Dot Learnt

Fellow EdTechies – as much of the east coast is digging out from the first snowfall of the season, I’m here to remind you that some things do stay hot in the midst of November. Read on for the most thought-provoking topics in the edtech sphere happening all across our world:

Emerging Elements

The Silicon Valley is getting a run for its money. World Wide Web Foundation alongside Mobile Web Ghana are two organizations working together to transform Accra, Ghana into the next tech hub. The team looks to prepare participants with the tech and business skills necessary to start a successful mobile web company. The recent wave of graduates has already created 10 distinct mobile programs.

Nokia has unleashed its latest line of cell phones meant for emerging markets. The Symbian S40 class is alow-end set meant to bring Internet connection to the “next one billion” consumers throughout South Asia and Africa. The Asha 300 and 302 will be released late 2011, running between 85-115 Euros a piece, while in 2012, the Asha 200 and 201 will go for about 60 Euros a pop. Angry Birds, for all!

Tech for the Trade

Eager to find out what UNESCO is up to? Look no further. Tuesday, November 1st marks the launch for the UNESCO Open Educational Resources Platform. In this first-ever platform, users can access UNESCO publications as open educational resources. Furthermore, UNESCO/COL Guidelines on Open Educational Resources (OER) in Higher Education will highlight key issues in terms of integrating OER into higher ed. Get ready to freely use and reshare! (more…)

Early this month, the social media hegemon laid down the law and stated it was acquiring Push Pop Press, a digital bookmaker that is famed for their dynamic digital content for Apple’s ipad. Dare I say it? These are not just books. These are elegant, visually teasing, intellectually stimulating packages of knowledge.

So what’s the deal? Is Facebook trading in their status updates for a bunch of e-books? Not necessarily. What the multibillion-dollar company is doing though, is recognizing the growing market for e-books and asking for a piece of the pie, or at least claiming rights to it. A Push Pop representative explains how the “ideas and technology behind [their company] will be integrated with Facebook, to give people an even richer way to share their stories.”

Let’s talk e-books for a minute. As of recent, the Association of American Publisher’s released data showing e-books as the bestselling category in American publishing. Just a few months ago, Amazon came out and stated that after four years of selling e-books, they are “now selling more of them than printed books.” E-books allow users to engage in the learning process as readers dive deeply into the content with the use of multimedia and interactive text-supporting features. For example, in Al Gore’s first e-book, published and created by Push Pop Press, Our Choice allows readers to explore audio, video and interactive graphics as they read. Users become more than readers, they become a part of the story itself.

Through the fusion of access, content and connectedness individuals, organizations and governments alike are hopping on board the digital and mobile technology train. Just recently, the government of South Korea has mandated that all school-age curricula will become digitized by the year 2015. In one the New York Time’s recent opinion piece, Virginia Heffernan discusses how 65% of today’s grade-school youth will end up doing work in a field that has not even been invented yet. Such developments should only push us to embrace technology use in the classroom, as technology will help us better prepare for society’s evolution. How’s that for knocking down the bookcase?

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In the midst of summer traveling, a brief interview with Dr. Nabeel Ahmad, a Bon Education board member, learning technologist and developer at IBM and a Mobile Phone Learning Instruction at Colombia University Teacher’s College, gave me insight on the extent of how social media and mobile technology can be used to enhance learning processes. The full interview followed by highlights can be found below!

Could you briefly describe to our listeners the courses you teach at Colombia Teacher’s College?

I teach a few different courses. Mobile Phone Learning has been around for about 2.5 years, where we look at how you can use mobile phones for educational purposes. This past spring, we introduced a course called Social Media & Learning. It introduces students how they can use social media such as Twitter or LinkedIn for educational purposes. This summer we are looking at a spinoff from the Mobile Phone Learning class called Cognition and Handheld Devices. This course plans to look at general handheld devices such as tablets or portable gaming devices and how you can use them for educational purposes.

What is the ideal way that mobile phones can be used in the classroom?

I think the ideal way is for mobile phones to be used outside of the classroom. In the classroom, though, it is an excellent tool for engaging students. If you think about it, these kids are on their phones all day outside of the classroom; if you try to limit their use inside the class, it becomes difficult, but if you embrace mobile technology and use the phones as a way to engage students, you easily maintain the students’ attention. For example, a live polling could be used for students to answer questions via their mobile phones. This would prove beneficial for working around students’ shyness or cultural barriers.

I have seen many teachers use mobile technology inside the classroom and transformed students’ education. It is important to keep in mind though that mobile technology should only be used if both the educator and the curriculum are capable of supporting the technology. (more…)

The following link includes a discussion with Yusuf Estes, a famous Imam and Muslim convert regarding whether Facebook is haram (forbidden) or halal (allowed) in Islam. In Islam, there are waajib, or compulsory actions and haram actions. The realm of technology falls in the middle. Estes makes the distinction between Islam as a religion and Islam as a social custom, and the lines between the two are often blurred.

In my last blog, I explored how technology can be used creatively in Yemeni ESL classrooms. Technology in Yemen must also be used in light of cultural sensitivity. Yemen is one of the most socially conservative countries in the Arab world and these customs play out in the classroom. As a female ESL teacher at AMIDEAST in Yemen, a particular male student never looked me in the eye or handed assignments to me. He preferred to place his homework on my desk as he was leaving class. Through his writing, I learned that he was uncomfortable with studying in a class with girls. Many of my students believed that classes should be same-sex and women should not go to college or work, especially after having children.

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