change11

The mobile phone is now a ubiquitous item even among the world’s poorest, and in fact over 70% of the mobile phones on the planet are in developing countries.

The 98-page toolkit contains 15 mobile learning methods divided into 4 categories that trainers can choose from depending on their needs –

In addition to the methods, an overview of mobile learning is included in the beginning of the guidebook and a set of practical tools that allow the methods to be immediately put into practice.

I worked on “learning objects,” which can be characterized as educational materials designed with the understanding that they will be reused in a broad variety of contexts

humans are too “expensive

the “reusability paradox.

Yesterday I talked about the seeding, feeding, and weeding necessary to develop a self-sustaining network

Choose: we are self-service learners.  We follow what interests us, what is meaningful to us, what we know is important. Commit: we take ownership for the outcomes.  We work until we’ve gotten out of it what we need. Crash: our commitment means we make mistakes, and learn from them. Create: we design, we build, we are active in our learning. Copy: we mimic others, looking to their performances for guidance. Converse: we talk with others. We ask questions, offer opinions, debate positions. Collaborate: we work together. We build together, evaluate what we’re doing, and take turns adding value.

With this list of things we do, we need to find ways to support them, across both formal and informal learning. 

One of the areas ripest for innovation is alternative certification of informal learning. Hence, the recent excitement about badges. Badges have incredible potential for providing a viable alternative to the traditional system of credits most universities are tied to by accreditors. It seems to me that there is a critical need for someone to demonstrate that badges are a viable alternative to the traditional accreditation process.

However, because the gold standard for learning credentials is acceptability by employers, any meaningful badges demonstration project will have to operate in this space.

We want to create a collection of badges that a top employer, like Google, will publicly recognize as “equivalent experience.” This goes straight for the jugular, demonstrating that badges are a viable alternative to formal university education.

For Pearson, this transaction signals a more rapid move into school management that was anticipated.  Historically, the line between supporting and operating schools has been one they did not want to cross given the special venom for private enterprise when it takes outcome responsibility.  I suspect when they considered accelerating rate (see my forecast) of adoption of learning online, it made the decision easy.

One consistent message here at Getting Smart is that the shift to personal digital learning is happening faster than most observers suggest–we’re riding an exponential curve not a straight line.  Pearson gets that and has been very thoughtful about managing the Innovator’s Dilemma.