Mobile Learning Technologies To Enhance Adult Learning

         This week while I was researching mobile learning technologies, I came across an app that might yet prove to be the most important app for all adult learners to have on their mobile devices!  I was so excited when I read about it that I wanted to shout, “ I hit a jackpot!” or “I discovered a goldmine!”

Lumosity

         One constant struggle with aging is the decline in memory power, flexibility, attention and brainpower.  According to Mather and Carstensen, “the most widely acknowledged psychological change with age is the decline in cognitive processes, especially memory” (Mather and Carstensen, 2005).  I think this is a wonderful app for adults to have, to improve brain performance and cognition.  Lumosity (www.lumosity.com) is an app that has games to tease the brain and enhance memory and attention.  It is a web-based personalized training program that tracks changes in users’ performance.  The exercises (which are in the form of scientific games) were designed by neuroscientists to improve core cognitive functions.  Lumosity is the product of groundbreaking collaboration between researchers who are neuroscientist, clinicians, teachers, and academics from all over the world.  The collaboration was done through the Human Cognition Project (HCP) (Grant, 2013). 

         The best part is this app (the basic version) is free!  All it takes is 5 minutes everyday and the performance is tracked.  Core cognitive functions like, memory, attention, speed, flexibility and problem solving skills can be tested.  The user can choose which functions to work with.   For adult learners spending 5 minutes everyday in the morning or sometime during the day as part of taking a break, can prove to be beneficial in the long run.  (An enthusiast like me signed on immediately checked off all of the tests and I am going to do each one of them.  It was fun since all it seemed like was playing games.) 

         Lumosity allows you to track your performance and they even have an interactive map that shows user performances (through score) by each location in the United States.  Location data comes from the players' IP addresses, and scores are aggregated to the city and metro level.  Lumosity has 261,767 followers on Google+ alone and 40 million subscribers! (Kaiser, 2013).  Instead of playing mindless games, playing the brain games on Lumosity is a good way to keep the mind sharp through brain workouts!   Sharp brains can aid better learning in adults.

         I see this app as a potential “warm-up” app for adult literacy classrooms, where all learners can log into their Lumosity apps in the beginning of class and do the 5-minute brain workout to trigger the brain into action for more academic endeavors!  Lumosity can be the quick neuro-energy boost to the adult learner!

         The next mobile app that caught my attention is Digg (www.digg.com).  Digg is the best place to find the most interesting and talked about stories on the Internet.  It is a news aggregator with an editorially driven front page that feeds selected stories form science, trending political news and viral ones that have captured the attention of social enthusiasts.  Users discover, share and recommend web content to Digg.  Digg users can vote up (dig) or down (bury) the news feed.  Many websites now add a Digg button (a man with a shovel).  Incidentally another popular news sourse site, Reddit, was copied from Diig!

         Another part of Digg that has gained a lot of attention is Digg Reader which is similar to the recently closed down Google Reader.  Technology oriented news junkies were devastated and have moved in the droves to Digg (Delp, 2013).  The web interface of Digg is minimalistic and will be very easy to follow for busy adults.  Users will be able to organize the news feeds into folders like education, politics, and technology or save it to read later.  They can also share the news they read on Facebook and Twitter or follow certain news and newsmakers through the RSS feed.  An iOS app can help users keep up with news on the go.  There is no need to sign up to read unless the reader wants to dig or bury!  The news feed also tells you the source of the news; where it was first published.

         Digg is going to be a wonderful app in an adult literacy classroom.  The learners can be asked to quickly update the class and discuss one trending news from Digg.  If this was a class happening today (September 24, 2013) the most shared story in the past 18 hours would have been the one that reads: “The Newest Chinese Luxury Item: American Surrogate Mothers”  Imagine the kind of discussion that can be spurned with this kind of a news feed!  This one news feed is enough to have a class debate on current affairs.  Further activities for Digg users would be to share the news read on Digg with their friends in their social networks and observe how big it gets.  This in itself is a great study to see how social networks can make mountains out of molehills! (Delp, 2013).

