Christopher D. Sessums :: Blog :: ALT-C 2005 session reports

Exploring the physical frontiers of e-learning: the use of Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) in outreach centers.

David Sugden did a nice job showcasing his use of PDAs to deliver content to local Islamic and Sure Start Centres. David suggested that PDA use was only a supplemental application to classroom teaching. His demo showed that the content offered appeared well thought out and practical, i.e. he wasn't trying to do too much but providing reviewable content to folks learning basic tasks (e.g., counting back change properly using flash animations, video clip examples of reading to young children, & pdfs).

Design for multimedia m-learning: lessons from two case studies.

Richard Haynes and Claire Bradley offered an example of using PDAs to provide onsite information resources on a tour of specific historic sites in London. Richard described it as a "verticle history model" as opposed to a horizontal model that allowed users to dig deeper into the history of the area. His example provides users with a "sensory richness" and multiple narratives that extend the users understanding of the place/site being studied. Luckily, London is relatively grey outside, so I guess folks didn't have a problem seeing their PDAs in the daylight....

Innovative practice with mobile and wireless technologies -- how can these newer technologies make a difference to teaching and learning?

David Sugden presented again, nothing really different. Dan Corlett from CETADL showed a clip from his center where students were employing PC tablets and e-portfolios. The portfolio demonstrated connected to the course management system, MS Word & PPT, an IM system, and Google. Pretty impressive. However, I kept hearing echoes of George Siemens in the back of my head, i.e., what happens after school is finished? All your portfolio contents are where? I wanted to suggest using blogs, an rss aggregator, wikis, etc. wherein students could "take it with them," as it were. It seems a lot of people are spending a lot of time building systems that are static and non-transferable outside of the school context.

Speaking of George, he and Stephen would have really *loved* the presentation on Developing and using a learning design toolkit. Talk about a taxonomy! I know the lead developers have spent many untold hours on this project which, in addition, has NSF grant money behind it. I understand that there is a place for taxonomies, but I have trouble with them. Once you carve something in stone, it's often difficult (if not impossible) to make any changes. What I objected to most was that users cannot go in and make any modifications (like with wikis). The developers seemed content controlling every aspect of this model which lacked any place for learner self reflection. I suggested making this application/model open source which went over like a lead balloon (or a hackneyed cliche!).
Oh well. That's my take anyway.