis – present in both visual and textual/verbal and use concept/information maps to assist in organising the information. A example of one mobile phone for everything from collegemobile with an example from the University of Saskatchewan (iUsask) who have set up an iphones app for use by their students to easily access their class notes, timetables, records (grade book) which provides assignment feedback, news at the university, library catalogue, campus map linked to Google maps & GPS, webcams situated around the university, events including up & coming workshops on academic skills etc., link to research news, podcasts, online videos, search facility of university site & campus facilities, recreation facilities, updates on latest campus news, student journal, individual faculty contact, news, video blogs etc. plus a feedback button to allow users to provide recommendations on how to improve the app. MIT has a similar system which is open source which can be customised by individual institutions.

wikinomics & becta's latest report

A book by Don Tapscot & Anthony D. Williams called Wikinomics (available via Amazon & ereader) provides a look at how business practices are being changed by the way in which commercial enterprises have started to use Web 2.0. In education, we are on the cusp of tapping into the capabilities for collaboration that are a hallmark of Web 2.0. Business enterprises have started to use the capabilities of Web 2.0 to make use of the social networking to enhance their bottom line. The story provided in the first couple of pages of the book is an illuminating example of what can happen when you share information and ask for help. It describes how, in 2000, a gold mining company used the open source idea of developing the Linux operation system to provide access via their website to all the geological information that they had available. A large prize was offered to the participant who could find the most likely place to mine for gold that would yield good returns. The data was then taken on by other geologist as well as a whole raft of students, consultants, mathematicians, experts in physics, intelligent systems, computer graphics etc. who all came up with many targets for exploration, 50% of which the company itself had not previously identified. 80% of the new targets yielded substantial quantities of gold!

The above is brought into focus by the release by Becta of volume two of their Emerging Technologies in Learning series. There are articles on emerging trends in social software in education by Lee Bryant, learning networks in practice by Stephen Downes, the challenge of new digital literacies by Jo Twist with Kay Withers, how to teach technology by Marc Prensky, computer games in education (two articles, one by Keri Facer, Mary Ulicsak & Richard Sandford & the other by Tim Dumbleton) and ubiquitious computing by David Ley. In the first volume, mobile learning, the ambient web, human computer interaction, social networking and the broadband home were covered. There is therefore a definite move towards mobility, ubiquity, social networking and Web 2.0. Aligned with the aspects of social connectivity and networking are the underlying currents for personalisation. People want to choose who they connect with and how they socialise and learning within networks.

I need to think the various concepts through so that I can better align the mlearning project I am working on towards encouraging more learning amongst my apprentice groups. How can we connect, using mobile phones as the main tool, so that individuals in the group can have access to each other’s ePortfolios. At present, downloading of the personal portals we are trialling is very difficult and expensive on mobile phones. Perhaps we need to build portfolio show and tell sessions into year 2 and 3 block courses using the facilities we have available at CPIT. Will access to viewing the ePortfolios of other apprentice lead to better portfolios, more reflection of one’s own portfolio? I think it will but the mechanism to allow this to happen needs to be easy to use, cost effective and still provide privacy for apprentices who prefer to keep their portfolio to themselves.

Also need to think through how to package the above information into an accessible form for tutors here at CPIT. Tutors with limited awareness of how the web has changed are totally overwhelmed by the new concepts. This is proving to be a barrier to their uptake of Web 2.0 type technologies to enhance their teaching as they cannot see the applications until they become familiar with at least one aspect of web 2.0 (ie blogging or using flickr or an RSS feed).

Keynote presentation at Industry Training Federation forum

Yesterday, I presented a keynote on the Impact of technology on future skill needs: Mobile phones and workplace assessment by the Industry Training Federation (ITF).
I have presented at most of the ITF’s vocational education research forums and it is a good yearly catch up with the NZ industry training area.

