Useful Technology Tools for Students with Learning Disabilities

Summary

            The follow article developed by Jane Quenneville (2001) and it is mentioned in the technology tools for students with learning Disabilities (LD).

           This article describes different approaches which teachers can use in classroom with children with Learning Dissabilities. It presents different examples of technology devices which they are usuful and intresting for children with learning dissabilities. These devices can increase the learning outcomes of these children and the adaptation in classroom. 

Description

There are many technology devices which can help the children with learning disabillities.

Computer supports for writing

           Computers give the possibility to change the writing process and  to develop and record ideas, to edit ideas, and to publish and share with others.  Jane Quenneville (2001), mention "word processors, word prediction, portable note-taking devices, prewriting organizers, and multimedia prewriting prompts."

                                                        Portable note-taking devices                                                                          

                                                                Prewriting Organizers

Prewriting prompts: Multimedia software

           Children with Learning Dissabilities can use the visual and other multimedia in order to have more benefits for writing and develompment of prior knowleadge. 

"Bahr, Nelson, and VanMeter (1996) compared the effects of two computer-based writing tools on the story-writing skills of fourth through eighth grade students with LD." The researchers proposed that teachers can find a balance between  time spent planning stories and time generating actual text.

Benefits computers: Editing and publishing

            For students with LD, computers, portable keyboards, and specialized software are advantages for their learning outcomes. Computers offer an improvement in the quality and quantity of writing in students with Learning Dissabilities. Finally, computers give the posibility to students to improve the works succesful. (Quenneville, 2001).

In addition, there are a  software and one project which are proper for students with Learning Dissabilities and they are useful in order to help students to adjust in the classroom. You can see the "Totally Words", a learning software for children and adults with Down's Sydrome and the "AuRoRa Project" for Autistic children.

Concluding comments

Technology can help students with LD to adapt in the classroom. It is an effective way to introduce students with LD in classrooms and they feel more convenient and happy in classroom. It is important to improve the technology tools in order to help students with LD and students general.

Technology in special education classroom

Retrieved from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=uBbY-s5b1RE

Young student use intellikeys USB

Retrieved from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=h9hdMJmAZ5QProducer: David Robertshaw, Product Manager.

Related Link

http://www.pluk.org/Pubs/ATguide4LD_419k.pdf

References

Bahr, C. M., Nelson, N. W., & VanMeter, A. M. (1996). The effects of text-based and   graphics-based software tools on planning and organizing of stories. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 29, 355-370.

Quenneville, J. (2001). Tech Tools for Students with Learning Disabilities: Infusion  into Inclusive Classrooms. Journal of Preventing School Failure, 45(4), 167- 170. Retrieved November 1, 2012, from

http://www.ldonline.org/article/6380/

Robertshaw, D. (2009). Retrieved November 3, 2012, from,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=h9hdMJmAZ5Q

Exciting New Frameworks for Creating Open Educational Resources (OERs)

Two recent developments for educators using Open Resource technologies have a lot of potential; how they eventually pan out needs to be seen

On Oct 15, the 20 Million Minds Mix , a platform that enables teachers or anyone for that matter to custom-make textbooks by editing, revising, creating and reusing material in order to provide free/more affordable learning material to students was launched. It has access to over 5 million units of material  from Connexions, a collection of OER and more than 140 academic publishers. The platform helps in speedy composition, pricing and delivery, besides a real-time copyright clearance for articles/textbooks. Dean Florez, president of the foundation states,  “We strongly believe that giving educators a space that provides an abundance of resources and the flexibility for building low cost textbooks is the perfect recipe for making substantive change in the textbook industry."

Google’s Course Builder which was launched in September this year is an open source application to custom build courses. A comprehensive online tool for building learning resources with scheduled activities and lessons, basically to provide an online education. There is also a provision for ‘Hangouts on Air’ for live teaching. However basic skill with JavaScript, HTML and the Google App Engine  is required.  It is therefore perhaps more aimed towards  institutions looking to put large courses online rather than individual instructors. According to Google, Stanford University, Indiana University, UC San Diego and  Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL) among others have shown an interest. It is experimental in nature and in line with Google’s other educational initiatives like Google Apps for Education and Google in Education.

