Ubiquitous Learning Journal Submissions

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We are accepting submissions for the next volume of Ubiquitous Learning: An International Journal.

Ubiquitous Learning: An International Journal sets out to define an emerging field. Ubiquitous learning is a new educational paradigm made possible in part by the affordances of digital media.

Ubiquitous Learning is a counterpart to the concept ‘ubiquitous computing’, but one which seeks to put the needs and dynamics of learning ahead of the technologies that may support learning. The arrival of new technologies does not mean that learning has to change. Learning should only change for learning’s sake. The key perspective of the conference and journal is that our changing learning needs can be served by ubiquitous computing. In this spirit, the journal investigates the affordances for learning in the digital media, in school and throughout everyday life.

Refereeing of submitted papers will commence shortly so start the submission process early by submitting your proposal.

Paper submission guidelines and timelines are available online.

Announcing the winner of the International Award for Excellence

document31Congratulations to Tabitha McKenzieRawiri Toia and Hiria McRae the winners of the International Award for Excellence in the area of learning and education with their paper 

Anywhere, Anytime - Creating a Mobile Indigenous Language Platform.

Abstract: A group of academics from Victoria University of Wellington has developed an innovative approach to teacher professional development.


In response to limited teaching reliever numbers in schools and heightened by a dearth of language specialists a model using video podcasts, online support and in-school facilitation was developed to advance areas of M?ori language and language acquisition amongst teachers.


This paper will examine the innovative approach to in-school facilitated language development and discuss outcomes of the project.

The Ubiquitous Learning Journal presents an annual International Award for Excellence in the area of learning and education. All papers submitted for publication in the Ubiquitous Learning Journal are entered into consideration for this award.

The review committee for the award is the International Advisory Board for the Journal and the Conference, who select the winning paper from the ten highest-ranked papers emerging from the referee process and according to the selection criteria outlined in the referee guidelines.


Scholars Test Web Alternative to Peer Review

peer1-articlelargeBy Patricia Cohen, in The New York Times

For professors, publishing in elite journals is an unavoidable part of university life. The grueling process of subjecting work to the up-or-down judgment of credentialed scholarly peers has been a cornerstone of academic culture since at least the mid-20th century.

Now some humanities scholars have begun to challenge the monopoly that peer review has on admission to career-making journals and, as a consequence, to the charmed circle of tenured academe. They argue that in an era of digital media there is a better way to assess the quality of work.

To read more…

Brave New World?

6a00d8341c562c53ef013485bd659a970c-800wiFrom Sarah Firisen, in 3 Quarks Daily

Recently, my husband received an email from a very casual acquaintance and wondered where this person lived. He Googled them, found their address and was presented, by Google Street view, with a picture of their house, and all within the space of 2 minutes. This exercise caused me to comment to him, “it must be really different dating these days” - we’ve been together 15 years - “it’s so much harder for anyone to lie anymore.”

To read more…

In With the Old

typewriter-keysBy Christina Crook, in Curator

“I love everything that’s old: old friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wine.”

You’ll find Oliver Goldsmith’s words chalked on a coffee-of-the-day board steps away from the Regional Assembly of Text — a small paper emporium that would make Ned Ludd proud. Here co-owners Rebecca Dolen and Brandy Fedoruk, grads of Emily Carr University of Art + Design, stand behind the counter of their store, a wall of cast-off industrial filing cabinets behind, assembling cards and packages with meticulous care.

To read more…

The Difference Engine: Rewriting the Brain

201032stp505In The Economist

It’s a question that’s bothered cultural critics for decades: while we know more than ever, are we getting dumber as a result of the increasing amount of technology at our disposal? Reading historical debates, and hearing of the attention paid to them by a thoughtful populace, certainly makes one wonder. Speaking in the 1820s of the mechanical Difference Engine he had devised for computing polynomial functions, Charles Babbage, the father of the programmable computer and our web-log’s namesake, told the House of Commons:

“On two occasions I have been asked [by Members of Parliament], “Pray, Mr Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?” I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.”

To read more…

Early Take on India’s $35 Tablet: ‘Fairly Impressive’

croppedtablet2By Leslie Katz, from Cnet News

Remember that $35 tablet out of India we told you about last month? If you want to see the much-talked-about prototype in moving color, a gadget show on Indian television just featured an exclusive hands-on that could help dissipate some of the skepticism about the device.

“Everybody actually said, ‘It cannot happen, a $35 tablet,’ and not only does it exist, it works and it works brilliantly,” said Rajiv Makhni, co-host of the show “Gadget Guru,” who took the computer through its paces with show cohort Vikram Chandra and then talked all aspects of the gadget with Kapil Sibal, the country’s Minister for Human Resource Development and the same guy who officially unveiled the super-cheap touch-screen device. Aimed at the country’s students, it’s being called India’s answer to Nicholas Negroponte’s famed OLPC laptop.

To read more…

Google Offers Cloud-Based Learning Engine

brain_cloud_x220From Tom Simonite in Technology Review:

From Amazon’s product recommendations to Pandora’s ability to find us new songs we like, the smartest Web services around rely on machine learning–algorithms that enable software to learn how to respond with a degree of intelligence to new information or events.

Now Google has launched a service that could bring such smarts to many more apps. Google Prediction API provides a simple way for developers to create software that learns how to handle incoming data. For example, the Google-hosted algorithms could be trained to sort e-mails into categories for “complaints” and “praise” using a dataset that provides many examples of both kinds. Future e-mails could then be screened by software using that API, and handled accordingly.

For more…

Coming Soon to a Classroom Near You: Robot Teachers?

simon-gatechresized-150x150By Meris Stansbury, in eSchool News

To help spur interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, many schools have begun to integrate robotics into the curriculum—but are younger students and their teachers ready for a new wave of robotic teaching assistants?

Many researchers and robotics experts agree that robot teachers are no longer the stuff of science fiction—they’re part of a new workforce designed to lend a helping hand to classroom teachers … whose jobs aren’t in jeopardy any time soon, experts say.

To read more…

Technology Takes Formative Assessment to a Whole New Level

promactivexp-150x150From eSchool News

Student response system (SRS) technology has caught on in classrooms nationwide as a tool for boosting class participation, as well as helping teachers ensure that students understand what’s being taught before they move on to another concept. But the current generation of the technology has its limitations.

For one thing, the lag time between student responses kills the pace of learning, says Promethean Director Tony Cann. In a typical use of the technology, the teacher poses a question to the entire class, then pauses as students answer the question on their personal “clicker” devices. This results in a lot of waiting around—time that could be put to better use.

To read more…

The Web Is Dead. Long Live the Internet

ff_webrip_chart2From  Chris Anderson and Michael Wolff in Wired:

Two decades after its birth, the World Wide Web is in decline, as simpler, sleeker services — think apps — are less about the searching and more about the getting. Chris Anderson explains how this new paradigm reflects the inevitable course of capitalism. And Michael Wolff explains why the new breed of media titan is forsaking the Web for more promising (and profitable) pastures.

