New open access journal on PBL to be launched in 2012

This is a call for papers for the newly established peer reviewed Journal of Problem Based Learning in Higher Education (PBLHE) to be launched in winter 2012/spring 2013.

PBLHE will be launched to provide an opportunity for scholars from all disciplines to publish:

• High-quality research articles that contribute to the current and future development of problem-based learning in higher education.
• Review articles examining the development of problem-based learning in higher education.
• Articles examining the intellectual, pedagogical and practical use value of PBL or which extend, critique or challenge past and current theoretical and empirical knowledge claims within PBL in higher education.
• Articles examining theoretical, pedagogical and practical aspects of how networked technologies or ICTs can be used to support or develop problem-based learning.

The coverage of the journal includes, but is not limited to:

• Principles and philosophy of PBL in Higher Education.
• The pedagogy of PBL.
• PBL and everyday practice.
• PBL management and policy-making.
• PBL and workplace cultures.
• Critical PBL.
• PBL, ICT and technology-enhanced learning.
• PBL and networked learning.
• PBL internships and cooperative education.
• PBL and intercultural studies.
• Interdisciplinarity and PBL.

For full details of the editorial criteria and comprehensive instructions on how to submit a paper, please consult the journal’s author guidelines. However, for this very first issue of the Journal of Problem Based Learning in Higher Education we ask authors to send an abstract (between 250-500 words) as an indication of interest. Based on the abstracts the editorial board will notify authors of acceptance and invite them to submit a full paper for the first issue (or suggest publication for a later issue). All abstracts and full papers will go through a peer review process.

Please send the abstract to: Thomas Ryberg (ryberg@hum.aau.dk) by the 15th of June 2012.

Upon acceptance the editorial board will send further information on the submission procedures. A tentative schedule for the process will be:

• 15th of June: Submission of abstract/indication of interest
• 1st of July: Notification of acceptance for submitting full paper (full paper will go through review)
• 1st of November: Submission of full paper
• 15th of December: Reviewers’ response and editorial decision
• 1st of February: Submission of revised papers (if needed)
• 1st of March: First Issue to be published

For more information please visit the journal web page

If you have any questions or comments please contact: Thomas Ryberg

Editorial board of Journal of Problem Based Learning in Higher Education:

• Prof. Anette Kolmos (UNESCO Chair in Problem Based Learning), Aalborg University, Denmark
• Prof. Anthony Williams, Newcastle University, Australia
• Prof. Erik De Graaf, Delft University, Netherlands & Aalborg University, Denmark
• Prof. Erik Laursen, Aalborg University, Denmark
• Prof. Lars Bo Henriksen, Aalborg University, Denmark
• Prof. Madeleine Abrandt Dahlgren, Linköping University, Sweden
• Prof. Paola Valero, Aalborg University, Denmark
• Prof. Yves Mauffette, The Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM), Canada
• Associate Professor Khairiyah Mohd. Yusof, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Malaysia
• Associate Professor Thomas Ryberg, Aalborg University, Denmark
• Assistant Professor Diana Stentoft, Aalborg University, Denmark

The University of Juväskulä is famous for it’s architecture, most prominent for the Alvar Alto building – the former Institute of Pedagogics (1951-1957) Juväskulä also holds the beautiful Alvar Alto museum, with an extensive collection of Aalto’s life’s work and personal history, shown in different scale models, drawings, design objects and pictures.

Programme
Two colleagues from University of Oulu, Dr Marianne Kinnula & Dr Tonja Molin-Juustila, opened the seminar with a keynote speech on Technological changes and user participation. Jung researchers presented position papers through three slots, followed up by group discussions. The discussions unfolded with great interest, great enthusiasm and fruitful insight. After this Professor Ellen Christiansen framed the discussions with a plenary speech on values education.

On the second day the editors met one-to-one with authors for the ScandLE book. Meanwhile the rest of the participants joint a workshop. The aim was to identify and discuss three topics;

• What connects us and what do we share?
• What concepts and issues interest us?
• What kind of projects can be formed as a continuation to ScandLE?

To sum up: The Scandle network participants at the seminar in Jyväskyla agreed, that the common ground for the ScandLE network is development of practical, theoretical and paradigmatic grounds for strategies, where teachers and learners join forces, and in response to the needs they experience gain power to influence the agenda for implementation of Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL)

The seminar was closed by a plenary speech on Dialogism, mediation and participation by
Prof. Hannele Dufva, University of Jyväskylä. All in all the two days offered a great ground for discussion and joint collaboration.