Introductory video of Google Course Builder

These two developments are huge steps forward and hopefully will give a boost to the generation and sharing of more accessible educational resources. They will definitely be a help in creation and construction of new knowledge by serious educators and its more accessible delivery to learners. Of course, they are both too new to be evaluated critically at this stage. Many factors like quality assurance, technical knowledge required, ease of use, acceptance by primary users will determine what shape and form they take in future.

For a detailed report you can read :

PRNewswire

Edutopia

Wired

You might also like to see:

Teachers without Borders

OER Commons

Sugata Mitra - a second approach at using technology to expand the reach of education

 GRANNY CLOUD TEACHING

SUMMARY

Following the self-instruction discovery that students teach themselves in India through the hole-in-the wall experiments Sugata Mitra went on to further these findings. The Granny Cloud Teaching approach attempts to 'Deepen the students learning experience' (Sugata Mitra) using the method of or like a Grandmother-stand behind the children and admire them. Using a recruitment base in the UK, where he lectures at Newcastle University - A recruitment for 'grandmother' volunteers who had broadband and were willing to devote an hour of free time was undertaken. the chosen volunteers would then connect to a rural area and speak, encourage, talk to the children.The move and ideas have now equally been adopted in schools in the UK with its application of computers in schools for classroom group work.

See the following link: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EVxqH73n1A

PROS/CONS of the GRANNY CLOUD

As with his initial experiments, I believe the use of the internet and a volunteer group to facilitate and spread the possibility of transferring information, and generating learning in underdeveloped and rural areas is important. Sugata Mitra often refers to the idea that because of the fact that these areas are poor or rural they often do not attract the best teachers nor always are economically able to maintain schools. Therefore this approach is another method at spreading information this time in a more personal manner than his initial hole in the wall experiments.

However, in being an approach that attempts to 'close the gap' it is also important to think that not everywhere will they be capable of adopting this self-regulated learning. Firstly, in some areas just trying to get a broadband connection may prove difficult -so technical issues and availability may be problematic.

Additionally, this is a good idea for learning the basics…and building perhaps a certain amount of knowledge but not for in-depth studies-it can only bring one so far. Some form of 'teacher', which is more skilled than the 'grandmother' will at some point need to come into play. 

Lastly, as with everything the social context and culture may come to affect the opportunities in that children may be prevented from learning with the tool in the first place; with ideals that they have other tasks and chores to perform for the family, and varying opinions on girls versus boys educational needs to name a few. 

“Not allowing students to use the Internet is like taking a modern soldier, taking away his gun and gear and telling him to fight.” – UK Sugata Mitra, Newcastle

MOOC in 2012.

According to Wikipedia, a massive open online course (MOOC) is a type of online course aimed at large-scale participation and open access via the web MOOCs are a recent development in the area of distance education, and a progression of the kind of open education ideals suggested by open educational resources.
Though the design of and participation in a MOOC may be similar to college or university courses, MOOCs typically do not offer credits awarded to paying students at schools. However, assessment of learning may be done for certification.
Also Wikipedia shares that MOOCs originated from within the open educational resources movement and connectivist roots. More recently, a number of MOOC-type projects have emerged independently, such as Coursera, Udacity, and edX. The prominence of these projects' founders, contributing institutions, and financial investment helped MOOCs gain significant public attention in 2012. Some of the attention behind these new MOOCs center on making e-learning more scalable either sustainable or profitable.

According to Willey David MOOCS are Massive but not open, Open but not Massive, and they try hard not to be courses.

