Mobile Business Group :: Blog

Of interest to any project looking to deliver high qaulity learning to mobile managers and exec. ed students. 

Mobile Learning and MBAs 

Quote :

"The service will work as a supplementary learning aid and will allow taking quick tests on specific subjects, access wordlists/ flashcards, quick tips on math and logic etc. The interactive nature of the medium makes it possible to provide quick and personalized feedback from the trained faculty of IMS. Further, a student will also get help to figure out eligibility across institutes and universities in and outside the country. Eventually, this service will also facilitate greater interaction within the student community."

Didn't we discuss something similar at the last meeting?

Simplifying the service to delivery of flashcards, glossaries and quick to digest Key data and facts is I believe of fundamental improtance to the success of any joint OU/Emerald/Crandfield/LBS tie-up.

Some insight into the kinds of projects JISC are looking to fund in the upcoming (April 07) round of submissions.

JISC April 07 Roadmap

The call that caught my attention, and the one I think we might have a chance with, was this one:

e-Learning : Cross Insitutional use of e-Learning to support Lifelong Learning.

"Regional and collaborative projects to pilot the use of e-learning to support lifelong learning, including the support of progression and workplace learning, and the provision of flexible delivery and personalised learning experiences. "

There is also quite a bit of information available about the projects currently underway. We need to be careful to not to make a pitch for a project that someone is already developing. See these pages for more:

Last round winners

Cross Institutional Projects for Lifelong learners already underway 

I had an Action from the last meeting to discover what areas/projects JISC currently fund that might be related to our own, when we come to bid in June.

I'm not sure if this is directly related to our own plans, but it did prompt me to think that developments in Resource Discovery methods could be quite valuable for Institutions seeking to offer Fast, accurate and contextually aware Information Services to Alumni.

One to watch I think.

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The JISC wishes to commission a project to explore and evaluate the value of cross search based on metadata and the combination of metadata and full text. The project should also explore what types of resources are best suited to cross-searching/meta-searching.

The aims and objectives of the study are:
· To conduct an evaluative study to explore what value end users gain from the different implementations of metadata and full text combinations in information retrieval/resource discovery. For example searching metadata on it’s own or metadata and full text together across resources.

· To explore the different types of resources/material that are best suited to cross searching/meta-searching e.g. searching across library catalogues, bibliographic databases and repositories. What is valuable for the user in terms of making sense of the results set. This work should build on the findings of the Contextual Resource Evaluation Environment (CREE)Project.

· To build a demonstrator to identify and exemplify the issues, challenges and benefits for end-users of search services implementing full text/metadata and cross-searching/meta-searching.

· To make recommendations for potential work within the JISC Information Environment in order to help address the associated issues including the enhancement of JISC services.

· In particular to work with the Intute Repository Search Project in order to inform developments of the repository search project.

· To report so that findings are not only relevant to JISC Services and development programmes but also so universities and colleges can use the findings to help inform their resource discovery services.

The deadline for receipt of tenders is 13.00 on Monday 21 May 2007. Funding of up to £50,000 (Inclusive of VAT and related travel and subsistence) is available for the study.

This link describes the projects recently awarded funds through the JISC Capital programme for e-learning. 

http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/programme_capital/c

Some interesting projects and worth bearing in mind when we look to develop our own proposals for the next round of awards.

30^th March, 2007. Over 80 projects, totalling more than £15m of funding, have been successful in the latest round of JISC’s capital programme, it was announced today.

The projects are being funded under e-learning, repositories and preservation, e-infrastructure, users and innovation, and e-research strands of the overarching programme, which represents an investment of some £90m over three years. The call for proposals was issued in September of last year, the second of three under the programme.

Among the e-learning projects to be funded are those that will explore administrative processes to support admissions and course validations and develop automated course descriptions. Other projects in this strand will look at further themes, including e-assessment, e-portfolios and personalised learning.

e-Research projects have as their focus community-based approaches to the further development of the national e-infrastructure, disciplinary differences and addressing the issue of the barriers to the wider adoption and take up of e-infrastructure services. The development of virtual research environments (VREs), which allow researchers to collaborate across institutional boundaries, will be supported through the funding of four further projects which will have important implications for researchers in a wide range of disciplines.

The new round of funding also sees the launch of the Users and Innovation programme. Central to the new programme is a Community of Practice, involving more than 50 institutions, which will allow more than 150 practitioners to share their thinking and collaborate on innovation to enrich the learning experience of students.