For more…

Video Game Technology Embraced by Med Students: Survey

By Alan Mozes, in Bloomberg Businessweek

The vast majority of medical school students believe that technology in the form of virtual reality exercises could help them to develop the skills they will need as future doctors, a new survey reveals.

The survey of 200 medical students from the University of Michigan and the University of Wisconsin-Madison found nearly all (98 percent) believing the technology to be a definite aid to higher learning.

“Due in large part to their high degree of technological literacy, today’s medical students are a radically different audience than the students of 15 to 20 years ago,” study co-author Dr. Frederick W. Kron, a former assistant professor of family medicine at the University of Wisconsin and current president of Medical Cyberworlds, Inc., said in a University of Michigan news release.

To read more…

Why the iPod is Not Ready for College This Fall

ipad-front-back-sideBy Dianne de Guzman, in San Francisco Chronicle

School is starting in late August and already a few universities are touting their decision to make the iPad a part of the classroom, as an important tool in teaching.

Institutions such as George Fox University and Seton Hill University will give students an iPad to use this fall semester, according to Wired, in a bid to test the device at the university level — all in the name of cutting-edge technology.

To read more…

Study Questions Digital-Divide Efforts

studentatcomputerBy Meris Stansbury, from eSchool News

Two researchers at Duke University have published a draft study that raises questions about the academic value of giving students home computers and broadband internet access. Their study has led to a flurry of media coverage, with some reports trumpeting the study’s findings as evidence that efforts to close the digital divide are counterproductive. But is that what their research really says?

To read more…

E-schools See Rapid Enrollment Growth in Ohio

eschools_ohio

By Margo Rutledge Kissell, in Dayton Daily News

More than 29,000 K-12 students attend school online in Ohio, about five times more than did seven years ago.

They log into their computers from home without ever stepping into a classroom.

Some are in kindergarten.

Doug and Linda Sellers of Beavercreek took the virtual leap from the traditional bricks-and-mortar public schools when they enrolled their four children in an e-school three years ago. The couple said it was a difficult decision and a tough sell to relatives, many of whom are teachers.

To read more…

New iPrep Academy Gives Students Technology-rich Environment

By Michael Dorney, in The Miami Herald

Miami-Dade Public Schools is tightening its embrace with the 21st century by unveiling the newest addition to its magnet school fleet — the iPrep Academy.

Set to open this fall, iPrep Academy is in the district’s administration building at 1500 Biscayne Blvd. “in the heart of Miami’s business, cultural and economic landscape,” according to the school’s website.

“Geographically, it is near businesses and government organizations,” said Albert Pimienta, an administrator with the district’s Instructional Technology Department, which has been working on plans for the school. “But part of the curriculum is also an internship with a local business or government branch. Part of the students’ typical school day will be internship.”

To read more…

Announcing Plenary Speaker for 2010 Ubiquitous Learning Conference

caroline-haythornthwaite

Caroline Haythornthwaite

Caroline Haythornthwaite (PhD, Toronto, 1996) is newly appointed Director, School of Library, Archival and Information Studies, University of British Columbia. She joins UBC in August, 2010 after 14 years at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she was Professor in the Graduate School of Library and Information Science. In 2009-10, she was Leverhulme Trust Visiting Professor at the Institute of Education, University of London presenting and writing on ‘Learning Networks’, and in summer 2009 she was a visiting researcher at the Brazilian Institute for Information in Science and Technology (IBICT), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She has an international reputation in research on information and knowledge sharing through social networks, and the impact of computer media and the Internet on work, learning and social interaction. Her studies have examined social networks of work and media use, the development and nature of community online, distributed knowledge processes, the nature and constraints of interdisciplinary collaboration, and the transformative effects of the Internet and web 2.0 technologies on learning and collaborative practices. Recent work has concentrated on addressing e-learning as a socio-technical implementation for education, and also as a general, emerging practice of online, informal learning. Major publications include ‘The Internet in Everyday Life’ (2002, with Barry Wellman); ‘Learning, Culture and Community in Online Education’ (2004, with Michelle M. Kazmer), ‘The Handbook of E-learning Research’ (2007, with Richard Andrews), and ‘E-learning Research and Practice’ (2011, with Richard Andrews).

Please continue to follow our conference website here for future updates.

Ed-tech Innovators Share Their Vision for Education

alannovemberFrom eSchool News

For many educators who are veterans of past education technology conferences, the name Alan November should be familiar. A senior partner of November Learning, a consulting firm that helps school systems redesign teaching and learning for the digital age, November has spoken at numerous ed-tech shows. But readers might not know that he became an educator “by accident,” as he says.

Trained as a city planner, November’s first client after college was a reform school for boys on an island in Boston Harbor that had burned to the ground. He was asked if he’d like to teach algebra and oceanography when one of the teachers quit, and that was when he discovered that he loved teaching—and also that the current education system didn’t meet the needs of every student.

To read more and see the video of November…

Learning a Language From an Expert, on the Web

Livemocha Lesson on French

Livemocha Lesson on French

By Peter Wayner, from The New York Times

The message from the 14-year-old Tunisian skateboarder was curt. “Totally wrong,” he said of my French. My conjugation was off and I should study spelling. On a scale of one to five, he said, my French practice essay was worth a one. Then he disappeared into the anonymity of the Internet.

If there is any truth to the old Russian proverb that enemies parrot yes while friends say no, then it is easy to form fast friendships on Livemocha.com, a Web site devoted to helping people learn languages by swapping messages over the Internet and then correcting each other’s messages.

To read more…

Art of the Game

artofthegameBy Morgan Meis, in The Smart Set from Drexel University

Tom Bissell is a David Foster Wallace man. I mean that specifically. DFW’s essay collection A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again contains “E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction.” In that essay, Wallace wrote these momentous sentences:

Most scholars and critics who write about U.S. popular culture … seem both to take TV seriously and to suffer real pain over what they see. There’s this well-known critical litany about television’s vapidity, shallowness, and irrealism. The litany is often far cruder and triter than what the critics complain about, which I think is why most younger viewers find pro criticism of television far less interesting than pro television itself.

To read more…

Ubiquitous Learning Journal, Volume 2, Number 4 now available

ubiquitous_frontThe final issue of Volume 2 of Ubiquitous Learning: An International Journal has now been published.

Volume 2, Number 4 contains:

Ubiquitous Learning Journal Submissions Now Open

ubiquitous_front1Want to get your 2011 publications underway now?

We are accepting submissions for the next volume of Ubiquitous Learning: An International Journal. The upcoming submission deadline is Monday 2 August 2010.

Ubiquitous Learning: An International Journal sets out to define an emerging field. Ubiquitous learning is a new educational paradigm made possible in part by the affordances of digital media.