According to Educause’s ELI “7 Things You Should Know About MOOCs”, the first MOOC is widely thought to be a course titled “Connectivism and Connective Knowledge,” which was co-taught by George Siemens and Stephen Downes at the University of Manitoba, delivered to 25 tuition-paying students but offered at the same time to around 2,300 students from the general public who took the online class at no cost.

The  MOOCGuide finds 12 benefits of a MOOC

1. You can organize a MOOC in any setting that has connectivity (which can include the Web, but also local connections via Wi-Fi e.g.)
2. You can organize it in any language you like (taking into account the main language of your target audience)
3. You can use any online tools that are relevant to your target region or that are already being used by the participants
4. You can move beyond time zones and physical boundaries
5. It can be organized as quickly as you can inform the participants (which makes it a powerful format for priority learning in e.g. aid relief)
6. Contextualized content can be shared by all
7. Learning happens in a more informal setting
8. Learning can also happen incidentally thanks to the unknown knowledge that pops up as the course participants start to exchange notes on the course’s study
9. You can connect across disciplines and corporate/institutional walls
10. You don’t need a degree to follow the course, only the willingness to learn (at high speed)
11. You add to your own personal learning environment and/or network by participating in a MOOC
12. You will improve your lifelong learning skills, for participating in a MOOC forces you to think about your own learning and knowledge absorption

Possible challenges of a MOOC

1. It feels chaotic as participants create their own content.
2. It demands digital literacy.- Which in the digital age is still a persistent issue.
3. It demands time and effort from the participants.
4. It is organic, which means the course will take on its own trajectory (you have got to let go).
5. As a participant you need to be able to self-regulate your learning and possibly give yourself a learning goal to achieve. Researches show that with the development of blended learning, students still prefer a reasonable combination between face- to- face meetings and online learning.

If relate this information to information gained earlier, automatically comes the idea that this kind of innovation will require time and money to make it work. Also there will always be one who wants to earn money out of new ideas. (Or one who has to loose a lot of money because of new ideas). In next video see 0.26 " Innovation is turning ideas into money..."

 

Even though we'e reached a high level of humanism, there are higher values in the society that persist leading nations. Make education open will not be as easy as it seems. The expression " Elite education open for masses" is already in its deeper content discriminative and antidemocratic.

Indefinite amount of students will be the issue that will create further problems in the process. Taking in account that fact that students do not pay for it, there will definitely be a lot of student willing to do that. The question about quality& quality needs to be addressed then.

This idea then goes against the EU higher education policy and Bologna process, which students to have the same level after graduation in order to assure mobility throughout EU and outside EU and to assure quality of education.

Whether MOOC is a threat to the Higher Educational System worldwide, is being discusses.  George Siemens, the founder of the first MOOC, predicted during a speech about transformational change at Campus Technology 2012, "The top tier and elite universities will likely continue to have physical campuses; the midtier levels, on the other hand, are the ones that are going to suffer to the greatest degree."

As Washington post claims, lately MOOC providers include a fledgling nonprofit competitor, edX, which has drawn hundreds of thousands of users to free online courses from Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of California at Berkeley. On Oct. 15, the University of Texas system joined them.

MOOC students, for the most part, aren’t earning credit toward degrees. Educators say that before credits can be awarded, they must be assured that there are adequate systems to prevent cheating and verify student identities. 

Burck Smith, chief executive of Straighter Line, which sells low-price online courses, contends that MOOCs are overhyped. He said universities that give their product away are likely to face challenges similar to those newspapers confronted when they launched open-access Web sites.
                      “Free content has never really been a successful business model,” Smith said.