The heaviest investment in the current round of funding is being made in support of the establishment and development of institutional repositories. Nearly £5m is being awarded to more than 40 projects, including start up and enhancement projects, preservation activities, those building tools such as software, metadata, retrieval and text-mining tools, and projects building national infrastructure services.

The current round of funding follows the award of £5.5m last September and a range of other activities under the overarching capital programme, including: SuperJANET5, the upgrade to the JANET network (£27.6m); enhancements to the national e-infrastructure, including enhancements in the areas of access management, the National Grid Service and text mining (£3.6m); the establishment of 'The Depot', a repository which can host research outputs should institutions not have a repository in which to deposit (£0.5m), and collaborative activities with the Higher Education Academy in the area of e-learning (£2m). In addition, a further £12m was awarded to 16 new digitisation projects in January.

A third call for proposals, to be issued in April, will focus on e-learning, repositories and preservation and semantic services for e-infrastructure alongside a cross-programme call.

For details of the newly-funded projects, please go to: www.jisc.ac.uk/capital  

For details of the newly-funded digitisation projects, please go to: www.jisc.ac.uk/digitisation_home.html  

For further information, please contact Philip Pothen on 07887 564 006 or p.pothen@jisc.ac.uk

http://www.stanford.edu/group/edcorner/uploads/podcast/eweek070 Prominent industry leaders team up with Stanford Faculty to discuss entrepreneurial solutions to problems in the areas of international affairs, human health and the environment. They tackle world issues from a global and technical perspective beyond the usual bureaucratic approach with a special focus on developing nations.

http://mlearningworld.blogspot.com/2007/02/relevant-networking-personalgro

Anyone who is a member of LinkedIn and other business networking sites may find that these networking sites are lacking something important, relevance.

I've recently discovered a new networking site that is for professionals who are interested in personal growth. http://www.personalgrowth.com

What I like about this site over others is that, not only is it pretty much a blank slate in the forums and groups, being new, but those who have started and joined the site are passionate about sharing knowledge that will help you grow as a person, not simply business connections.

If you join PersonalGrowth.com, visit my profile and add me to your network.

mlearning m-learning mobile-learning mobile+learning podcasting iphone apple web+2.0 learing+2.0 eLearning

http://www.stanford.edu/group/edcorner/uploads/podcast/burrill0 Steve Burrill, CEO of Burrill & Co., provides an overview of the life sciences industry, reflecting on insights he has gained throughout his career. Along the way, he shares his laws of survival and anecdotes that relate the keys to his success in the areas of biotechnology, venture capital and merchant banking.

http://www.stanford.edu/group/edcorner/uploads/podcast/waldorf0 Greg Waldorf, CEO of the online matchmaking service eHarmony.com, describes the essential components of a successful entrepreneurial career. He believes that working with great people, taking risks, adaptability, passion and timely execution of plans can lead to success for entrepreneurs. He draws parallels between the satisfaction found through finding the right career path and a fulfilling relationship.

http://mlearningworld.blogspot.com/2007/02/text-message-course-helping-new Once again, language classes seem to be one of the best uses for mLearning solutions. This also shows something I've been saying for a while, mLearning is HERE, NOW! It has simply defied being labeled as such.

Text-message course helping newcomers learn English

A pen and paper aren't necessary in an Edmonton classroom where students are learning English with a new tool — text messages on their cellphones.
Under a pilot project, the students at the Mennonite Centre for Newcomers are testing "m-learning," or mobile learning, where they download an English grammar lesson, then answer a series of multiple choice, or true or false questions.

Athabasca University, a long-distance post-secondary school, created the cellphone lessons for those wanting to learn English as a second language (ESL).
"You're controlling it, which is so nice," said Tracey Woodburn of Athabasca University. "A lot of people have been telling me, 'Oh, I can do this when I am watching my kid's soccer practice or when I am on the bus coming to school.'"

'You learn where you are' The students in the class are from all over the world, many from countries where they don't have home phones, only cellphones.
"Everybody has a phone. My husband and I worked in Japan for five years teaching ESL and we were the only people in the school, out of 600 people,
who didn't have cellphones," said Woodburn.

Student Fadieh Al-Kaloti said cellphone learning works well for her. "You learn where you are — in the bus or in the train or maybe in the plane," she said. If the pilot project works, Athabasca University hopes eventually people all over the world will be able dial up English lessons on their cellphone, whether it's the LRT in Edmonton or the bullet train in Japan.