Ubiquitous Learning is a counterpart to the concept ‘ubiquitous computing’, but one which seeks to put the needs and dynamics of learning ahead of the technologies that may support learning. The arrival of new technologies does not mean that learning has to change. Learning should only change for learning’s sake. The key perspective of the conference and journal is that our changing learning needs can be served by ubiquitous computing. In this spirit, the journal investigates the affordances for learning in the digital media, in school and throughout everyday life.

Refereeing of submitted papers will commence shortly so start the submission process early by submitting your proposal.

Paper submission guidelines are available online.

Inside the Box

suellentrop-popupReview by Chris Suellentrop, in The New York Times

Video games have created what must be the biggest generation gap since rock ’n’ roll. Sure, a generational rift of sorts emerged when the World Wide Web showed up near the end of the last century, but in the case of the Web, the older cohort admired and tried to emulate the younger crowd, rather than looking down on them with befuddlement or disdain. With games, a more traditional “Get off my lawn” panic has reared its head.

Take Roger Ebert, one of the most outspoken voices on the fogy side of this divide. In April, Ebert enraged a good portion of the Internet with a post titled “Video Games Can Never Be Art” on his Chicago Sun-Times blog. (To which one games blogger offered the rejoinder “Art Can Never Be Video Games.”) Acknowledging that “never” is a “long, long time,” Ebert wrote, “Let me just say that no video gamer now living will survive long enough to experience the medium as an art form.”

To read more…

Some Educators Question if Whiteboards, Other High-tech Tools Raise Achievement

ubipostBy Stephanie McCrummen, in The Washington Post

Under enormous pressure to reform, the nation’s public schools are spending millions of dollars each year on gadgets from text-messaging devices to interactive whiteboards that technology companies promise can raise student performance.

Driving the boom is a surge in federal funding for such products, the industry’s aggressive marketing and an idea axiomatic in the world of education reform: that to prepare students kids for the 21st century, schools must embrace the technologies that are the media of modern life.

To read more…

Ubiquitous Learning Journal Associate Editors

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The Associate Editors listing for Volume 2 of  Ubiquitous Learning: An International Journal is now available.

We would like to thank all of the associate editors as they are an essential part of the publication process providing assessment, comments, critical and constructive feedback and guidance to the authors of submitted papers.

Sharing Liberally

Reviewed by Evgeny Morozov, in Boston Review

Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age
Clay Shirky
The Penguin Press, $25.95 (Hardcover)

Internet enthusiasts come in two flavors: utopians and populists. The rhetoric of both camps is revolutionary, but the revolutions are different.

Utopians believe that the Internet provides promising new solutions to our most intractable problems. With enough tweets, all global bugs—war, poverty, illiteracy, fascism—can be quashed.

Populists promise no such lofty goals. They see the profound social confusion sown by the Internet as a historic opportunity to snatch power from elites and their institutions and redistribute it more evenly among netizens, the ordinary citizens who have been empowered by the Internet.

To read more…

Mind Over Mass Media

By Steven Pinker, in The New York Times

New forms of media have always caused moral panics: the printing press, newspapers, paperbacks and television were all once denounced as threats to their consumers’ brainpower and moral fiber.

So too with electronic technologies. PowerPoint, we’re told, is reducing discourse to bullet points. Search engines lower our intelligence, encouraging us to skim on the surface of knowledge rather than dive to its depths. Twitter is shrinking our attention spans.

But such panics often fail basic reality checks. When comic books were accused of turning juveniles into delinquents in the 1950s, crime was falling to record lows, just as the denunciations of video games in the 1990s coincided with the great American crime decline. The decades of television, transistor radios and rock videos were also decades in which I.Q. scores rose continuously.

To read more…

What the iPad Can’t Do

dfw-delillo-book_jpg_470x550_q85by Sue Halpern, in The New York Review of Books

Not long after the iPad went on sale in early April, the Ilinois Institute of Technology announced that it would be providing each member of next fall’s freshman class with one of the new Apple devices. School officials said that the iPad would allow students to take notes, check email, and read books. Which books they had in mind is not precisely clear except for this: they are not likely to be textbooks. While a number of publishers, like McGraw-Hill and Houghton Mifflin, have signed on with software developer ScrollMotion to produce textbooks for the iPad—works that would exploit its multimedia capabilities with video lectures, historical film clips, educational games, and interactive quizzes—almost none of those books yet exist. Students hoping to lighten their load (physical or monetary) by trading heavy, expensive textbooks for the 1.5 pound iPad will be disappointed, as early adopters of new technology often are. Pricing, already an issue for commercial books, is likely going to be even more controversial when it comes to textbooks. Will a new, improved, ebook version of “Atlas of Human Anatomy”cost the same as than the bell-less and whistle-less $149 paper edition? How much will students pay to have fun and exciting and clever textbooks that don’t actually exist in the material world?

To read more…

Wal-Mart to Offer Its Workers a College Program

06walmart1-articleinlineby Stephanie Clifford and Stephanie Rosenbloom, in The New York Times

Fayatteville, Ark - Now on sale at Wal- Mart: college degrees for its employees.

The purveyor of inexpensive jeans and lawnmowers is dipping its toe into the online-education waters, working with a Web-based university to offer its employees in the United States affordable college degrees.

The partnership with American Public University, a for-profit school with about 70,000 online students, will allow some Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club employees to earn credits in areas like retail management and logistics for performing their regular jobs.

To read more…

Ubiquitous Learning

11i50hc27xl_sl500_aa300_A review from Chris Dede of Ubiquitous Learning, a volume edited by Bill Cope and Mary Kalantzis

Modern day conceptions of ubiquitous learning build on an influential vision of ubiquitous computing published two decades earlier by Mark Weiser (1991) of the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center. His article depicted a world of smart objects and intelligent contexts based on ubiquitous computing, a different way of conceptualizing the interface between computers, networks, and people. In Weiser’s vision, tiny computers are embedded into nearly every artifact and setting, networked so that they intercommunicate. For example, a tree could be tagged with information about its botanical characteristics; the tree might also offer to show an historic image of its context about the time it was planted or to describe the contribution it makes to reducing local pollution and greenhouse gases. People who wandered by could access this information on a wireless mobile device; based on a person’s response, the building adjacent to the tree might then offer some information. Current images of smart objects and intelligent contexts for learning include affordances not available twenty years earlier, such as Web 2.0 tools embedded in cyberinfrastructure (Dede, 2007) and augmented reality games (Klopfer, 2008).

To read more…

OLPC’s Negroponte Says XO-3 Prototype Tablet Coming in 2010

From the networkworld channel on YouTube

For more…

The iPad. Of 2000. As Envisioned in 1988

tabletBy Harry McCracken, in Technologizer

In the late 1980s, Apple Computer was better known for fantasizing about breakthrough products than making them. Most famously, CEO John Sculley envisioned a futuristic gizmo called the Knowledge Navigator–featuring a bowtied digital assistant–in his 1987 book Odyssey. It made for a mighty impressive futuristic video.