References:

Delp, J. (2013) Staying connected with Digg Reader.  Retrieved from: http://www.jeffdelp.com/2013/07/27/staying-connected-with-digg-reader/

Grant, R,. (June, 2013).  Lumosity analyzes brain function of 40M people to push neuroscience forward.  Retrieved from: http://venturebeat.com/2013/06/20/lumosity-analyzes-brain-function-of-40m-people-to-push-neuroscience-forward/

Kaiser, T,. (May, 2013) Lumosity: Does it Work?  Retrieved from: http://www.dailytech.com/Lumosity+Does+it+Work/article31612.htm

lumosity_logo.jpg vistaalamemoria.blogspot.com/2010/05/... Crawled on 2010-05-13

Mather M, Carstensen LL (October 2005). "Aging and motivated cognition: the positivity effect in attention and memory". Trends Cogn. Sci. (Regul. Ed.) 9 (10): 496–502. doi:10.1016/j.tics.2005.08.005. PMID 16154382.

Social Networking Technologies

       This week when I started to research emerging technologies for social networking, I was amazed at the number of new ones that has cropped up.  Though Facebook and Twitter seem to be the leaders in this social connection field, there are several new ones that are starting to make a difference in the field of education.  In this blog post, I will introduce two that, in my mind, will serve well the adult educators and adult learners communities. The best part is, they are both free!

Student Circle Network (http://studencircle.net)

       The first one is called Student Circle Network (SCN) and was started in 2010 by a young Nigerian, Gossy Ukanwoke, who has been called the Mark Zuckerberg of Nigeria. The website boasts that “while Zuckerberg’s Facebook thrives on status updates and casual stalking of exes, Ukanwoke’s social network enables students to answer each others’ questions, brainstorm together and learn from its vast resources” (http://studentscircle.net/live/).

       In his blog post, Ukanwoke tells why he set out to set up the network.  He says he “was hoping to build a network that will cater for the needs of students globally and not just in one particular region” (http://studentscircle.net/about/articles/91#more-91). This network that he conceptualized in his North Cyprus university dormitory, with no budget for advertising or marketing, has in just one year gained great recognition in the world of education.  I found information in their blog that SCN won the Best Non-Video Free Courses: Education-Portal.com’s People’s Choice Award Winner beating high profile websites such as Wikiversity and OER Blue in the Category. (Posted on May 12, 2013)

       This social networking platform for educators and students purports to connect students, schools and teachers by providing 10,000 OpenCoureWare course resources, and 15 study groups for students to schedule study sessions.  The setup is similar to Facebook’s networking features and also provides information to students about university, scholarship and internship offers and information.  Students connect to share ideas, learn in a social Q & A environment (http://studentscircle.net/live/). 

       This technology is going to be a great resource for adult learners because this is a site where they can ask questions when in doubt and get answers form their peers or like-minded people.  Also, this is a site that can provide the support that an adult learner needs when learning can be a chore in the technology enabled world.

Diigo (http://diigo.com)

       The next emerging technology that shows tremendous promise for adult education is the social bookmarking website Diigo (Digest of Internet Information Groups and Other stuff). Diigo was conceived by Wade Ren and Maggie Tsai in Reno, Nevada as a social annotation service (http://diigo.appappeal.com/).  According to Kay Cantwell, Diigo provides a free, efficient and a reliable way to save and organize favorite websites, online articles, blog posts, images and other media found online.

       This site, in my mind, is one that all educators and learners should have, to organize the information they gather from their research online.  I created an account (it was very easy to set up one) and already I have saved several sites that I will get back to when I have more time or when I need to refer to something later. I also have set up the Diigolet on my web browser toolbar and I just use the bookmark icon to add and archive information.  The information you save can be private or it can be shared.  Also, we can connect to people who have the same interests through the communities that collaborate through this bookmarking site.  The user can leave notes for others to see and make further comments.  This way a dialog can be started within the community through the usage of “sticky notes”.  Using keywords, the user can search the entire communities for matches and Richardson says, “It’s like someone else doing research for you” (Richardson, 2007). 

       When I searched “emerging technologies for education” in the Diigo communities, I was amazed at the sites that appeared 20 in a page and I had to stop searching after I reached 100!  Each site that shows up also shows the number of people who have bookmarked it.  I also obtained the names of communities that were interested in the same topic and also related communities and other suggested topics were also visible.  Another thing that is utterly cool is that each link that has been saved also gives credit to the first person to save it and the date it was saved. 

       Diigo will be a great resource to my adult learners as they can research information quickly online and save it to use later or add their own tags to collaborate with the community.  The number of people who have saved it also provides the validity on how important the resource was.  In this information overloaded world, one site that gives many resources without doing all the research can be an awesome asset!

