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.

Reflections on 2008

It has been a busy year! I have learnt much via the mobile portfolios project. Working with the capabilities that ‘cloud computing’ offer has led to many ‘lightbulb’ moments as I come to understand the possibilities for using the many tools available online to enhance learning opportunities for students.

Attending & presenting at both mlearn2008 & handheld learning 2008 provided opportunities to network with many kindred spirits. It was heartening to hear encouragement from many people including Andy Black, Inge de Waard & Tony Bates on the concept of combining mobile with web 2.0 to compile eportfolios. I think that it does take people who have a good understanding of the concepts to appreciate what the CPIT mobile portfolios project is about.

Presenting workshops & papers at many conferences this year has made me realise how far our project is ahead. Especially when we speak to educators who have never looked a bebo page OR to enthusiastic tutors who cannot access web 2.0 sites from their workplace and have to read their student’s blogs at home! OR to teachers from schools where mobile phones are banned and who have never sent a text message. Yet, there is much room for optimism. Most people now have heard of youtube and a large majority have watched youtube videos. Youtube videos have replaced actual video tapes as the main way to entertain students when there is a lull in a theory session! It’s these tutors that I now nab to work with on using web 2.0 tools that require them and their students to become active participators & not just spectators. Students & tutors could make their own vodcasts or podcasts, work collaboratively on concept / mindmaps or comic strips as alternatives to blogging and make better use of the innate creativity their students have to learn together.

So I am looking forward to a couple of weeks of rest & re-creation. Just returned from an 8 day tramp around the Cobb Valley and now looking forward to celebrating Xmas with the family. Then another 3 day trip to Black Hill just before the New Year & a 5 day camping /tramping trip around the Mt. Richmond Forest park at the start of the year. After that it will be a good three to four weeks of thesis writing, working on the final draft J before the 2009 work year begins.