In September of the same year, Apple announced a competition it called “Project 2000.” Teams from a dozen universities were invited to submit papers about Knowledge Navigator-like concepts representing the PC of far-off 2000. An impressive panel of judges–Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak, personal-computing visionary Alan Kay, futurist Alvin Toffler, science fiction legend Ray Bradbury, and Encyclopaedia Britannica’s Diane Ravitch–judged the entries in early 1988.

To read more…

Virtually My BFF

6a00d8341c562c53ef0133ed63bedc970b-320wiBy Sarah Firisen, in 3 Quarks Daily

Hello, my name is Sarah Firisen and I am a software developer and a writer. But wait, my name is also Bianca Zanetti and I used to be a fashion designer with a string of stores. No, I am not schizophrenic, I am Sarah in my real life and Bianca in my Second Life. My Second Life has not been so active in recent months, but in my virtual heyday I went to parties, art gallery openings and weddings.

My husband, in real and virtual life, was very active in the “ROMA (SPQR)” world, owned a beautiful Roman villa that I built for him, and was even a Roman Senator for one term. During our virtual travels we made many friends and a few enemies. We met some really crazy people and some really great ones. Some of those friendships even carried over into our real lives and in one case we spent a lovely evening in the real Rome with the real life representation of one of our avatar friends.

To read more…

What Might a 21st Century Literacy Class Look Like? This!

world-typing

By Lisa Nielsen, in Tech & Learning

As an innovative educator I often write about fantastic tools that teachers can incorporate into practice. But, what might a 21st century high school literacy class look like? Here is a glimpse into a class I would love to be in if I was a student today.

Background:

Sam is a eleventh grader, who has struggled with ELA courses in secondary school. He is accustomed to the cycle of failure after years of low and barely passing grades in elementary school and repeating eighth grade before being allowed to continue on to high school. Although eager to learn and eventually finish high school, Sam has already failed two quarters of English.

To read more…

Ubiquitous Learning Journal: Recently Published

ubiquitousThe latest issue, Volume 2, Number 3,  of Ubiquitous Learning: An International Journal includes:

Keeping the Door of Learning Wide Open

steven_anderson

By Steven Anderson, in Digital Learning Environments

Students today depend upon paper too much. They don’t know how to write on slate without chalk dust all over themselves. They can’t clean a slate properly. What will they do when they run out of paper?”

This was a quote that appeared in a principals magazine in 1815. But I wonder? Is this the same sentiment that our educators have today?

Unfortunately, there are teachers and administrators out there that still believe that the advancement of and use of technology in the classroom is detrimental to learning. Just last week, Anthony Orsini, an Administrator in a New Jersey middle school, sent home a letter that strongly encouraged the parents to get their students out of all social media sites saying, ‘Let me repeat that - there is absolutely, positively no reason for any middle school student to be a part of a social networking site! None.’

To read more…



Beyond Shakespeare and Grammar: Engaging the Language of Technology

Produced by Ben Wolff, for Spotlight on Digital Media and Learning

A video presentation from Mike Hart at the United Negro College Fund Forum:

For more information and videos…

Redesigned Newsletter: Launched Today

Today the International Conference on Ubiquitous Learning Newsletter will be relaunched - marking the start of a new approach to connecting with and reaching out to our Ubiquitous Learning Community. The Ubiquitous Learning Newsletter will be sent out on a monthly basis and will contain important community news, conference updates, and publication information.

It is the hope of Common Ground Publishing that this newsletter will provide you with a more positive experience connecting with the Ubiquitous Learning Community.

If you are not currently a subscriber but would like to receive future newsletter emails, please go to http://www.ubi-learn.com and click on “Sign Up: Our Newsletter” in the upper right-hand corner.

If you have inquiries, concerns, or general comments, please feel free to contact the newsletter team at support@ubi-learn.com

The Evolution of Ubiquitous Learning: Semi-Smart Objects, Intelligent Contexts, and Cyberinfrastructure

By Dr. Chris Dede

For More information on the Ubiquitous Learning Institute…

Ubiquitous Learning: An International Conference

300px-robsonsquareLocation and Date:

The 2010 Ubiquitous Learning Conference will take place at the UBC’s Robson Square in downtown Vancouver, Canada from December 10-11, 2010. For more information please visit www.ULConference.com

Call for Papers

If you intend to present a paper at the conference, your participation begins with submission of a paper proposal. For information on proposals, presentation types, and other options please see http://ubi-learn.com/conference-2011/call-for-papers/#ppt . To submit a proposal, please see http://ubi-learn.com/conference-2011/call-for-papers/ . If your proposal is accepted, you will then need to register for the conference.

Registration

Those who submit paper proposals should register following the acceptance of the proposal.  Conference delegates who do not intend to present may register at any time. For registration options, or to register for the 2010 Ubiquitous Learning Conference, see: our registration page.

Themes

For more about these themes, please click here.

Scope and Concerns

Information about the Ubiquitous Learning community scope and concerns can be seen here.

Accommodations

Accommodation information can be found on our website here.

Please feel free to contact us at any time with questions or concerns at support@ubi-learn.com

Ubiquitous Learning Journal, Volume 2, Number 3 now available

ubiquitous_frontThe third issue of Volume 2 of Ubiquitous Learning: An International Journal has now been published.

Volume 2, Number 3 contains:

Continue reading ‘Ubiquitous Learning Journal, Volume 2, Number 3 now available’

Do Brain-Training Programs Work?

sn-braintrain-thumb-200xauto-3061By Greg Miller, in Science

Play a computer game, boost your IQ—that’s the claim made by some software companies peddling so-called brain-training programs. It’s probably an empty promise, according to the largest study to date of brain-training software, which finds no evidence of general cognitive benefits. Yet the study’s limitations give brain-training advocates plenty to gripe about.

The idea for the study originated with a BBC science television show, Bang Goes the Theory. Producers contacted Adrian Owen at the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit in Cambridge, U.K., to help design an experiment to test the efficacy of computer brain training. Many of these programs are set up like a game, and playing along supposedly boosts memory, attention, and other cognitive functions. But few rigorous studies have been conducted on them, and many researchers question whether even the best programs do anything more than make people better at the game itself.

To read more…

The Flash fracas between Adobe and Apple (FAQ)

100_bill_flash_tourFrom Stephen Shankland in cnet news’ Deep Tech:

The face-off between Apple and Adobe Systems concerning Flash on the iPhone and iPad is a perfect fit for today’s world of fanboys and flame wars. But beneath the surface, it’s not all as simple as it seems.