       I will recommend that all my adult learners obtain a Diigo account and do at least some of their research through Diigo.  Also, through this platform, I can form a group for my students and assign them assignments to research, share and collaborate.  The Teachers Console imbedded in the program will give me the ability to follow and moderate the online learning.

       Social networking technologies if used carefully and correctly will  certainly enhance adult learning in this increasingly interconnected world.

References:

Cantwell, K. (2011). 12 Reasons Teachers Should Use Diigo.  Retrieved from:    http://resourcelinkbce.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/12-reasons-     booklet.pdf

Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools    for classrooms (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

adjournalblog.wordpress.com social-media-offers-many-benefits-for... adjournalblog.wordpress.com Crawled on 2013-05-09

Multimedia Resources and Applications to Enhance Adult Education

         The emergence of the Internet as an open forum, open to all enthusiast, be it learners or creators, has resulted in the sudden explosion of educational technologies for educators and learners.  As Richardson aptly put it, “We are no longer limited to being independent readers or consumers of information, as we’ll see, we can also be collaborators in the creation of large store houses of information” (Richardson, 2010).  This is definitely an exciting time for educators to learn and incorporate technologies into their teaching routines.  If we do not do this, or are reluctant to do so, we might lose the interest of the learners/audience as these are kids who were either born during the conception of the digital world or are being born into this already digital world.  Our students think differently and since their lives are so intertwined with the digital world, it is no surprise that they expect the digital world to be a big part of their learning.  If we educators are stuck in our own time, do not equip ourselves with the emerging technologies and incorporate them into our lessons, our learners will be learning outdated information from outdated educators!  This is certainly recipe for disaster, as we will lose the interest of our audience.  However, teaching adult learners to buy into digital learning may be, on the other hand, a big task by itself for adult educators.  Adults who tend to be more intimidated by technology may feel uncomfortable exploring the digital medium and may want to restrict themselves to paper and print materials and be in a seated environment.  The beauty and increasingly so, is the ease of use of the educational technologies that are becoming available now.  Educators can easily convince their adult learners that digital learning or reinforcement at least, is the standard norm these days and definitely so in the future.  Incorporating them into their lives would be a big step towards the 21^st century learning environment.

What is Flickr?      

         In this edition, I will be sharing two multimedia resources that I think all educators can and should incorporate into their routines to enhance content delivery.  The first multimedia resource that I would like to talk about is the digital Web-based photography portal that has become very popular among educators.  Flickr is an online photo management and sharing application that is secure as well (www.flickr.com).  What is also very useful for educators is that many of the Flickr users have made their work available for use under the Creative Commons license, which “is a non-profit that offers an alternative to full copyright" (www.creativecommons.org), where the only requirement for use is that the user acknowledges and credits the creator for his/her work and does not use the sources for profit.  Best of all, right now this portal is free for limited use.

Why use Flickr?

         Since, Flickr has the ability to store, sort, search and share photos online, educators can tap from the vast numbers of photos in all categories and themes and use them to enhance content delivery.  In the month of July 2013 alone, about 62 million photographs were uploaded (www.flickr.com).  Flickr also offers educators the flexibility and ease to create lessons that are interesting and captivating using their own authentic photographs or use some form the huge database already available.

Ways to use Flickr creatively

         Flickr photographs can be best used to promote and build visual literacy skills in learners of all ages.  These photographs can be used by all teachers but are particularly successful in areas like Language Arts, Social Studies, Science, Photography and Arts.  In language lessons, a single photograph can be used with writing prompts or for free writing, be it creative, imaginative, descriptive or persuasive. Two photographs can be used to compare and contrast and a series of them can be used for storytelling projects or in the storyboard creations.  Flickr allows learners to annotate certain parts of a photograph, which would be a great exercise for vocabulary learning and review.

         Another great feature of Flickr is the ability for learners to develop online stories about images where they can write story lines in the comment area of each photograph known as Flicktion.  Flickr is also a great resource when teaching geography using the Geotagging feature.  Photographs can be geotagged, where each photograph form the Flickr collection has links to the geographical location through Google Earth where it was taken.  Students will get an instant education in geography through this feature.  Flickr can also be used to create a virtual field trip and improve student and teacher presentations with visual imagery (Jakes, 2007).

What is Podcasting?