For extra info see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massive_open_online_course
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/elite-education-for-the-masses/2012/11/03/c2ac8144-121b-11e2-ba83-a7a396e6b2a7_story.html
http://nation.time.com/2012/09/04/mooc-brigade-will-massive-open-online-courses-revolutionize-higher-education/
http://www.forbes.com/sites/sap/2012/09/06/massive-open-online-course-a-threat-or-opportunity-to-universities/
https://sites.google.com/site/themoocguide/
http://mobiliteitenopenonderwijs.wordpress.com/2012/09/22/weer-mooc/
http://opencontent.org/blog/archives/2436

Gamification. A new trend in Education

 

According to GamifyingEducation.org gamification is the use of game-like thinking and elements in places that aren't traditionally games. The use of game mechanics and dynamics like badges, leaderboards, and actions can be useful for improving motivation and learning in informal and formal settings.
As in the Oxford dictionary "gamification" is the application of typical elements of game playing (e.g. point scoring, competition with others, rules of play) to other areas of activity, typically as an online marketing technique to encourage engagement with a product or service.
A new term emerged during research, and namely "Serious Game", which is according to Wikipedia a game designed for a primary purpose other than pure entertainment.
The word "Gamification" was the word of the year 2011, and it entered the Educational field in 2012.
Implementing games use in Education leaded to a new instructional model GBL- game based learning or  DGBL- digital based learning.
A lot of theoretical research has been made  lately about gamification. But few implementation has followed. Discussions are made about advantages and disandvatages of using GBL.

Game being the root of "Gamification" it is relevant to know what the last one is. Among others "game" is:

- a competitive activity involving skill, chance, or endurance on the part of two or more persons who play according to a set of rules, usually for their own amusement or for that of spectators.

- any activity undertaken or regarded as a contest involving rivalry, strategy, or struggle.

They say children and youth are ready for GBL, even though learners need a PC and Internet connection (material issues). But teachers, parents and governments are not ready for this change.

Games are interesting, catchy and highly instructional as I've experienced it myself. Entertainment is what we lack in days of full schedule, so I would tend to think that developing GBL models for grown ups would also give extra motivation and support for life long learning processes.
Paulo Coehlo (whom I read sometimes for entertainment) in the Romanian version of " Aleph", clearly expresses hatred for academic books. And I've noticed myself how boring those can be. Here is where GBL would be a great alternative that leads to academical success.

Extra info on:
http://gamification.org/
http://www.gamifyingeducation.org/
http://ibuchem.wordpress.com/2011/12/30/gamification-in-education-2012/
http://blog.oup.com/2011/11/squeezed-middle/
http://www.scoop.it/t/gamification-education-and-our-children/p/1733269509/get-ready-for-the-gamification-of-healthcare

Moodle is a Bridge between Teacher and Pupil

The Moodle is an open source system and under the GNU Public License and it is an educational tool that serves educators to create online websites for pupils. Educators can use Moodle in promoting or assessing learning. And also institutions can use Moodle as an instrument in blended learning like online or face to face. Sometimes Moodle can be used for   activities like forum, databases, wikis and sometimes it is used to deliver content to students. Moodle has about 20 different types of activities and it supports social constructionist view.  This view enable teacher to collaborate with pupils. Teachers are not the unique source of knowledge so they should listen to the pupils and give them rights to share their ideas.  With the aid of Moodle, pupils ‘learn by doing’ it, they have opportunity to practice the activities. And it is also flexible environment for pupils as a time and space like;

 “ The course structure itself is terrific way to construct a shared and active representation of the  learning journey that everyone is going through. Forums of course are the core of this, providing spaces for discussion and sharing of media and documents. Wikis are collaboratively-built pages useful for group work and other negotiations. Glossaries are collaboratively-built lists of definitions that can then appear throughout the course. Databases are an extension of this idea allowing participants to enter structured media of any type”.