There are plenty convenient rhetorical points for those who want to find a place in the debate: Apple exerts draconian control over its walled garden. Flash is a buggy, insecure, resource hog. Apple is taking a stand for the betterment of the Web. Apple is inflicting a crippled Web on its customers for its selfish ends.

For more…

Ubiquitous Learning latest published papers

The latest issue,  Volume 2, Number 2, of Ubiquitous Learning: An International Journal includes:

Online Social Networks in the Lives of Teens: “A Gateway That Keeps You Current”

Produced by Ben Wolff in Spotlight on Digital Media and Learning

StudentSpeak Webisode 5 from Spotlight on Vimeo.

To read more…

National Education Technology Plan 2010

From Ed.gov

“By 2020, America will once again have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world”
-President Barack Obama,
Address to Congress, February 24, 2009


For more information and resources….

Technology in the classroom: China’s challenges

china-education-technology-2010-04-12_0
From Jean Yung in the Global Post:

After watching a 13-year-old boy operate a desktop PC at the Shanghai Exhibition Hall in 1984, China’s senior leader Deng Xiaoping famously said, “To universalize computers, one must begin with the little ones.”

These words have pushed the development of China’s technology infrastructure forward over the last 25 years. Even today, computer teachers in Shanghai proudly echo Deng’s remark, even as they readily acknowledge the shortcomings of tech education in Shanghai classrooms.

For more…

Ubiquitous Learning Journal: Recently Published

ul-journal-cover-08Recently published in Volume 2, Number 2 of  Ubiquitous Learning: An International Journal are:

Ubiquitous Learning Journal, Volume 2, Number 2 now available

The second issue of Volume 2 of Ubiquitous Learning: An International Journal has now been published.

Volume 2, Number 2 includes:

Millennials, Media and Information

panel-twofrom an article at http://pewresearch.org/:

At a conference at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, Feb. 24, 2010, Pew Research Center analysts and outside experts discussed research findings about the Millennial generation, the American teens and twenty-somethings now making the passage into adulthood. In this second of three sessions experts on media and technology examine how Millennials are seeking, sharing and creating information.

Moderator:
Judy Woodruff, Senior Correspondent, PBS Newshour

Opening Presentation:
Tom Rosenstiel, Director, Pew Research Center Project for Excellence in Journalism

Panelists:
danah boyd, Social Media Researcher, Microsoft Research New England, and
Fellow, Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society
Dylan Casey, Product Manager, Google
Amanda Lenhart, Senior Research Specialist, Pew Internet & American Life Project

For the article…

New $99 All-in-One ‘Moby’ Tablet Designed for the World’s Students

olpc-xo-30-6From a Marvell press release:

Marvell (Nasdaq: MRVL) a worldwide leader in integrated silicon solutions, this week announced a bold new education initiative to deliver a high performance mobile tablet based on its leading silicon platform. For about $99, Marvell’s Moby tablet prototype promises to change the way students learn by delivering an always-on, high performance multimedia tablet featuring live, real-time content, 1080p full-HD and 3D media, and full Flash Internet. Marvell’s Moby tablet could eliminate the need for students to buy and carry bound textbooks and an array of other tools.

(Logo:  http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20070411/SFW034LOGO)

Announcing the initiative this week during her keynote speech to the country’s leading publishers at the Future of Publishing conference in New York City, Marvell Co-founder Weili Dai said that the Moby tablet is a technology whose time had come.

“Education is the most pressing social and economic issue facing our country and our times. I believe the Marvell Moby tablet can ignite a life-long passion for learning in all students everywhere.  Marvell’s goal is to fundamentally improve the way students learn by giving them more efficient, relevant — even fun tools to use. Marvell’s Moby tablet recognizes that every student learns differently and so it delivers an array of media choices for different learning styles,” said Weili Dai, Marvell’s Co-founder and Vice President and General Manager of Marvell Semiconductor’s Consumer and Computing Business Unit.  ”Marvell can help propel education into the 21st century with an all-in-one device that gives students access to the best live content, information and resources the world has to offer — from books and online sources, in text, video, news, music, data expression or any medium. With Moby tablet, students can conduct primary research, reach out directly to the world’s leading subject experts and even collaborate with one another around the globe.  Best of all, the device is highly affordable. I envision Marvell’s Moby tablets to benefit all students around the world.”

For more…

How Privacy Vanishes Online, a Bit at a Time

sc-189-550-x-358From Steve Lohr in the New York Times:

If a stranger came up to you on the street, would you give him your name, Social Security number and e-mail address?

Probably not.

Yet people often dole out all kinds of personal information on the Internet that allows such identifying data to be deduced. Services like FacebookTwitterand Flickr are oceans of personal minutiae — birthday greetings sent and received, school and work gossip, photos of family vacations, and movies watched.

Computer scientists and policy experts say that such seemingly innocuous bits of self-revelation can increasingly be collected and reassembled by computers to help create a picture of a person’s identity, sometimes down to the Social Security number.

For the article…

Wi-Fi Turns Rowdy Bus Into Rolling Study Hall

From Sam Dillon in The New York Times

12bus_ca0-articleinlineVAIL, Ariz. — Students endure hundreds of hours on yellow buses each year getting to and from school in this desert exurb of Tucson, and stir-crazy teenagers break the monotony by teasing, texting, flirting, shouting, climbing (over seats) and sometimes punching (seats or seatmates).

But on this chilly morning, as bus No. 92 rolls down a mountain highway just before dawn, high school students are quiet, typing on laptops.

To read more…

Making Sense of Privacy and Publicity

websterdamon_danahboyd_fn_euFrom Danah Boyd, the preliminary draft of her welcoming keynote address at the 2010 SXSW conference.

What keeps me up at night is trying to make sense of how social media transforms society and, more importantly, what it helps make visible about humanity. Technophobes love to talk about how technology is ruining everything and technophiles obsess over how everything is radically different. I like to wade through the extremes to see the subtle inflection points. Reality is always in the details.

My goal today is to invite you to step back and ask: what hath we wrought? We’ve all been involved in social media from at least one perspective. Some of you are creators, developers, designers; others of you are business folks, marketers, analysts. Some of you use social media in your jobs and some of you live it as part of your daily practice. We are all collectively creating culture through our engagement with social media. So what I’d like to do is offer some insights that allow you to think critically about our collective project so that we can all find ways to do better.

To give you something to munch on, I’ve decided to focus my talk on two interwoven concepts that keep coming up whenever we think about social media: privacy and publicity. I’m highlighting these issues because I think that they’re going to play a crucial role in the evolution of social media. I think that we’re going to have to work them out and I need your help in doing so.

