Mobile Learning

Wow. Watching Tim Tarrant from the Training and Development Agency for Schools in the UK. They’ve been equipping their teachers with laptops for a decade, and, in the last few years, with PDAs. They’ve also assisted with supporting and developing teachers in the use of these tools. (Slides here: http://www.slideshare.net/HandheldLearning/tim-tarrant-tda video here: http://handheldlearning.blip.tv/file/454948/).

They now have 60% of teachers with a laptop; and 1000 trainee teachers using PDAs.

This is a brilliant strategy for ensuring teachers have every opportunity to develop their ICT and mobile computing skills; and to equip them to explore e- and m-learning strategies for their classes. Australia could learn much from how vigorously the UK are investing in education, supporting educators, and thus ensuring they are ever more capable of developing valuable learning opportunities for learners.

[slideshare id=142315&doc=tim-tarrant-tda-1193075701863118-1&w=425]

Tags: handheldlearning, handheld learning, hhl07, hhl2007, m-learning mlearning, mobile learning, mobilelearning, mobile-learning, pda, laptop, support, teachers, trainers, educators

Hooray! Alan Levine (aka CogDog) has a QR Code (perhaps the online equivalent of getting microchipped? )! He’s had a look at Semapedia and now also sports a QR Code on his blog sidebar, which provides a handy link to a mobilised version of his blog feed.

It’s terrific to see other educators adopting and implementing QR Codes to make their own content more mobile and accessible!

Tags: cogdog, alanlevine, qrcode, qr-code, qr code, 2dbarcode, 2d barcode, kaywa, feed2mobile, semapedia

The 4th Annual Edublog Awards are now open for nominations. I’ve already nominated Sue Waters’ blog for Best New Blog; and I’ll add more nominations as I reflect on my favourite bloggers this year!

Sue Waters started her edublog on innovative teaching in April, and quickly became one of Australia’s favourite edubloggers.

It already ranks as the most-visited site on the edublogs.org domain (according to Alexa.com), responsible for 5% of traffic – a remarkable achievement, considering there are over 100,000 blogs on the Edublogs.org site.

Sue combines a passion for sharing new ideas with a sense of fun that engages her readers. Her enthusiasm is infectious, and she often takes a pro-active approach to get her peers to start using new online tools such as Twitter, or to improve their skills and effectiveness online, such as through her “31-day Blogging Challenge“.

Sue is not just a terrific achiever herself, but someone who helps other edubloggers achieve their best. To me, Sue’s active encouragement and support of others is what separates her from the pack, and the reason I’m nominating her for Best New Blog, 2007.

Good luck, Sue!

Tags: edublogwards, edublog, edubloggers, edublogging, edublogs, suewaters, dswaters, aquaculturepda, m-learning, mlearning, mobile-learning, mobile learning, mobilelearning, award, awards