      Moodle is a quality pedagogical website that it helps teachers, learners and pupils very obviously. And it includes social constructivist approach in a good way. Anybody can download it freely and register it voluntarily.

source: moodle.org

"Pencils are bringing down education"

2011 draws to a close and I would like to end with more light-hearted news that attracted my attention. Last weeks and months a highly entertaining ed-tech debate unfolded on Twitter. Topic of the debate was … the use of pencils. Thousands of tweets appeared with the hashtag #pencilchat and the debate moved from the U.S., to Australia and Europe. The tweets are funny, a bit surrealistic, contrasting computers with a very old piece of technology: ‘the pencil’. But exactly this is what makes this #pencilchat so interesting to me. The comparison between computers and pencils works incredibly well for ed-tech and causes a light-hearted and thought-provoking reflection on the use of technology in the classroom and the obstacles teachers and schools face with integrating technology. Replace the word ‘computers’ by ‘pencils’ and think about the pedagogical impact of integrating computers/pencils in the classroom. How will computers/pencils influence education? Think about the difficulties teachers can have with adopting computers/pencils in the classroom. Reflect on the fears over whether or not computers/pencils will replace teachers. And how do we deal with students knowing more about computers/pencils than teachers?

“Real men use slate! You won't catch me with one of those new fangled pencil things #pencilchat”

It started all with some tweets after having read the book Pencil me in, written by John Spencer. The book is kind of a reflection of Spencers’ blog Adventures in Pencil Integration and tells the story of a teacher in the 19^th century, struggling with the integration of pencils into the classroom.

I started exploring the #pencilchat after a friend have sent me the ‘Ode to #pencilchat’, a video compilation of the most memorable tweets in the edu-tech debate, earlier this week.

Ode to #Pencilchat: Technology Integration in the Classroom

by: MiddleLevelEd

This video highlights some of the controversies and concerns about integrating new tools (no matter if they are pencils or computers) into education. Teachers and schools are often concerned about the lack of professional development, the accessibility, the costs, … The analogy with the pencils also opens your eyes for some clichés and sometimes school-made problems: “pencils are too dangerous to use for students without supervision”, “impossible to teach students about appropriate pencil use, because the curriculum is so full already”, “students use pencils at home all the time, so they are probably experts already”, … Astonishing is that Dr. Seymour Papert already mentioned this in an article, published in the Washington Post in 1996. There he gives some examples of the fallacies schools manufacture to persuade themselves that the integration of technology is impossible. Even today schools sometimes use some organisational problems as “powerful objective reasons” to ban technology. In my school for example we have only since two years two good-working computer classrooms of 30 computers each plus a Smartboard in each of them for 300 people in total. Reason for this late adaption of infrastructure is that there was no money for it. Before that we had one classroom with 25 very old computers (and you were lucky when they were all working). And some teachers never use any technology in their courses because “pupils aren’t concentrated enough when they have to use a computer” or because “it doesn’t fit in their subject”.

And these fears sometimes lead to strange school policies: “In order to protect our children, we must ban pen and pencils”, says one of the tweets. Katie Stansberry also points out the absurdity of the policies banning technology (or … pencils) in here MindShift post 10 Reasons to Ban Pens and Pencils in the Class.

The metaphor of pencils to talk about technology in education is not a new one. Back in the eighties Dr. Seymour Papert already used the parable as a standard part of his speeches and testimony.

Imagine that writing has just been invented in Foobar, a country that has managed to develop a highly sophisticated culture of poetry, philosophy and science using entirely oral means of expression. It occurs to imaginative educators that the new technology of pencils, paper and printing could have a beneficial effect on the schools of the country. Many suggestions are made. The most radical is to provide all teachers and children with pencils, paper and books and suspend regular classes for six months while everyone learns the new art of reading and writing. The more cautious plans propose starting slowly and seeing how "pencil-learning" works on a small scale before doing anything really drastic. In the end, Foobarian politicians being what they are, a cautious plan is announced with radical fanfare: Within four years a pencil and a pad of paper will be placed in every single classroom of the country so that every child, rich or poor, will have access to the new knowledge technology. Meantime the educational psychologists stand by to measure the impact of pencils on learning.

Though the articles of Papert are quite old, his ideas still seem fresh and some of the issues he mentions are still present today. However, as we take this journey towards integrating technology in the classroom, could one day digital technology become as normal as pencils?

