Conference Workshop 1

Designing for 21st-century literacies to engage students
Prof. John G Hedberg
Macquarie University,
Australia

We will discuss the new skill set required by effective 21st-century citizens in using technologies to see, construct and explore, namely:

1. play — the capacity to experiment with one’s surroundings as a form of problem-solving
2. performance — the ability to adopt alternative identities for the purpose of improvisation and discovery
3. simulation — the ability to interpret and construct dynamic models of real-world processes
4. appropriation — the ability to meaningfully sample and remix media content
5. rapid task shifting — the ability to scan one’s environment and shift focus as needed to salient details
6. distributed cognition — the ability to interact meaningfully with tools that expand mental capacities
7. collective intelligence — the ability to pool knowledge and compare notes to achieve a common goal
8. judgment — the ability to evaluate the reliability and credibility of different information sources
9. transmedia navigation — the ability to follow the flow of stories and information across multiple modalities
10. networking — the ability to search for, synthesize and disseminate information
11. negotiation — the ability to travel across diverse communities, discerning and respecting multiple perspectives, and grasping and following alternative norms
12. location awareness — the ability to use the new digital awareness of current and required positions.

Examples will be given on designing serious games, constructing virtual worlds and learning. This will enable participants to attempt their own interpretation of what elements make up engaging design.

Conference Workshop 2

Strategies and Challenges for Integrating Mobile Learning in Higher Education
Professor Mohamed Ally
Athabasca University,
Canada

Because of the increasing use of mobile technology by students, educational institutions must integrate mobile technology into the learning process. This will provide flexibility for students to learn and will allow educators to use the capabilities of mobile technology to enhance the teaching process. Since students are mobile, they can use mobile technology to learn from anywhere and at anytime. This workshop will discuss strategies that educational institutions can use to integrate mobile learning into educational delivery, identify challenges educators have to overcome to successfully integrate mobile learning, and allow participants to identify how mobile learning can be integrated into their institutions for flexible delivery.

Outcomes

• Describe the benefits of integrating mobile learning.
• Describe change theory for innovation and how people respond to change.
• Identify strategies for successful implementation of mobile learning.
• Describe challenges when implementing mobile learning.
• Describe how to overcome the challenges for implementing mobile learning.
• Describe examples of successful mobile learning initiatives.
• Analyse your educational system and suggest how mobile learning can be integrated to enhance learning.