The final ScandLE seminar will take place in Copenhagen on the 15th and 16th of November 2012. The bookwork continues with final deadline for authors the 1st of July 2012, and the editors will work with publisher etc. throughout the autumn.

You can read more about the ScandLE network here

5 Thai visitors from Rajamangala University of Technology Krungthep (a vocational university in Thailand) would be in Aalborg University for a month for PBL workshop which held by PBL Academy. On 2nd May 2012, they had been at ELL for visiting. Nikorn Rongbutsri welcomed them to the lab with discussed about his experience on Aalborg Problem Based Learning. Banphot conducted a discussion about Danish society and culture as background information to understand how it supports the success of PBL implementation in Aalborg University. Thomas was a tour guide, showed them learning space in the building including classrooms, project rooms, and lounges for social activities.  They were very impressed in how ELL provides such creative learning environments for the students.

Dr John Hannon
Lecturer (Flexible and Online Learning)
Curriculum, Teaching and Learning Centre
La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia
http://www.latrobe.edu.au/ctlc/staff/hannon.html

John Hannon is visiting the e-Learning Lab during May 2012 from La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia, where he research learning technologies, teach post-graduate courses in educational research, and supervise PhD students. John Hannons research interests concern the transitions and transformations in academic work and e-learning that arise from the shift to the “networked university”, in which the university is being remade as a complex, dynamic environment that is shaped by diverse external alliances and organisational cultures. In particular John Hannon is interested in the boundaries between professional work and university learning, and the shifts in practices arising from emerging information communication spaces, including approaches to university learning in settings that extend beyond institutional boundaries. His interest, then, is in the potential for networked learning in the networked university, and the associated tensions and interplay of competing forces.

John Hannons recent work and publications have focused on the ambivalence of institutional implementations  of learning technologies in universities: for example, how to enable and build sustainable forms of e-learning in conservative technology environments, and how to connect e-learning to the fluid forms that comprise the read/write Web. His current research brings an actor-network theory (ANT) perspective to technology work, with a focus is on materialities as a way to understand and intervene in our engagement with ICTs in complex work and learning settings.

John is very much looking forward to meeting and exchanging ideas with ELL researchers.

IIC-RUB – “ICT Integration in teaching and learning across the curriculum in the Institutions of Royal University of Bhutan”

The research project is aimed at unraveling the current stand of curriculum design and delivery with ICT integration in the institutions of RUB. It is aimed at increasing capacity and ICT appropriation in higher education in Bhutan and establishing a GNH (Gross National Happiness) and ICT network between Denmark and Bhutan.

A team of researchers from Aalborg University (Pär-Ola Zander and Marianne Georgsen) in Denmark and a team of researchers from Samtse College of Education (4 members) under Royal University of Bhutan (RUB) have come together undertaking the research project titled “ ICT Integration in teaching and learning across the curriculum in the Institutions of Royal University of Bhutan (IIC-RUB)”.

Read more about the project by following this link

These were ‘Tales from the Lands of Digital Natives – A Journey to Neverland’ by Ryberg & Larsen, ‘Changing the rules of the game – experiences with Web 2.0 learning in higher education’ by Nicolajsen, and ‘Facilitating Adoption of Web Tools for Problem and Project Based Learning Activities’ by Khalid, Rongbutsri, & Buus. We made a short presentation on each paper and we had 45 minutes for discussion with the participants. They were arranged into 3 groups, 7-8 members for each. To start the discussions we put 3 statements into the groups as shown below.

• The emerging educational adoption or colonisation of social technologies is a teacher led enterprise, rather than a deep-seated student desire.
• Students should be given (and take) ownership in order to appropriate social media as valuable learning tools.
• Students need facilitation and inputs to recognise or acknowledge the educational values of social media.

We asked the participants to reflect on the questions, and we facilitated them with paper charts and post-it papers for discussion within groups. Later we asked them to put their ideas on ‘tricider.com’ which is a brain storming web 2.0 tool. Each group could access the brainstorming session by this link. We also put the link to #nlc2012 twitter to invite other conference participants to join the brain storming.

The result is…. We have some interesting points on the discussion. Please continue your reading by following the links in this text.

Call for Chapters: ICT for Development – Changing Education in Developing Countries

The research group on ICT4D invites proposals for book on Changing Education in Developing Countries. We are working on an edited book on this highly relevant topic, and we already have a significant number of contributions. We hope you would be interested in sharing some of your own research in this volume. Do not hesitate to contact the editors with proposals or questions.