You can also check the whole stream of #pencilchat-tweets on Twitter or you can read some on Storify.

iPad for educators

The large Multi-Touch iPad screen lets you use your fingertips- and your imagination – to do just about anything! Put together an HD video and soundtrack with a few taps in iMovie: use GarageBand to turn iPad into a guitar or a piano and record a song. Drag images into a Pages report and watch your text instantly wrap around them. Open the smart onscreen keyboard to enter data in numbers/ and show off Keynote slides with a flick of the finger. You can even print your projects right from iPad using AirPrint.

I find iPad quite useful , especially for the teachers. So if you’re a teacher, here are ten great iPad apps that you must try out:

 

1. QuickVoice Recorder: This is the perfect recording tool to record your classes and get feedback on your performance; you can see what you’re doing right and what you’re going about wrong and learn how you can improve your lectures.

2. Dropbox: If you’ve used Dropbox on your computer, you already know this is a must-have tool on your iPad. If not, it’s a file storage application that allows you to say goodbye to flash drives and portable hard disks for good. Just sign up to store your files online and then access them from any other computer, your iPad or your smartphone. Ideal for files you use at school and at home.   

3. Things for iPad: If you’re looking for the perfect task manager to keep track of all your appointments and prepare ahead, then Things it is.

4. Discover: There’s no need for encyclopedias today with Wikipedia and other instant sources of information. Discover joins this list as the go-to app for the iPad when you need information on just about anything in the world.

5. Evernote: There’s no need to carry around a notebook or diary in which to jot down your lesson plans or reminders – just use Evernote to enter your notes in text or voice format.

6. Pages for iPad: Use this nifty app to type out all your documents and include any kind of formatting you may need.

7. Numbers for iPad: For all your spreadsheet needs on your iPad, turn to Numbers. It’s easy to use, easy to access, and easy to import all your information from your Excel worksheets.

8. Goodreader for iPad: Use this app to access all your documents, PDF files, video and audio files, spreadsheets and many other kinds of files over a wireless network or via USB cable – it makes it dead easy to retrieve files from other systems.

9. Mobile Air Mouse: This is the perfect tool for hosting presentations and conducting lectures using an interactive whiteboard. It turns your iPad into an all-in-one remote control that you can use to manipulate the board without having to resort to using a wireless keyboard and a mouse.

10. WritePad: If you prefer to write rather than type, then this app converts your handwriting on the iPad into readable text – use your finger or a stylus to get your point across.

beVUB (project summary)

Our website has one aim and one aim only - to provide information about Belgium,Brussels and Vrije Universiteit Brussel to all international students. We rely on the helping hand of numerous international (and not only) students who have already experienced a lot in the country of frites, waffles, beer and hard studying.

Even though the four of us were somewhat technically disadvantaged, we managed to work on a small idea that hopefully can turn into a useful place. This project is very dear to us because all of us have teaching experience and we wanted to combine education with technology. The latter is represented by our use of open source materials.

15 steps to cultivate lifelong learning

Lifelong learning is the continuous building of skills and knowledge throughout the life of an individual. It occurs through experiences encountered in the course of a lifetime. These experiences could be formal (training, counseling, tutoring, mentorship, apprenticeship, higher education, etc.) or informal (experiences, situations, etc.)Lifelong learning, also known as LLL, is the "lifelong, voluntary, and self-motivated pursuit of knowledge for either personal or professional reasons. As such, it not only enhances social inclusion, active citizenship and personal development, but also competitiveness and employability.

15 Steps to Cultivate Lifelong Learning

1) Always have a book.

It doesn’t matter if it takes you a year or a week to read a book. Always strive to have a book that you are reading through, and take it with you so you can read it when you have time. Just by shaving off a few minutes in-between activities in my day I can read about a book per week. That’s at least fifty each year.

2) Keep a “To-Learn” List

We all have to-do lists. These are the tasks we need to accomplish. Try to also have a “to-learn” list. On it you can write ideas for new areas of study. Maybe you would like to take up a new language, learn a skill or read the collective works of Shakespeare. Whatever motivates you, write it down.