For the full talk…

Digital Na(t)ives? Variation in Internet Skills and Uses among Members of the “Net Generation”

headersmall1From Eszter Hargittai in the journal Sociological Inquiry:

People who have grown up with digital media are often assumed to be universally savvy with information and communication technologies. Such assumptions are rarely grounded in empirical evidence, however. This article draws on unique data with information about a diverse group of young adults’ Internet uses and skills to suggest that even when controlling for Internet access and experiences, people differ in their online abilities and activities. Additionally, findings suggest that Internet know-how is not randomly distributed among the population, rather, higher levels of parental education, being a male, and being white or Asian American are associated with higher levels of Web-use skill. These user characteristics are also related to the extent to which young adults engage in diverse types of online activities. Moreover, skill itself is positively associated with types of uses. Overall, these findings suggest that even when controlling for basic Internet access, among a group of young adults, socioeconomic status is an important predictor of how people are incorporating the Web into their everyday lives with those from more privileged backgrounds using it in more informed ways for a larger number of activities.

For more…

Ubiquitous Learning Journal latest issue

The latest issue, Volume 2, Number 1, of Ubiquitous Learning: An International Journal includes:

Creating Open Educational Resources with dScribe

300px-dscribe_logo_v1-450x400

From the dScribe web site:

dScribe, short for “digital and distributed scribes,” is a participatory and collaborative model for creating open content. It brings together enrolled students, staff, faculty, and self-motivated learners to work together toward the common goal of creating content that is openly licensed and available to people throughout the world. It was first developed by students and faculty at the University of Michigan to leverage the interest and talent of students in working with faculty and staff to transform educational material into open educational resources (OER). The dScribe model encourages students, faculty, staff, and other interested individuals such as alumni and community members to get involved in not only creating open content, but also generating awareness about the benefits of creating and sharing educational content with a global learning community.

To view the site…

Ubiquitous Learning Journal, Volume 2, Number 1 now available

The first issue of Volume 2 of Ubiquitous Learning: An International Journal has now been published.

Volume 2, Number 1 includes:

    Howard Rheingold’s Educational Technology Bookmarks

    hreingoldAuthor, teacher and commentator Howard Rheingold has made available a four-year collection of bookmarks in educational technology via the social bookmarking service delicious.
     
     
     

    The World is a Game: Augmented Reality Software Combines the Real and Virtual to Teach Science

    From Spotlight on Digital Media and Learning

    To read more…


    Suggestions for Making Google’s Services More Relevant for Non-Elite Chinese Users (involves some ethnography!)

    culturalbytes1From Tricia Wang’s blog cultural bytes:

    Google announced on its company blog that Chinese hackers had attacked its users and as a result Google.CN may leave China due to the security breaches.

    While unfortunate that Google.CN may be shutting down, my ethnographic work in China revealed five things that aren’t being told in the current story:

    1. Many Chinese internet users don’t find Google to be very useful. Therefore, a Google withdrawal would not have any immediate impact on the daily Chinese internet user because most people search with Baidu, the reigning search engine in China.
    2. Many Chinese internet users prefer Baidu over Google because using Baidu makes them feel more “Chinese.” Baidu does an excellent job at tapping into nationalistic fervor to promote itself as being the most superior search engine for Chinese users.
    3. Chinese internet users don’t know how to get to the Google site. While they may “know” of Google, it’s a whole other matter when it comes to typing or saying Google’s name.
    4. Google is primarily used by highly educated netizens. And even these users prefer Google.COM over Google.CN.
    5. Google is not successful at reaching the mobile internet market.

    For the complete post…

    Digital File Cabinet You Can Bring With You Anywhere

    renocol_moss1From Walt Mossberg in the Wall Street Journal:

    What if you could collect, in one well-organized, searchable, private digital repository, all the notes you create, clips from Web pages and emails you want to recall, dictated audio memos, photos, key documents, and more? And what if that repository was constantly synchronized, so it was accessible through a Web browser and through apps on your various computers and smart phones?

    Well, such a service exists. And it’s free. It’s called Evernote. I’ve been testing it for about a week on a multiplicity of computers and phones, and found that it works very well. Evernote is an excellent example of hybrid computing—using the “cloud” online to store data and perform tasks, while still taking advantage of the power and offline ability of local devices.

    The idea behind Evernote is to be a sort of digital file cabinet. It allows you to create “notebooks” containing items called notes. These notes can range from text to photos to many kinds of attached files. You can locate, group and peruse them quickly, without having to dig through a computer’s file system. When I first reviewed the product, back in 2005, Evernote was a Windows-only, purely local information organizer. Now it’s a multi-platform, Internet-savvy, synchronized place for your ideas.

    For more…

    The World is a Game: Augmented Reality Software Combines the Real and Virtual to Teach Science

    From Spotlight on Digital Media and Learning.

    New software developed at MIT takes advantage of the GPS technology in mobile phones to inject new adventures into the traditional science lab. The technology creates learning games that can track players’ real world locations and send a stream of virtual information to them as they track environmental spills or solve science mysteries. Teachers and students can also build their own games to share with others.

    For more on MIT’s learning games that teach science and math read Spotlight’s Think Like a Mathematician, Save the World from Monsters.

    For the item with YouTube video…

    Study on Youth and Information Credibility

    From Andrew Flanagin in Spotlight on Digital Media and Learning

    kid_hand_mouse-365x274Select findings from a new study by Andrew J. Flanagin, Professor in the Department of Communication, and Miriam Metzger, Associate Professor in the Department of Communication, University of California, Santa Barbara.

    The results are based on a web-based survey of a representative sample of 2,747 children (age 11 to 18) with internet access in the United States, and one parent of each child.

    The full report will be available in early 2010 as part of the MacArthur Series on Digital Media and Learning, published by MIT Press.

    Read Spotlight’s interview with Flanagin about the findings. Below are some of the study’s highlights:

    • Most kids begin using the internet between Grades 2 and 6.
    • Nearly all kids surveyed (97%) are online by eighth grade.

    To read more…

    Web Attack on Twitter Is Third Assault This Year

    Jenna Wortham and Nick Bilton write in the New York Times,

    An online attack Friday morning on Twitter was the result of the simplest of security breaches: someone got the password to enter the master directory of Twitter’s Internet addresses and then redirected users to an alternate site instead.

    No user information appears to have been stolen in the attack. But the security breach — the third major one at Twitter this year — underscores the continuing weakness of the company’s systems as its micro-blogging service is becoming more important to business and even global politics.

    The incident also highlights a basic vulnerability in the way life is lived as it becomes increasingly digital: With so much vital information stored on the Web, people are only as safe as their passwords.

    To see the article…

    Computational thinking and energy literacy

    judell-headshotJon Udell’s recent blog post begins,

    One of the themes I’ve been exploring for the past few years is computational thinking. It’s an evocative phrase that has led me in a few different directions. One is my intentional use of tagging and syndication as key strategies for social information management. Another is my growing interest in the kinds of uses of WolframAlpha outlined in Kill-A-Watt, WolframAlpha, and the itemized electric bill.