Editors: Marianne Georgsen (marianne@hum.aau.dk), Pär-Ola Zander (poz@hum.aau.dk); both eLearning Lab, Department of Communication, Aalborg University.Link to http://www.ict4d.aau.dk/

Summarization
This book is a joint project for members of the research group on ICT for Development and other interested parties outside the organisation of Aalborg University. The motivation for the book is to publish ongoing and completed research within the field of ICT for Development, with a specific focus on education, teaching and learning. We welcome both conceptual, theoretical and empirical work.

Key definitions
Some key definitions which we see as common to the contributions for the book, are:

ICT: All kinds of Information and Communication Technologies, e.g. computers, mobile phones, networked technologies, stand alone technologies, etc.
Education: Formal and informal education and/or training at any level, e.g. primary and secondary school; higher education; further education; on the job-training; etc.
Learning: By learning we mean the process and results of activities and processes whether they are cognitive, physical or both. Learning is not necessarily bound to instruction or teaching.

Purpose of the book
The main purpose of the book is three-fold:

1. To provide insight and understanding into the field of education, learning and ICT-use related to both, in the context of developing countries
2. To present and discuss both theoretical and methodological approaches and issues related to both development and research in the field of ICT for development in relation to education
3. To present up-to-date research resulting from collaborations and research projects with a global outlook.

Call for chapters
Authors are invited to send a chapter proposal for the book for consideration by the editors. Both theoretical/conceptual as well as empirical work is welcome. We expect all contributions to relate to the topic of changing education in developing countries, and that contributions are academically sound. Proposals for chapters (abstracts) will be reviewed by the editors, and full chapters will undergo peer review at a later stage.
Abstracts should be emailed to the editors no later than May 1st, 300-500 words. The abstract should clearly explain the mission and concerns of the proposed chapter; introduce a possible empirical study and/or case discussed in the chapter. Expected length of finished chapters is between 6000 and 9000 words. The book will be published by Aalborg University Press.

For further questions, please contact the editors.

Important dates
Abstract due by email: May 1st 2012 (3-500 words)
Full chapters ready for review: July 1st 2012
Feedback from reviewers: End August 2012
Final version ready by Oct. 15th 2012
Book out January 2013

Brugerinteraktion, usability og sociale teknologier

Dato: 22. maj 2012
Tid: Klokken 9.00-15.00
Sted: Aalborg Universitet, Nyhavnsgade 14, 9000 Aalborg

NoEL – netværk om eLæring inviterer i samarbejde med BrainsBusiness ICTNORCOM til seminar med fokus på brugerinteraktion, usability og sociale teknologier.Ønsket er, at skabe øget indsigt i hvorledes humanistiske IT-kompetencer bidrager til at løse nogle af de udfordringer, som erhvervslivet og offentlige institutioner står overfor. Samtidigt er ønsket at vise, hvorledes Aalborg Universitet kan indgå som testsite og samarbejdspartner i forskellige former for projekter.

Dagens program er opdelt i to dele. Formiddagen byder på en bred vifte af oplæg, der omhandler visioner, udfordringer og potentialer ved forskellige former for forskningssamarbejde. Herudover vil Klaus Kaasgaard, CEO i Fundii, Inc. i Silicon Valley, via Skype fortælle om, hvordan vi kan understøtte vækst og innovation i den digitale økonomi med særligt fokus på trends, nye forretningsmodeller og professionelle kompetencer. Om eftermiddagen kan du vælge mellem tre parallelle spor med temaerne: Sociale teknologier, Usabilitytest og Design research og brugerinvolvering.

Du kan læse mere om arrangementet og de enkelte spor samt tilmelde dig her

Tilmeldingsfrist: 16. maj 2012
Sæt allerede nu X i kalenderen.

Mail: kinley@hum.aau.dk

About me

Master in Scientific Studies from University of New England, Australia in 2006. Working as a lecturer at Samtse College of Education, Royal University of Bhutan (the only university), Bhutan.

PhD description

PhD student (mixed mode – starting 1st April 2012 till 31st March 2015) on the project title “ICT Integration in teaching and learning across the curriculum in the Institutions of Royal University of Bhutan (IIC-RUB)”. The study will investigate conditions for successful design and delivery of integrated curriculum in general and in GNH infused curriculum in particular, as well as the conditions for sustainable and pedagogically sound ICT integration in the institutions of RUB.

Additional information

Back in my home institution I had been teaching Introduction to Research Methods in Education (undergraduates and post graduate students), Curriculum Theory, and Dynamics of Change. Additionally I have been involved in designing and delivering workshops in GNH, Pedagogies, and Life Skills.