Free #Horizon2020 report out @educause good inspiration #learning #education

The Horizon 2020 report (58 pages) has been released by @educause on 2 March 2020 and it is an inspiring read for those of us looking at emerging learning designs and techniques. The report covers trends in the social, economical, political, technological and of course higher education realm and new in this report is a nice contextualization of all the different trends and technologies using visual supports. Educause is Northern America based, so most of the examples and projects they refer to are also North-America based.

This report is also more consciously covering multiple scenarios resulting from the interactions between all the different realms of society, which makes it a nuanced reflection of where learning can go in the near future. The report also links to additional reading and complementary material, e.g. articles on micro-credentials and experiential learning, [High on the higher ed agenda: alternative learning and ongoing increase of online education. High on the economic agenda: climate change and the green economy]

Download it now! Why, because it has tons of interesting links with a great synopsis for each subject. See below to get an idea of only a handful of information.

Emphasized learning technologies and practices this year:

• Adaptive Learning Technologies 
• AI/Machine Learning Education Applications 
• Analytics for Student Success 
• Elevation of Instructional Design, Learning Engineering, and UX Design in Pedagogy 
• Open Educational Resources 
• XR (AR/VR/MR/Haptic) Technologies 

Adaptive learning technologies are still hot news, as the search for effective personalized learning is still looking for practical outcomes. One of these listed in the report is the Alchemy tool by UBC (University of British Colombia, Vancouver, Canada). It is described as "Alchemy is a multi-featured online tool that supports teaching and learning in any circumstance that benefits from flexible, scalable, and feedback-rich learning alongside growing learning analytics capabilities." which basically shows where learning/teaching is moving towards in this ever more specialized-topic driven learning world.
Another adaptive example I like is from Deakin University, called the professional literacy suite, where I especially like their focus on digital skills in the first year. Which fits with the demand on data and AI savviness, communication skills.... teach those early on in higher ed curricula.

AI and Machine learning in practice still focus a lot on chatbots (which is basically turn a FAQ into feedback offered by bots). The most interesting option mentioned is the Responsible Operations positioning paper by the worldwide library cooperative (38 pages, great insights) that looks at how AI and ML are embedded in society, and how this changes all parts of society and which research agenda might address these challenges.
And the University of Oklahoma has set up PAIR (a global directory of AI projects in Higher education) ... nice!

The Analytics for Student Success are fairly similar, but the report on Ethics in Learning Analytics (16 pages) by the International Council for open and distance education is a good reference document to keep at close hand.

Elevation of learning design - pedagogy is always of interest to me. In a way, the learning design changes feel as small changes, but with big impact as a growing number of teachers and learning-related professionals are picking up digital learning tools and embedding them into their curriculum to address multiple learning challenges.
Carnegie Melon has an open learning toolbox called OpenSimon (part of the Simon initiative), a great spot to explore tools, techniques, research projects and so on (e.g. the Tetrad project which is an easy visualisation tool for data).

OER: we need more OER, but for those looking for new material, Mason OER metafinder is a great starting point.

XR technologies (extended reality) are increasingly on the rise as just-in-time workplace learning is higher on the agenda of our rapidly changing world. It builds upon prior realizations and needs to simulate emergency actions for students, e.g. augmented reality use for medical students by the University of Leiden, Netherlands.

It is a great read, good to get a fresh perspective on where we are all going.

The impact of working to your heart's content #learningDesign #MobiMOOC #inclusivity

Last week was inspiring thanks to the company I was in and the ideas that were exchanged Thank you John Traxler for organizing this wonderful workshop! My presentation was part of a multiplier event for the European MOONLITE project, looking MOOC design for refugees and migrants. A couple of days ago I realized what an impact this event had and how it affected my well-being. So why did it feel meaningful? It was the mixture of being on the road, meeting up with like-minded peers (the importance of exploring the concept of inclusivity), and suddenly realizing I was in a workshop where all presenters were female… something one rarely finds oneself in outside of the gender-circuit or designated ‘all female sessions’.
All of these factors finally got me to break out of my social media silence and see how I want to move forward.

Realizing the impact of projects that evolve out of ‘just some idea’
MobiMOOC was the eight MOOC out there and focused on mobile learning, which was also a new topic for MOOCs in April 2011. The idea of organizing MobiMOOC just came out of a wild idea, having worked on mobile learning for Sub-Saharan countries, and because I loved the experience of CCK08 the first MOOC ever.
While I was rearranging my slides for this presentation, I realized that organizing MobiMOOC resulted in quite a lot of meaningful actions and connections. To give you some idea of what was said during the talk, I am adding my slide deck here.

MobiMOOC design of a community MOOC from Inge de Waard

Being on the road
I like being on the road (though - when happens too frequently - it takes a toll on family life, creating some imbalance at home). But being on the road somehow gives me ideas, and it puts me in a mindset that feels exhilarating. Although not as exciting as Jack Kerouac’s On The Road, I do feel it has something. To me, being on the road provides ideas, and it gives a feeling of being alive. I guess my ancestors have been populated with a lot of nomads, for instance, my great grandfather who sailed the seven seas as a cook on international boats since the age of 14, and there must have been more ancestors doing the same thing. Wanderers.

Being inspired by like-minded peers
It felt so good to be in the company of inspiring peers, and to feel my heart and soul being content.
It was wonderful to meet-up with Nell Bridges (great mind, wonderful home), to finally meet up with Gabi Witthaus (I still laugh out loud with the divorce anecdote you told me), meeting Marwa Belghazi, to share ideas with Agnes Kukulska-Hulme on what I would love to be paid for (simply sharing ideas, thinking, writing them down), to meet with the always warm-hearted Daniyar Sapargaliyev who is now living in the UK with his family, trying to provide ideal surroundings for his two young sons, and of course to listen and question John Traxler who always has a different and in-depth view on academia, on life, on creating a meaningful life.

Each day I was learning and I learned from all of them, as each person I met was truly inspiring. They walk the talk of inspiring people and they work to somehow make the world a better place. How wonderful is that!

It is fascinating how you can feel what makes you tick by being surrounded by people you connect with. But most of all, each person there told me about the importance of doing something you really like. Of putting yourself out there, in whatever capacity you can (all efforts are worthwhile), and of simply being yourself.

@oebconference workshop notes and documents #instructionalDesign #learningTools

After being physically out of the learning circuit for about a year and a half, it is really nice to get active again. And what better venue to rekindle professional interests than at Online Educa Berlin.

Yesterday I lead a workshop on using an ID instrument I call the Instructional Design Variation matrix (IDVmatrix). It is an instrument to reflect on the learning architecture (including tools and approaches) that you are currently using, to see whether these tools enable you to build a more contextualized or standardized type of learning (the list organises learning tools according to 5 parameters: informal - formal, simple - complex, free - expensive, standardized to contextualized, and more aimed at individual learning - social learning). The documents of the workshop can be seen here.

The workshop started of with an activity called 'winning a workshop survival bag', where the attendees could win a bag with cookies, nuts, and of course the template and lists of the IDVmatrix.
We then proceeded to give a bit of background on the activity, and how it related to the IDVmatrix.
Afterwards focusing on learning cases, and particularly challenges that the participants of the workshop were facing.
And we ended up trying to find solutions for these cases, sharing information, connections, ideas (have a look at this engaging crowd - movie recorded during the session).
The workshop was using elements from location-based learning, networking, mobile learning, machine learning, just-in-time learning, social learning, social media, multimedia, note taking, and a bit of gamification.

It was a wonderful crowd, so everyone went away with ideas. The networking part went very well also due to the icebreaker activity at the beginning. This was the icebreaker:

The WorkShop survival bag challenge!
Four actions, 1 bag for each team!

Action 1
Which person of your group has the longest first name?
Write down that name in the first box below.

Action 2

• Choose two person prior to this challenge: a person who will record a short (approx. 6 seconds)
• video with their phone and tweet it, and a person/s who will talk in that video.
• Record a 6 second video which includes a booth at the OEB exhibition (shown in the
• background) and during which a person gives a short reason why this particular learning solution
• (the one represented by the booth) would be of use to that persons learning environment
• (either personal or professional).
• Once you have recorded the video, share it on twitter using the following hashtags: #OEB #M5
• #teamX (with X being the number of your team, e.g. #team1) . This share is necessary to get the
• next word of your WS survival bag challenge.
• Once you upload the movie, you will get a response tweet on #OEB #M5 #teamX (again with the
• number of your team).

Write down the word you received in response to your video in the second box below.

Action 3

• Go to the room which is shown in the 360° picture in twitter (see #M5 #OEBAllTeams).
• Find the spot where 5 pages are lined up, each of them with another language sign written on
• them.
• Each team has to ‘translate’ the sign assigned to their team. You can use the Google Translateapp for this (see google play, the app is free!).

Write down the translation in the third box below.

Action 4
Say the following words into the Google Home device which is located in the WS room

“OK Google 'say word box 1', say word box 2, say word box 3“

If Google answers, you will get your WS survival bag!

And although the names were not always very English, with a bit of tweaking using the IFTTT app, all the teams were able to get Google home mini to congratulate them for getting all the challenges right. 

Part 1: creating voice-activated #ID #learning #Alexa #smartclass #elearning

In this first post on the topic, I share how I installed Alexa, using a basic smarthome skill (Philips Hue) and some features that increase or limit Alexa’s search returns (e.g. playing Spanish podcasts via free radio).

Testing the Amazon Echo Dot
The last couple of weeks I have been enthusiastically using the Amazon Echo Dot (which answers to Alexa). I am trying to setup a voice operated learning hub (well, as much as possible in a relatively cheap and simple way). With each step, I will keep you updated and share what works, what did not work, and which unexpected hurdles needed to be solved. In following episodes I want to use some coding options for additional Alexa skills, combine the Echo dot with an Arduino board as well as a Raspberry Pi to see what can be done with relatively cheap computer boards, and of course in relation to IFTTT and for specific voice operated IFTTT.

Why? Because with all the Fab Labs emerging (you can locate your nearest fablab using this map), I wanted to see how much of that could be built at my home (as I will be mostly home based for the next couple of months), so I might as well work on making my home into a fab lab or at least a smart learning hub.  The Echo dot has been used in classrooms using its basic functionality, but also for some special ed purposes for communication skill practice for children withautism.

I bought my Alexa with last year’s frequent flyer miles (made it much cheaper), but you can also buy it from Amazon for 40 $  or Amazon UK for 49 £. This does mean I got the German version of the Alexa, but as I can read and understand German, that was something I could start with. Once it was installed, I could switch to English. I also got two Philips Hue light bulbs, as they would enable me to test out the smart home part of the Alexa. By using this simple Alexa in combination with existing objects (things) that react to an impulse coming either from a mobile, voice or other object, it becomes easier to feel what the Internet of Things (IoT) is really like.
With a new online course in the back of my mind (working title of the course 'instructional and learning design examples, with added academic background information'), I want to explore a more meaningful application of this Amazon Echo Bot learning hub setup.

Installing Alexa
This is super simple, and only requires an internet connection and a mobile. The mobile app (either Android  or iTunes store ) is used to control Alexa and possible other devices, e.g. the Philips Hue, Nest thermostat….

As Alexa is voice-activated, it depends on specific language. In the Amazon Echo dot I bought, it was either English (you can choose American or British English) or German. My German is not that active, so I have installed my Alexa for British English use, also because I want to install specific skills on it. Skills are conversational applications that allow you to ‘ask’ Alexa something specific and then – hopefully – get a meaningful answer in return, so a skill connects to end users via the conversational Amazon Echo platform. Reddit features anice list of skills here once you have decided to add a skill, go to the Alexa app and add it to your skills.

The name Amazon Echo Dot says it: this device is a home device that will want you to buy more from Amazon. It uses Amazon prime to play music (paid service, I don’t use it, so will share other free options soon), and you can buy a list of options from Amazon, which is why I immediately deselect the buying option in the Amazon device, I do not want to order something buy mistake or simply because some of my Flemish sounds like “Alexa, buy a supersonic airplane from Amazon”…. And it does happen that Alexa thinks I am asking her something, as she has returned uninvited answers during regular conversations at the dinner table. There is some commotion on Alexa spying, if interested you can read upon these here.

Basic Alexa features
Alexa can be used for some basic options:

• Ask a question (answer found via Bing browser)
• Ask what the weather is like (still some limitations on regions, but if you add your own town in an English voice it can give you the weather there… my town is called Aalter, it took a while before I could get the weather forecast for that particular very Flemish town.
• Ask a silly question (Alexa sing a song, do the dishes…)
• Play music (mostly paid service, but free, easy option below)
• Make a to do list (“Alexa, add write blogpost to my to do list” afterwards ask “Alexa what is my to do list”)
• Make a shopping list.
• Set a timer (“Alexa, set a timer for 10 minutes”).

In case you are not a native English speaker
If you are not a native English speaker, it is good to use Google translate, type in your word or the words you are looking for, then push the speaker button to hear how it is pronounced. After that you can choose either to perfect your English-speaking voice, or you can say 'Alexa', and type in 'search google for X' into google translate and push the audio button again to have the English version of what you are looking for. I confess, it takes a bit of practising to get a fluent mix of both actions (speaking and pushing button on time).
First steps in a smart home/learning hub
First I bought two Philips Hue lights and one Hue bridge  to get the lights to work on voice-command. That works well with the skill of Philips Hue, which you need to install to get Alexa working with it. The Philips Hue lights need to be installed with one ‘Hue Bridge’ per 50 light bulbs. This means you need to have an internet connected bridge to manipulate the Hue lights either through Alexa or through the Hue mobile app. You need to install the lights and turn on the lights first in order to be able to control them from a distance. With the Hue mobile app you can group the lights together per room, making it easier to tell Alexa which lights to turn on or off (btw you can also operate them from any location, so you can trick your partner in turning off the lights unexpectedly…. Well…. If they do not mind that joke…).

The process is simple and indicative of how the Alexa Echo Dot works:

• Address Alexa by saying her name out loud,
• Speak specific command (a command is a coded speech operand that triggers Alexa to do something specific): e.g. “Alexa, turn on lights living room” or “play Singing in the Rain’ by Gene Kelly
• And then wait for Alexa to return an answer, or in this case play that specific song.

Learning podcasts, using radio feature
Alexa is linked to Amazon, so some features simply do not work for free (no free music, as Alexa’s options are Amazon prime or Spotify pro) and the search option is linked to Bing, which does not always return useful answers. But if you like music, you can find it without having to resort to any skill by using the command “Alexa play TuniIn [followed by the name of your preferred TuneIn radio station].

e.g. “Alexa, play TuneIn Learn Spanish - SpanishPod101.com” which triggers the latest podcast of this radio station.

You can find a list of radio stations here: https://tunein.com/

Next post on this topic will be on installing a skill that you customize using Amazon Web Services and Amazon Developer services (but with the help of 'the people who know').