mLearning
Europeana Open Culture app
Europeana, Europe’s digital library, museum and archive, has launched its first free iPad app. Europeana Open Culture introduces the public to hand-picked and beautiful collections from some of Europe’s top institutions, and allows people to explore, share and comment on them.
The app provides an easy introduction to Europe’s glorious art treasury through five specially curated themes: Maps and Plans, Treasures of Art, Treasures of the Past, Treasures of Nature and Images of the Past.
Europeana Open Culture presents stunning visual collections with large images - great for those smaller details - and a comment option that opens up the possibility for dialogue between many people exploring the same images.
The 350,000 images available through the app come from collections as diverse as:
- Royal Botanic Gardens, Edinburgh, UK
- Rijksmuseum, The Netherlands
- National Library of Poland
- The Archaeological Museum, Portugal
- Bulgarian Academy of Sciences
- Digital Library of the Spanish Ministry of Defence
All images included are either in the public domain or are openly licensed.
The app is built on the Muse platform. The platform’s code is open source, so, it is completely free to use and improve.
Open Educational Resources and Mobile Technology to Narrow the Learning Divide
As the world becomes more digitized, there will be an increasing need to make available learning resources in electronic format for access by information and communication technologies. The question education will face is whether these learning resources will be available for learners to access at no cost or affordable cost, so that there will be equity in access by anyone regardless of location, status, or background. ground.
Mohamed Ally (Athabasca University, Canada) and Mohammed Samaka (Qatar University, Qatar) analyse in the paper “Open Educational Resources and Mobile Technology to Narrow the Learning Divide”, published by the International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, how the use of mobile technology to deliver OER will provide equal opportunity for everyone to learn, by allowing access to educational materials from anywhere and at any time.
Application for Android to learn foreign languages
Fiszkoteka.pl is an educational portal that converts the flashcard learning method (i.e. with little pieces of paper bearing information on both sides) into a multimedia online experience.
Vision in an Increasingly Mobile World
'Vision in an Increasingly Mobile World', an event organised by the British Machine Vision Association (BMVA), will be held on 15 May 2013 in London, UK.
Modern mobile computing creates interesting opportunities and challenges for computer vision research. This meeting will bring together researchers and practitioners, from both industry and academia, interested in all aspects of mobile computer vision - be it within consumer devices, autonomous/embedded systems or novel deployment domains.
19th EUNIS Congress - ICT Role for Next Generation Universities
The 19th edition of the EUNIS Congress is an ICT conference centered on the theme of higher education in Europe, which will be held in Riga (Latvia) from the 11-14 of June 2013.
EUNIS 2013 is the 19th congress in a series of conferences aimed at audiences from higher educational institutes. The following keynote speeches will be the centerpiece of this year's event:
- Richard Katz (President at Richard N. Katz & Associates) -
- "IT Leadership and Governance for Next Generation University"
- Voldemar A. Innus (Owner and principal of VAI Consulting, Pendleton, NY, USA) -
- "Innovation, incubation and the future of ICT in support of the academic mission"
- Ian Dolphin (Executive Director at Sakai Foundation)
- "The CIO and Finding the Future Technology Ecosystem Fit For Your Organization"
- Dr.Jan-Martin Lowendahl (Research Vice President at Gartner, Higher Education Strategies)
- "Opening Up Education – The European Commission initiative towards more ICT and OER in Education and Training Systems in Europe"
- Ricardo Ferreira (Policy Officer at European Commission)
- "Technological Tools for distance Collaborations"
- Greg Palmer (Executive Director at University of Pennsylvania, MAGPI (the Mid-Atlantic Gigapop in Philadelphia for Internet2))
- "Current status of Open Source and Kuali for administrative systems and the “Marketecture of Community”"
- Jennifer L. Foutty (Executive Director at Kuali Foundation)
- "Management Trends in Educational Institutions"
- Greg Mathers (RTU Riga Business School,Director of Accel Performance Consulting)
- "TERENA initiatives and the future of online video in Higher Education"
- Vicente Goyanes (Head of IT-Media technical assistance for University of Vigo & Campus do Mar, member of the TERENA Technical Committee and the Opencast Boarda)
Leading a Multiple Project Mobile Learning Initiative: The Approach at Boise State University
Many colleges and universities have launched wide-ranging, device-specific mobile initiatives or invested substantial resources to make services mobile friendly in a platform-neutral manner. For others, a more measured approach toward integration of mobile devices can be a reasonable and pragmatic way forward.