    A lot of what I’ve read and heard about WolframAlpha seems to focus on its encyclopedic nature. But it aims to be a compendium of computable knowledge, and as such I think its highest and best use will be to enable computational thinking.

    To read the full post…

    Facebook Flashes Your Trench Coat Open

    From Andreas Kluth, in The Hannibal Blog

    mark-zuckerbergFacebook just “updated” its privacy settings, and I almost did not notice. That’s because I’m (Facebook founder) Mark Zuckerberg’s nightmare: I don’t “share” anything on Facebook to begin with, so my Facebook profile contains little to be private about.

    But some of those who do share things on Facebook “came close to killing [their] account this week”, as Danny Sullivan did, when they paid attention to the details of the change.

    A year ago I predicted in our (The Economist’s) sister publication, The World in 2009, that this brave new culture of “sharing” would cause discontent. Maybe that point is now nigh. For me personally, it arrived long ago.

    Because I used to cover the internet in my previous beat at The Economist, I had to be one of the first to try new things like Facebook, and I usually was. But from the start I made a pact with myself:

    • No pictures of, or (indexable, Googlable) information about, my loved ones.
    • No names, birthdays, diaper photos etc.
    • No drive-by shootings (photo, video, status update) of third parties

    In particular, my wife and children should, in effect, not be on the internet at all unless they themselves later choose to put themselves there. You may have noticed that their names do not appear on The Hannibal Blog, even though I share my ideas here quite liberally. Yes, you may know me very intimately by now in an intellectual way–as I feel I know some of you quite intimately through your comments even though I only see your pseudonym and avatar. But you do not know me biographically beyond what I choose to divulge. I practice Platonic sharing.

    To read more…

    Howard Rheingold on His University Teaching

    romeIn this seven and a half-minute video Howard Rheingold discusses technology and education. Those who attended the recent Ubiquitous Learning Conference may find what he says resonating with much of what was presented and discussed at the meeting.

    Howard Rheingold on ‘Future Fundamentals’

    tokyo-shinjukutinyHoward Rheingold has something to say about new literacy:

    Popular discourses about the technologies that have been built on the microchip have focused primarily on the hardware, the software, the industries, the economics of computer games, PCs, dotcoms. My experiences have convinced me that the most important focus for public attention right now should shift to the literacies that bring power to those who possess them and leave behind those who don’t know how to use their telephone as a medical instrument, educational medium, social radar, political organizing tool. Chip fabrication plants, teenage personal computer wizards and moguls, networks of fiber optics and satellites, have played and will continue to play their parts in the distribution of computing and communication power to every human on Earth. But now that devices with such enormous untapped power are in the hands of so many, the factor that will most powerfully shape the resulting social institutions is literacy. My definition of “literacy” builds on the thinking of Neal Postman: I mean the inward-looking skill that enables an individual to read and write, to decode and encode messages with a medium, and I also refer to the external community to which this skill provides entrance.

    For video..

    For words…

    Ubiquitous Learning

    From Bill Cope and Mary Kalantzis, in Ubiquitous Learning9780252076800

    Exploring the anywhere/anytime possibilities for learning in the age of digital media

    This collection seeks to define the emerging field of “ubiquitous learning,” an educational paradigm made possible in part by the omnipresence of digital media, supporting new modes of knowledge creation, communication, and access. As new media empower practically anyone to produce and disseminate knowledge, learning can now occur at any time and any place. The essays in this volume present key concepts, contextual factors, and current practices in this new field.

    Contributors are Simon J. Appleford, Patrick Berry, Jack Brighton, Bertram C. Bruce, Amber Buck, Nicholas C. Burbules, Orville Vernon Burton, Timothy Cash, Bill Cope, Alan Craig, Elizabeth M. Delacruz, Lisa Bouillion Diaz, Steve Downey, Guy Garnett, Steven E. Gump, Gail E. Hawisher, Caroline Haythornthwaite, Cory Holding, Wenhao David Huang, Eric Jakobsson, Tristan E. Johnson, Mary Kalantzis, Samuel Kamin, Karrie G. Karahalios, Joycelyn Landrum-Brown, Hannah Lee, Faye L. Lesht, Maria Lovett, Cheryl McFadden, Robert E. McGrath, James D. Myers, Christa Olson, James Onderdonk, Michael A. Peters, Evangeline S. Pianfetti, Paul Prior, Fazal Rizvi, Mei-Li Shih, Janine Solberg, Joseph Squier, Kona Taylor, Sharon Tettegah, Michael Twidale, Edee Norman Wiziecki, and Hanna Zhong.

    Bill Cope is a research professor in educational policy studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is coeditor of The Future of the Book in the Digital Age. Mary Kalantzis is the dean of the College of Education and professor of curriculum and instruction at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is coauthor of Cultures of Schooling: Pedagogies for Cultural Difference and Social Access.

    “This book taps directly into seismic shifts occurring in what it means to go about one’s everyday life when access to information and ideas are so readily at hand. The contributors move well beyond the speculative to afford readers a rich range of substantive definitions and concrete examples of ubiquitous learning.”–Michele Knobel, coauthor of New Literacies: Changing Knowledge and Classroom Learning

    For more information on purchasing…

    The World’s 50 Best Open Courseware Collections

    From Linda, in Learning Through Blogging.

    Do you ever wonder why the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) might be more memorable than other technological schools? To become memorable, a school must reach out to people in ways that seem beneficial. Alumni organizations can help spread the word about their alma mater. Great sports teams and debate teams also can help boost a school’s standing. But, another fork to take in the marketing path is through the Internet, as MIT and other schools have done in sharing courses online and without charge.

    MIT and other schools are up front about these open source offerings – no one can earn credits from taking the courses, nor can they use the courses to claim a degree. But, when MIT and other colleges opened their virtual gates to allow the average person to get a glimpse behind their ivory towers, these colleges became well known for their altruism and transparency. Open Courseware has become a marketing tool, as it helps schools that use this option to become more well known in a local and global community.

    That said, the following list represents a handful of hundreds of open courseware initiatives that now exist. The following fifty collections are from English-speaking universities and colleges, located across the U.S. to England, Canada and Australia. Additionally, the list points to open courseware projects such as directories and primary source projects offered by various universities and colleges.

    The list is divided into categories and each link is listed in alphabetical order within those categories. This method shows our readers that we do not favor one collection over another.

    To Read More…

    It’s 10 P.M. Online, Do You Know Where Your Parents Are?

    parentsFrom Josh Karp, in “Spotlight on Digital Media and Learning.”

    When University of California-Irvine associate project scientist Heather Horst and her colleagues at the Digital Youth Project set out to study how children, their parents and families interact with digital media, others thought they would probably come away with a set of “do’s and don’ts” for parents.

    That, it turned out, was not the case. There was a lot of variety in how parents were dealing with the situation. Parents’ comfort or confusion depended on their own sense of expertise with new media.