3) Get More Intellectual Friends

Start spending more time with people who think. Not just people who are smart.But people who actually invest much of their time in learning new skills. Their habits will rub off on you. Even better, they will probably share some of their knowledge with you.

4) Guided Thinking

Albert Einstein once said, “Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.” Simply studying the wisdom of others isn’t enough; you have to think through ideas yourself. Spend time journaling, meditating or contemplating over ideas you have learned.

5) Put it Into Practice

Skill based learning is useless if it isn’t applied. Reading a book on C++ isn’t the same thing as writing a program. Studying painting isn’t the same as picking up a brush. If your knowledge can be applied, put it into practice.

6) Teach Others

You learn what you teach. If you have an outlet of communicating ideas to others, you are more likely to solidify that learning. Start a blog, mentor someone or even discuss ideas with a friend.

7) Clean Your Input

Some forms of learning are easy to digest, but often lack substance. I make a point of regularly cleaning out my feed reader for blogs I subscribe to. Great blogs can be a powerful source of new ideas. But every few months I realize I’m collecting posts from blogs that I am simply skimming. Every few months, purify your input to save time and focus on what counts.

8 ) Learn in Groups

Lifelong learning doesn’t mean condemning yourself to a stack of dusty textbooks. Join organizations that teach skills. Workshops and events can make educating yourself a fun, social experience.

9) Unlearn Assumptions

You can’t add water to a full cup. I always try to maintain a distance away from any idea. Too many convictions simply mean too few paths for new ideas. Actively seek out information that contradicts your worldview.

10) Find Jobs that Encourage Learning

Pick a career that encourages continual learning. If you are in a job that doesn’t have much intellectual freedom, consider switching to one that does. Don’t spend forty hours of your week in a job that doesn’t challenge you.

11) Start a Project

Set out to do something you don’t know how. Forced learning in this way can be fun and challenging. If you don’t know anything about computers, try building one. If you consider yourself a horrible artist, try a painting.

12) Follow Your Intuition

Lifelong learning is like wandering through the wilderness. You can’t be sure what to expect and there isn’t always an end goal in mind. Letting your intuition guide you can make self-education more enjoyable. Most of our lives have been broken down to completely logical decisions, that making choices on a whim has been stamped out.

13) The Morning Fifteen

Use the first fifteen minutes of your morning as a period for education. If you find yourself too groggy, you might want to wait a short time. Just don’t put it off later in the day where urgent activities will push it out of the way.

14) Reap the Rewards

Learn information you can use. Understanding the basics of programming allows me to handle projects that other people would require outside help. Meeting a situation that makes use of your educational efforts can be a source of pride.

15) Make it a Priority

Few external forces are going to persuade you to learn. The desire has to come from within. Once you decide you want to make lifelong learning a habit, it is up to you to make it a priority in your life.

African teenagers excited about reading Shakespeare on their mobile phone

In the school where I work as a teacher mobile phones are not allowed in the classroom. Teachers even take them away when they catch a student texting with their cell phone hidden under the table. So, every year students are looking at me with eyes filled of astonishment and suspicion when I ask them at the beginning of a poetry lesson to take out their mobile phones and to switch them on. Yes, I sometimes use mobile phones in the class for SMS poetry for example or for lessons on SMS text message language.

Last week I read the article Yoza Cellphone Stories – getting South African teenagers reading on the website of Unesco and I already could imagine my students reactions and unbelief when I would tell them that from now on we will use mobile phones for reading. Though, I’m pretty sure that they would love the mobiles for literacy-project, launched by the Nokia-UNESCO partnership.

As many developing countries, Africa is a “book-poor and mobile phone-rich” society. Steve Vosloo, founder of the mobiles for literacy-project, mentions on the blog Educational Technology Debate that 51% of households in South Africa don’t have a single book at home, while only 6% of households own 40 books or more. And – even more surprising – only 7% of schools have functioning libraries. While books are scarce, 90% of South Africa’s teenagers have their own cell phone and 70% of these phones have access to the internet. This makes the mobile phone an interesting tool to work on literacy.