Faculty and staff from a number of units within Boise State University convened in Fall 2010 to develop a series of specific recommendations that would allow for the development of one or more innovative, technology-based projects across campus. In 2011, the task force submitted a proposal titled “Mobile-Learning for Boise State: A Proposal to Catalyze Transformation in Teaching and Learning.”
This paper published by the EDUCAUSE Research Bulletin describes a number of projects that have emerged from the mobile learning initiative.
The full article is also available here, at the Boise State University Scholar Works archive.
UNESCO Policy Guidelines for Mobile Learning
The “Policy guidelines for mobile learning” developed by UNESCO seek to help policy-makers better understand what mobile learning is and how its unique benefits can be leveraged to advance progress towards Education for All.
UNESCO believes that mobile technologies can expand and enrich educational opportunities for learners in diverse settings. Yet most ICT in education policies were articulated in a pre-mobile era and they do not seek to maximize the learning potentials of mobile technology. The rare policies that do reference mobile devices tend to treat them tangentially or ban their use in schools.
Today, a growing body of evidence suggests that ubiquitous mobile devices – especially mobile phones and, more recently, tablet computers – are being used by learners and educators around the world to access information, streamline administration and facilitate learning in new and innovative ways.
Developed in consultation with experts in over 20 countries, UNESCO’s “Policy guidelines for mobile learning” have broad application and can accommodate a wide range of institutions, including K–12 schools, universities, community centres, and technical and vocational schools.
Policy-makers are encouraged to adopt UNESCO’s policy recommendations, tailoring them as necessary to reflect the unique needs and on-the-ground realities of local contexts.
The document was presented during the UNESCO Mobile Learning Week 2013, held from 18 to 22 February in Paris.
Smartphones for Seniors
Smartphones for Seniors (S4S), is a Portuguese collaborative R&D project coordinated by Microsoft, which provides mobile services technology adapted to the senior population.
This project furnishes better communication tools for the elderly, by taking advantage of the Windows Phone 7 new user interfaces and including more advanced apps such as video conferencing, chatting and social networking integration (Facebook and Twitter, for example).
A scope of apps/services is included (with information on: pharmacies’ locations and working hours, dictionary, weather, and trip advisor/planner), as well as services of a more personal nature (such as: reminders and management of electronic prescript medications, list of tasks, schedules and reminders made by the senior, or family members and caregivers, 'take me home,' with directions on how to return home or how to ask for help; 'my diet', with information on nutrition, food and recipes recommended), and playful applications for entertainment purposes, such as word games, chess and games such as on-line "quizzes".
DisCo 2013: New technologies and media literacy education - special offer for CEI countries
Conference sub-themes:
Information and media literacy and knowledge management
Information and media literacy and lifelong learning
Information and media literacy in different cultures and environm
Information and media literacy and emerging technologies and tools (Web 2.0)
Information and media literacy in the future (Web 3.0, mobile technologies)
Gamification of learning and education
Information and media literacy and legislation, copyrights
Information and media literacy and libraries
Collaborative learning through technology
Digital badges in learning and education
Blended learning trends
Assessment and evaluation of learning process (Learning analytics)
Thanks to the grant from the CEI (Central European Initiative) we are able to offer special fees.
First 18 participants from the CEI countries whose abstracts will be chosen by the program committee, we have a special offer: