As part of the Centre’s innovation fund we explored the added value of ‘crowdfunding for development’. The results of this investigation have been documented step-by-step throughout the entire crowdfunding cycle and we think it’s about time to scale up this learning journey. In collaboration with GIZ and the Common Wealth of Learning we want to engage, jointly with you, in a massive open online course (MOOC). The objective of this collective networked learning experience is not only to share what we have learned already but to build upon this knowledge and crowdsource on interesting ‘crowdfunding for development’ cases globally. If your organisation or institution is interested to explore the added value of crowdfunding than joining this MOOC might be an excellent opportunity to transform your ideas into practice. The course will run over an eight week period and will start on the 4th of May. Signing up is free and can be done here.

In the weeks before we launch the MOOC we invite you to have a look at the curriculum which entails the entire crowdfunding cycle from coming up with your crowdfunding idea to the full preparation of your crowdfunding campaign. You can read all about it in the concept note.

This MOOC adventure is for the Centre an interesting opportunity to assess the learning and knowledge sharing potential of the MOOC format in order to scale and to increase our outreach potential. It’s also in line with our strategic goal to become a more digital and connected training Centre which supports our learners with 21th digital literacy skills that are highly needed in this complex and fast changing societal context. A team of didactic experts will monitor and assess the entire learning experience and come back in this blog with an extensive MOOC learning report.

One of the key insights from this experience is that technology integration into learning is not only about the availability of devices but rather about trainers and facilitators effectively using technology. Therefore, despite all technical evolutions, trainers are the most important factor for success when using and integrating technology inside and outside the classroom. However to effectively use it, trainers firstly need to get familiar with it and acquire key competences. Media literacy is today recognized almost universally as one of the key competences in the educational system. According to UNESCO publication on Media Literacy and New Humanism, it is a basic skill that includes the individual capacity to using any media competently, a skill that supports many others.

That is why we are sharing the Mobile Learning with Tablets, a guide for trainers and facilitators interested in designing learning activities enhanced by tablet computers. The guide is available as a FREE eBook on the iBooks store for IOS.

You can also find it in PDF format on this ITCILO Community of Practice on Learning & Technology.

The guide provides a methodological framework for trainers, together with an introduction to mobile learning, mobile activities, resources for evaluating the impact of technology on learning, and a design checklist. Last but not least, it’s also possible at the end to provide feedback through an online survey.

Created within the framework of the m-Workplace Learning project, an initiative targeting the use of mobile devices for learning at work, the guide is meant to be a supporting tool for ITCILO trainers but we are happy to share it with other learning and development professionals. We look forward to hearing your thoughts, ideas and perhaps ways to make the Learning with Tablets experience even more engaging.

Alessia Messuti

With a keen eye for innovation in learning, ITCILO attended this week the annual event on mobile learning hosted at UNESCO headquarters in Paris.

Since 2011, UNESCO hosts the Mobile Learning Week (MLW) to attract education leaders, researchers and practitioners from around the world to discuss the latest practices, experiences and issues related to how mobile technology (either alone or in combination with other technologies) can enable learning and open access to education.

With more than 1000 participants coming from 70 countries this year, the conference lasts for 5 days and offers the opportunity to attend workshops and breakout presentations from learning and development experts (USAID, UN WOMEN, UNESCO, GIZ, UNHCR, OECD…), private sector representatives (Pearson, Qualcomm, Intel, Microsoft, Vodafone…) and academics (UCL, ODU, …). Last but not least, the conference is FREE of charge. therefore an attractive opportunity for all those involved in leveraging technology for education.

Why attending a conference on “mobility”?

Today over 6 billion people have access to a connected mobile device: mobile technology is changing the way we live and it is beginning to change the way we learn.
Quoting an intervention from Norbert Pachler, mobility is “a feature of the contemporary social, political, economic, political and technological world”; therefore mobile learning is “an individual habitus of learning characterized by immediate access to the world”, and using technologies to turn physical environments into learning sites (more here).

Believing that mobile methods and tools can extend the existing training capacity into diverse contexts, since 2011 ITCILO is embracing mobile learning within a range of projects to create engaging, shared and interactive learning experiences http://mobile.itcilo.org

Empowering women and girls

Despite the phenomenal growth of mobile technology, too many women and girls are still missing out on the opportunities it can deliver, especially in education. For this reason, the MLW 2015 is focusing on leveraging technology to empower women and girls and it is jointly organized with UN WOMEN, the UN organization founded in 2010 dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women.

Some of the highlights from key note presenters:

Chery Blair, Chery Blair Foundation for Women: “Education for women has benefits not only for women themselves, but also for their families and local economies. An educated woman will know her rights, will pass the value of education to her children, and will generate economic development for the local community”.

Patience Stephens, Special Advisor on Education at UN Women: “It’s time to make sure technology is available to women, both in the classroom and especially where women are. Let’s make sure we create an enabling environment for women to use technology. Investment in devices and infrastructure is important, but then it’s necessary to provide the right conditions”-.

Irina Bokova, Director-General of UNESCO: “L’innovation ne vient pas de la technique, mais de l’usage…. Il faut expander l’acces aux femmes”.
How can mobile learning address these issues and contribute to improved educational conditions for women? At MLW 2015 various stakeholders examined how we can best utilize mobile devices to achieve gender equality in education across four sub-themes:

– Equitable access (How can access to technology be expanded to ensure women participate equally in mobile learning?);
– Gender-sensitive content and pedagogy (What gender-sensitive mobile content and instructional approaches have worked well?);
– Literacy (How can mobile learning interventions break through barriers and promote literacy for women and girls in ways that are sustainable and scalable?
– Skills development (How can mobile technology help women develop twenty-first century skills and promote gender equality in society at large?

One Take away project:

At the conference I had the opportunity to meet Cliff Schmidt, Executive Director of Literacy Bridge, an American- Ghanaian NGO whose mission is to empower children and adults with tools for knowledge sharing and literacy learning. At the heart of their program is the Talking book:, an innovative low-cost audio computer designed for the learning needs of illiterate populations living in the poorest areas in the world. The Talking Book is a mobile device and as such it’s small and portable, and built to survive life in dry dust storms and tropical rain. The device’s simple interface allows anyone to listen to audio recordings on health, agriculture and education, to record new recordings and also to make copies of recording from one device to another. Most importantly, every time the device is brought to a new part of the world, instructions from the device are produced in the local language and last but not least, it does not require grid electricity, meaning people use commonly available batteries.

To have a better understanding, watch a demonstration: https://vimeo.com/8480241

Talking Book Demonstration from Literacy Bridge on Vimeo.

If interested in getting to know other m-Learning projects from MLW 2015, follow this link on ITCILO CoP on Learning, Technology and Knowledge Management: there is a special section dedicated to Mobile Learning.

Insights on collecting evidence of what works

Following the workshop on “Findings of international technology-for-education landscape reviews, and moving the field forward for collecting evidence of what works, it seemed clear that most common aspects related to mobile learning projects refer to the fact that they are not cost-effective and therefore not sustainable; they are not replicable and it’s difficult to measure their impact on learning outcome.

From a landscape review conducted by GIZ and USAID on mobile for numeracy and mobile for reading, these are the most common findings:

– There is a general lack of evidence on learning outcomes;
– There is no comparison available between mobile technology and other technologies;
– There is limited evidence on general pedagogic frameworks;
– There is need for rigorous M & E;
– There is a prominent need for sharing and dissemination.

To comment on such issues, Molly Hageboeck, USAID hold a session on how to conduct impact evaluations and how research design can combine with field projects. Here below few resources worth sharing:

– USAID Technical note on Impact Evaluation providing an approach to producing high-quality impact evaluations across many fields;
– Impact Evaluation in Practice, an interactive textbook from the World Bank on quasi-experimental impact evaluation design.
– Integrating Human Rights and Gender Equality in Evaluation: Towards UNEG, a reference for ensuring that gender is considered at all stages of an evaluation.

Among the comments from the audience, two contributions are worth sharing:

– We don’t deal with controlled environment but with “messy” environments. How is it possible to set right control groups in evaluation? How is it possible to set up research and evaluation frameworks that take into account the complexity of the environments we deal with?
– It’s hard to measure the impact of technology in education as there are many variables involved. There is no technology effect as such and there are very diverse ways in which technology can shape learning. What’s the specific impact we are looking for?

People learn in different ways. Some of us like reading or feel the urge to rewrite important information; others seem to retain a lot of visual information. But whilst reading and writing are always present in learning and training, visual information generally isn’t. Yet there are reasons enough to start integrating visual aids more consistently.

Not only would we help ‘visual learners’ by doing so. We could all benefit from combining different senses to retain information. Not to forget that using visuals simply makes things less boring, and thereby motivates people to pay closer attention. Fortunately, due to the rise of technology, integrating visuals becomes easier than ever.

This year’s International Training of Trainers Forum focused on visualisation. Next to including sessions about visualisation techniques (graphic recording, digital storytelling and the use of apps), we also tried to be as visuals as possible in our own preparation and communication. Therefore different tools were used.

When preparing for the different sessions, we used visual templates to structure our session plans. Upon request, we shared the templates in an online community on Facebook (RosViz10)

The templates for the session plans were made with Piktochart, as were the agendas for the second and the third day. Piktochart is an online programme designed to make info graphics. A PRO account is needed to save your products in PDF and to import more than 20 own images. But also with the free version you have a lot of possibilities to design your own products. Disadvantages being that you can only save as JPEG and that you can only upload 20 own images. At first the website seems very intuitive and user friendly, but when saving your product frustrations arise. Often elements are moved in your saved version, but you don’t see this on your worksheet. This makes that you have to guess how to move an element in your worksheet to set it right. Another disadvantage is that the options for graphs and maps, although the most extensive and flexible I have seen among similar programs, are still limited. In the end a lot of creativity (combining different elements, using elements for a different purpose than they were meant for…) is needed to finish a nice product.

Also the lay-out for an overview of the different visual elements that can be manipulated (https://magic.piktochart.com/output/3084825-visual) and a document about different learning styles (https://magic.piktochart.com/output/3193531-learning) were made in Pictochart.

The agenda for the first day on the contrary, was hand drawn. And the agenda for the last day was hand drawn on a tablet, using the free application Sketchbookx . Since I did not have a tablet pen, I used my own fingers to make the drawing. Therefore my experience was that ‘real life’ drawing still is easier and more satisfying. But as already mentioned, I do think the use of a tablet pen could change this. In any case, the big advantage of the tablet is that you can easily correct mistakes. This also makes the colouring a lot easier. Besides that you can make unlimited copies in order to change some elements, where in real life, you always have to start all over again.

What else did we do? We designed and produced a magnetic  timeline that can be used on a whiteboard and as a whiteboard (the timeline itself is writable). This timeline was used during a session about the history of visuals in learning.

Furthermore, most sessions were initiated by showing a video to give participants a general idea and feeling about the content of the session. Images that contained core information about the different sessions were printed on posters and put up in the room during the whole 4 day long training.

During all group works participants were asked to use visualization (collages, mind mapping, showing video’s and pictures, drawing…). But also the elective sessions were specifically about visualization techniques. One group learnt the principals of visual facilitation. The ‘I can draw’ philosophy seemed to work as all of the participant had nice and clear end products and were proud to present them. The second group got a crash course on digital storytelling (including making a storyboard, selecting images and music and recording voices). I think I speak for all when I say that I was amazed by the quality of the videos they made in such a short period of time. Programmes that were use are Videoscribe and audacity.

The last group experimented different applications on the tablet (Sketchbookx, Skitch (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/skitch-snap.-mark-up.-send./id490505997?mt=8; https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.evernote.skitch&hl=nl) and Mind Mash https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/mindmash/id364617744?mt=8). It took more time that thought to master these different apps. In the end there was concluded that the best technique was to combine the different apps. For example: Mind Mash is very easy and you can replace boxes and arrows, but you cannot use colours. An image originally created in Mind Mash can thus be imported in Skitch or in Sketchbooks to insert colours and make more advanced drawings.

In the elective session it was asked how this tablet applications add value to what we can already do on computers. The thrust is that, indeed, similar programs to be used on computer exist. But they don’t give you the opportunity to snap a picture and immediately start drawing and commenting on it. It is also way more convenient to start taking rapid notes on your tablet during a lecture or on a crowded bus-ride than to bring and take out your laptop. At last it is very hard to do a nice drawing using just your mouse and keybord. Unless of course you have a touch screen computer (which most of us don’t have) or one of these expensive drawing pads you can connect to your computer (which usually only people with a graphic profession have). I think we all have experience with paint and we can agree that it’s just not that. I used again the tablet and the Sketchbookx application to make drawings for the informal economy academy, and I can confirm I would never have been able to do these on computer or by hand.

The drawings were used to give a face to the different types of informal and formal workers and to clarify the conditions of informal work during a role playing game. Some examples:

Leen De Kort

– The creation of more interactive and engaging technology enhanced experiences inside and outside the classroom setting. (cf. polls, surveys, audience response systems, evaluation, …) + the amplification of the learning outside the classroom by setting up backchannels.

– The need to initiate pre- and post-activities / field assignments that could not be achieved in the traditional classroom setting using contemporary technologies.

– The extension of the learning activity before and after a face-to-face training session

– The visibility that a contemporary training centre uses innovative mobile and flexible learning technologies.

– The transition towards a paperless strategy for all learning materials and resources. This aims to increase efficiency in the training processes by cutting costs linked to paper-based material printing, storage, transport etc.

Jointly with the Open University of The Netherlands we explored diverse methodologies on how to go about the implementation of these mobile learning methodologies. A first practical classification to diversify our mobile learning activities was used in the following way:

1. How can we enhance productivity ? (taking notes, making mindmaps, …)
2. How can we give flexible access to content? (access to resources, links, presentations, documents, group works)
3. How can we capture and integrate data? (surveys, evaluation polls, pictures, …)
4. How can we increase communication and collaboration? (backchannels, fora, social networks, …)

With this preliminary classification we started to identify the necessary apps that matched with the chosen functionalities. The e-padagogy wheel gives you quite a big overview of different apps but for our pilot we limited ourselves to 10.

In order to evaluate the added value of learning with tablets we will use the SAMR model. An excellent framework to explore whether we are doing really new things in new ways, and not as Marc Prensky emphasised a while ago : ‘doing old things in old ways’, ‘doing old things in new ways’ or ‘doing new things in old ways’. More updates on this mobile learning project later on.

Picture below: Official launch of the ‘Tablets for Learning’ initiative by Alessia Messuti (Mobile Learning Specialist) and Alice Vozza (Activity manager Green Economy Academy )

Learning and knowledge sharing is not just about combining relevant subject matter expertise with appropriate learning methodologies and technologies. It’s more and more engaging in a process of transformational learning where new approaches with specific patterns, principles and flows bring inter-disciplinary perspectives together to address complex inter-related challenges.

On October 6th and 7th a group of complexity experts will gather at the Centre to tackle this paradigm and come up with a roadmap that will guide us on how transformational learning can be embedded in the learning approach of the Centre, starting with a specific focus on gender and diversity issues.

While we are preparing this meeting we would be interested if you can share with us links, resources, insights on:

– Complexity adaptive thinking applied to learning and knowledge sharing
– Guidelines on how to integrate and use complex learning methods (future search, change lab, deep democracy, appreciative inquiry, social network analysis, …)

The focus group meeting will be prepared and documented on the following wiki “Transformational Learning” and we will integrate your contributions.

In case you are interested to obtain a set of compass cards fill in the following form. You will be contacted shortly after with additional instructions:
[contact-form]

This year we will participate to highlight some of our Mobile Learning Practices experienced in Uganda, Kenia, Tanzania and Zambia with a very specific focus on ‘youth’ and ‘entrepreneurship‘.

A joint ILO – ITC-ILO team will be present to capture good practices during the conference and will document them here in this blog to share with you.

If you are interested in specific trends, tools and technologies, let us know and we will capture them for you. Based on our recent projects and applied research we are very interested in the following teams:

– crowdfunding sustainable learning solutions through the enhanced use of social media

– interactive pedagogical scenario’s through sms based low end mobile devices in rural settings

– applying ‘design thinking’ methodologies in the field of e-learning and mobile learning for development.

What are you interested in?