    Parents’ Involvement Depends on Their Digital Know-How

    Parents with greater technological sophistication (a significant number of Silicon Valley families were interviewed for the study) didn’t view their children as digital natives, nor did they necessarily see themselves as outsiders.

    “They knew their kids interests were different [from their own],” Horst says. “But, they weren’t afraid of the technology.”

    For these families, the battles were the familiar battles. “[The arguments] weren’t about the media itself,” Horst says. “But, the kind of control debates that go on with adolescents in the U.S.”

    But, in other less privileged families, and particularly those where English was not the primary language, the comfort with new media was markedly less, and the fear of online dangers much greater.

    Read more here…

    The Power of Youth Voice: What Kids Learn When They Create With Digital Media

    youthvoice1A public forum presented by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the National Writing Project, and the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation

    Wednesday, November 18, 2009
    6:00-7:00 PM •   Reception and displays of digital work
    7:00-8:00 PM •   Panel Discussion and Forum

    The Academy of Natural Sciences   •   Auditorium
    1900 Benjamin Franklin Parkway   •   Philadelphia

    This forum is free and open to the public. You may attend this forum in person
    or follow the event online. Registration is required.

    Al Weiss, University of Illinois, to talk on e-learning strategies/methods

    www.ULConference.com

    Al Weiss, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA
    Al Weiss is a Computer Assisted Instruction Specialist at the University of Illinois where he coordinates the instructional development and faculty support programs for campus-wide e-learning platforms and instructional technologies. Al has been engaged in teaching with technology since 1992 when he used a simple spreadsheet program to help teach math and science skills to seventh and eighth graders. More…

    2009 Ubiquitous Learning Conference - Conference Dinner

    Join us for a Conference Dinner at Turner Fisheries.
    Turner Fisheries Restaurant is conveniently located on the first level of the Copley Place Mall, & connected to the Westin Lobby. This venue provides a beautiful setting with a floor to ceiling window and a view of the heart of Copley Square. Every item on the menu is created especially by the Executive Chef and is inspired by the freshest New England ingredients. Validate valet parking is available outside the restaurant or at the Westin Hotel for a fee.

    For more information please see the Conference website.

    2009 Ubiquitous Learning Conference - Accommodation

    Accommodation for the 2009 Ubiquitous Learning Conference in Massachusetts, USA may now be booked. Please see the Conference Accommodation webpage for more information.

    Ubiquitous Learning Journal listed in Ulrichs

    Ubiquitous Learning: An International Journal has been accepted for inclusion in Ulrich’s Periodicals Directory.

    Ulrichs is an authoritative knowledgebase of information about more than 300,000 serials of all types from around the world—academic and scholarly journals, peer-reviewed titles, online publications, newspapers and other resources. Bibliographic records provide details such as ISSN and title, publisher, online availability, language, subject area, abstracting & indexing coverage, searchable tables of contents, and full-text reviews.

    Ubiquitous Learning Journal, Volume 1, Number 4 available

    The final issue of Volume 1 of Ubiquitous Learning: An International Journal has now been published.

    Volume 1, Number 4 contains:

    Ubiquitous Learning Imprint Launched

    Common Ground Publishing has launched a new imprint, Ubiquitous Learning.

    You can now submit proposals or completed manuscript submissions of:

    Books should be between 30,000 words to 150,000 words in length. They will be published simultaneously in print and electronic formats.

    Ubiquitous Learning Conference - Plenary Speaker Added

    Larry Shane Taylor, Appalachian State University, Boone, USA
    www.ULConference.com

    Larry Shane Taylor is a journalism instructor in the Department of Communication at Appalachian State University, Boone, North Carolina, USA. His teaching specialties include journalism, print media design, and web media. He received his BA and MA in English Literature from Western Carolina University, USA, and his PhD from the University of Tennessee, USA. He is the winner of the Common Ground Publishing Award for Excellence in the area of Learning and Education. More…

    Ubiquitous Learning Conference - Plenary Speakers Added

    Allan Collins, Professor Emeritus, Education and Social Policy, Northwestern University, Chicago, USA.

    Allan Collins is Professor Emeritus of Education and Social Policy at Northwestern University. He is a member of the National Academy of Education, and a fellow of the American Association for Artificial Intelligence, the Cognitive Science Society, the American Educational Research Association, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He served as a founding editor of the journal Cognitive Science and as first chair of the Cognitive Science Society. He has studied teaching and learning for over 30 years, and written extensively on related topics. He is best known in psychology for his work on how people answer questions, in artificial intelligence for his work on reasoning and intelligent tutoring systems, and in education for his work on situated learning, inquiry teaching, design research, and cognitive apprenticeship. More…

    Award Winner Finalists

    Congratulations to all of the Award Winner finalists:

    Announcing the winner of the International Award for Excellence

    Congratulations to Larry Taylor, the winner of the International Award for Excellence in the area of learning and education for his paper Tech Pushers: Making Administrators into Tech Integration Facilitators

    Abstract: Current research suggests that students are more technology savvy than previously understood and may even be “dumbing down” for school. This coupled with strong evidence that technology integration into everyday life is growing in both volume and level of sophistication suggests that teaching students to engage technology by making it a common component of their learning environment is not just appropriate, but critical. Nevertheless, current top-down models for technology integration do not seem to be facilitating integration. Current research on motivation strongly suggests that adoption motivation is linked to perceived outcome value. This paper explores these issues en route to a discussion of how education might make use of a current popular business model for integration. This model can be utilized to empower and place greater responsibility on local administrators to facilitate integration of technology into education.

    Ubiquitous Learning: An International Conference

    5-6 December 2009
    Northeastern University, Boston, USA
    www.ULConference.com

    Web Searching across Languages

    Jiangping Chen and Yu Bao have an article, Cross-language search: The case of Google Language Tools, in the latest issue of the journal First Monday. This is the abstract:

    This paper presents a case study of Google Language Tools, especially its cross–language search service. Cross–language search integrates machine translation (MT) and cross–language information retrieval (CLIR) technologies and allows Web users to search and read pages written in languages different from their search terms. In addition to cross–language search, Google Language Tools provides various language support services to multilingual information access. Our study examines the functions of Google Language Tools and the performance of its cross–language search. The results and analysis show that Google Language Tools are useful for Web users. Its cross–language search service provides quality query translation while the automatic translation of result pages needs further improvement. The paper suggests that cross–language search could be used by different types of Web users. The authors also discuss the strategies and important issues with regard to implementing multilingual information access services for information systems.

    Ubiquitous Learning: An International Journal

    The Ubiquitous Learning Conference and Journal set out to define an emerging field. Ubiquitous learning is a new educational paradigm made possible in part by the affordances of digital media. The Journal investigates the affordances for learning in the digital media, in school and throughout everyday life.

     

    The first issue of the first volume is now in the final stages of production and will be released shortly.