The mobiles for literacy project

The m4Lit (mobiles for literacy) project was launched as an experiment to see if teenagers in South Africa would read on their mobile phone. One of the inspirations for the project was the m-novel phenomenon in Japan, where teenagers have been reading and writing novels on their mobile phones since almost 10 years now. But the success in Japan didn’t guarantee success in Africa. So, in a pilot phase two stories, called Kontax, were published on a mobisite and on MXit (Africa’s largest social network) in a period of almost a year (September 2009 and May 2010), both in English and in isiXhosa. The reading even was made interactive, since it was possible for the teens to discuss the plot, the reactions of the characters, … They could also vote in polls and leave comments, and in the end it was even possible to write a piece as part of a writing competition. The African youth was excited! The website of the project gives us the following facts:

In just seven months the two stories were read over 34,000 times on mobile phones. To put this in context, a book is considered a best seller in South Africa if 3,000 copies are sold. Over 4,000 entries were received in the writing competitions and over 4,000 comments were left by readers on individual chapters. Many of the readers asked for more stories and indifferent genres.

Encouraged by the success of the experiment, the idea was further developed by Shuttleworth Foundation and resulted in August 2010 in a bigger m-novel with the name Yoza. The Yoza Cell Stories offer more Kontax-stories, a great selection of books from different genres and a Classics section. Books are written in English or isiXhosa and some even in Afrikaans (I love this language!). New chapters of a book are published on daily or monthly basis and under each chapter readers can leave a comment. Shakespeares Romeo and Juliet for example inspired to comments as: “Wow romeo is gud neh”, “Speeeakiiiin offf reeealll traaaageeedy. Shakespear was giftd damn”, “This story is the gud one cz most of us tenagers we gain lots of expiriance 4 the thing that we have jst read in that story”. Yes, Shakespeare is rocking in South Africa!

The ‘Calling all writers’ section offers the South African youth the opportunity to write a book review or a m-story. The stories are published under a Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike License (this means that anyone can freely copy, distribute, display and remix the content, as long as they credit the original and subsequent authors) and writers get exposure on the Yoza Cell Stories website, which is a very motivating for those young writers. Interesting as well is that a Yoza Manifesto on the website gives advice to writers how to write for a cell phone. It seems that a new style of writing is born.

Now the Yoza Project is available in all provinces of South Africa and in Kenya, but the goal is to reach whole Africa.

In the following video Steve Vosloo explains the development, goals and backgrounds of his project in more detail.

Unesco promotes integration of mobile phones in education

According to UNESCO departments of education in different countries start to consider the impact of mobile learning. To promote the potential contribution of mobile telephones to education UNESCO organised from 12 to 16 December its First Mobile Learning Week (MLW), in Paris. There an international group of experts explored the potential and challenges of mobile learning and when you read the reports of this meeting on the UNESCO website, it must have led to an interesting discovery and exchange of creative ideas about how to use mobile phones in education.

The UNESCO website shows some convincing examples of the use of mobile technologies: “They have been used to provide access to distance education for teachers in remote areas in Mozambique; to enable the development of literacy among girls in Pakistan; to motivate young learners in South Africa to read and nurture an interest in mathematics; to enable access to literacy among adult women in Niger; to reinforce communication systems between principals and teachers in Kenya; and to enhance administration systems in schools in Mongolia”.

I’ve never thought that cell phones could have such an impact on the educational development for developing countries. In a way I think I automatically combined the technological evolution in education to the well developed, rich world, but I totally agree with Steve Vosloo in his statement: “For the foreseeable future the cell phone, not the Kindle or iPad, is the eReader of Africa. Yoza aims to capitalize on that to get Africa’s teens reading and writing.”