The ITF is a collaborative organisation that all the Industry Training Organisations (ITOs) in NZ belong to and support. It is staffed by a small number of staff who have the brief to bring the ITOs together in a synergistic way. The ITF has completed several research projects on industry training in NZ and represents the ITOs as a collective body to lobby the NZ government for ongoing support of industry based training.

This year, there was a range of interesting papers on encouraging young people into trades based careers, workplace literacy & numeracy issues, building capacity in industry training research, forecasting skill demand and labour market information and skills development. On the research front, the ITF have connections to the National Centre of Vocational Research (NCVER) in Australia.

My keynote was the first presentation & because my project was a mashup of mLearning, ePortfolios and Web 2.0, I spent some time introducing the audience to these concepts before presenting the findings of the various trials undertaken thus far with my mLearning project. The audience was very receptive to the use of mlearning in workplace learning. There were many questions from the floor at the end of my presentation & many people caught up with me between sessions to ask more questions & to learn more about the CPIT project.

The knowledge level in the audience on technology was mixed, with some having a good handle but the majority only using technology via email and PC based applications. There was a smattering of knowledge about web 2.0 but many were not users of or contributors to Web 2.0 applications. For instance, many people recognised the name wikipedia, but did not know how it was put in place & that they could also contribute to wikipedia or set up their own wikis.

There really seems to be a niche for good ‘technology stewards’ to help bring relevant technology into areas like industry training. Many industries are users of technology in a workplace setting but not for staff training. There are also many industries where mlearning and even just msupport would be a good way to connect with and engage workplace learners. It’s an area I will bring up with the ITF in the near future.

Moving mLearning forward

I have been thinking about how to move on with mlearning over the last couple of months. This has come about as my mlearning trials have started to pay off and I now have firmer ideas of how to go about delivering mlearning supported distance learning courses & mlearning based eportfolio compilation. Next year, we will pilot what we have been trialling. I will be evaluating and re-evaluating the various ways in which we will go about delivering the courses & compiling eportfolios.

I have been dipping in & out of several books on eportfolios, globalising and ubiquitous computing over the year. They are all providing me with food for thought so that I can work at sorting out how we can move mlearning further along.

Thomas L. Friedman “”The world is flat” is a good read about the way in which technology is changing society and the pace at which globalisation is moving. From an educator’s point of view, it opens up many challenges and possibilities.

Adam Greenfield’s “Everyware: the dawn of ubiquitious computing “is another interesting read. His concept of ubiquitous computing predicts that we will be surrounded by ‘smart buildings, smart furniture, smart clothing’. We will be wireless, networked and tagged whether we want to or not. I am not sure if I will want to be as connected as the image he portrays. However, parts of the future he envisions are already with us. We can either ignore it, allow it to creep into our lives or keep up with the play & contribute to the concept in a more educated way.

Elizabeth Hebert’s “Power of Portfolios” & Deborah Meire & others “multiple intelligences & portfolios” are both books that provide examples of how portfolios are used to build up rapport with students and to allow the narrative of the student’s learning to come through in the form of the portfolios that they have put together.
This is also supported by work by many in early childhood & primary education, an example from Buckland’s Beach School in Auckland being Ian Fox’s learning to learn model.

These are three different but intertwined areas. John Seeley Brown’s work provides some direction for educators. He brings together ideas learnt from many organisations on now to ‘manage knowledge’ and increase innovation to counter some of the disadvantages wrought by globalisation on developed countries. Some of solutions involve the use of socially networked software (much of Web 2.0) and the ability to harness the power of many. Eportfolio’s are one way for individuals to collate their strengths (especially innovation and creativity) into an accessible form that can be readily showcased.

The Press (local Christchurch paper) had a front page article on how schooling would change in the next 20 years. (oct. 12th 2006) They were summarising a report made to the Ministry of Education about the future of education in NZ. There was a distinct move to student centred learning and a move away from the current ‘factory’ model of schooling. mLearning mashed with Web 2.0 applications are one way to provide ready made / relatively low cost tools for progressing the vision of schooling without walls.