         Podcasting is making a series of digital audio and video files.  Once these podcasts are made people who sign in with a podcatcher can regularly follow podcasts broadcasted.  This is like making and airing self-made radio and television programs to audiences who sign-up to watch.  Ben Hammersley first made the term podcast famous in the Guardian newspaper in a February 2004 article (Wolf, 2013).

Why use podcast?

The teacher or the student can use Podcasting for many things.  Teachers can make announcements through podcasts, and students can do collaborative work by creating a podcast.   Podcasts can also be a place to go to when someone is absent or someone else needs a review or reinforcement.  Students can also listen to other podcasts and analyze them or criticize them.  A teacher can post famous speeches in a podcast and make it available to students to listen to and comment and analyze.  Students can then create their own podcasts to provide a counter argument or point of view (www.edtechteacher.org).

Podcasting Applications

Spreaker (www.spreaker.com) is one of the most easy to use podcasting application.  It is free too!

Podcast Alley (podcastalley.com) is podcast lovers portal!  It has the best podcast directory and top 10 podcasts.

Podomatic (www.podomatic.com) is another easy to use and free podcasting application that is well like by podcasters.

http://edtechteacher.org has more than 10 ways to use podcasts in the classroom.  Several of these strategies can be adapted to be used with adult learners.

References:

 

Jakes, D. (2007) Resources about Flickr.  Retrieved from: http://www.jakesonline.org

Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for         classrooms (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Wolf, M. (2013) Nearly a Decade, a Few Books and a War Later, Ben Hammersley Still Most Known for Single Word: Podcast.  Retrieved from: www.forbes.com

www.concisetraining.net mediatree.jpg www.concisetraining.net/ Crawled on 2012-12-13

        

Emerging Technologies in Education

For Adult Educators and Adult Learners   

 

     The introduction of technology in education has completely revolutionized the delivery of education.  Gone are the days of complete reliance on print material.  More and more educators are using digital means to deliver their lessons.
     The 21st century students who are digital natives, have forced educators to move into their realm of comfort.  The 21st century educator has to keep up with their technology proficient learners to keep them engaged in learning.
     In this first post, I am going to share two emerging technologies that I think would be great for adult learners.  They are Nearpod and Edmodo.

     Nearpod is designed and created for delivering lessons on ipads.  The creators advertise this product as, “all-in-one solution for the use of mobile devices in education” (www.nearpod.com).  This is a free application with limited usage capabilities, or can be upgraded for more advanced storage and creations.  It can be used to create interactive multimedia presentations to fully engage the learners.  After sharing the content, the educator or administrator can follow the activities of the users.  After the users receive the content and understand their tasks, they can respond from any device, be it the ipad, mobile phones or computers, through any browser.  This allows them the flexibility of accessing and submitting their work from wherever there is Internet connectivity.  An educator using this platform will be able to create and share all the content with the learners in real time.  The updates posted by the educator and the responses from the students will be immediate. This will allow the educator to monitor closely student achievement, individually or on an aggregate basis as it happens.  According to the web tools evaluation site, Making Tech Simple, Nearpod, “provides the ability to upload existing presentations as well as create new ones form scratch (www.makingtechsimple.com/nearpod)."

            Another emerging technology that has gained a lot of traction among educators is Edmodo.  Edmodo is a great collaborative tool that is secure and keeps the learners and educators connected (Rispin, 2011).  Its interface has the looks and feel of the Facebook that it is very popular among young adults.  One of the best features of Edmodo is the Edmodo Support Community that is there to share ideas and reach out for help.  Edmodo also has a wide community sphere that you can ask to join according to your interest.  There are special groups for teachers of science, arts, languages and many more.  Edmodo is also very user friendly which would be a plus point for adult learners.  Edmodo can be used as the to-go-to-place after content delivery.  Educators can post videos, slides, announcements, notes, quizzes and comments. The learners will be able to post their assignments, share comments, review other learners’ work and have the ability to view videos, study for tests and even take the online quizzes or tests all at one platform.  There is even a mobile app for the learners and teachers who are on the go.

            While the possibilities of incorporating technology to enhance students’ learning experience is limitless, it is exhilarating to know that these 21^st century options are available for educators to make learning more exciting for learners.

References:

Making Tech Simple. (2011). Nearpod, Retrieved on September 7, 2013 from        www.makingtechsimple.com/nearpod

Rispin, K,. (2011). Sober Thought in a World of Digital Delirium. Retrieved from http://www.keithrispin.com/edtech/edmodo/

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