Interview with Miguel Salinas, Adobe Youth Voices / Aspire Awards: Innovators in E-Learning Series

Welcome to an interview with Miguel Salinas, who has helped develop the Adobe Youth Voices program, dedicated to encouraging creativity and self-expression using high-impact media. Awards for this year will be announced on May 4: http://youthvoices.adobe.com/awards/. The program, sponsored by MTV, Dell, and Samsung, as well as Adobe, allows students, teachers, and communities develop creativity and technological skills. It uses a set of open, downloadable curricula as well, ideal for online courses and online teaching degrees.  

What is your name and relation to e-learning?
My name in Miguel Salinas and I’m the Program Director and Senior Manager Corporate Social Responsibility for the Adobe Foundation. I’ve been at this post for seven years now and my role is primarily to manage the programming for Adobe Youth Voices, the Adobe Foundation’s global signature philanthropy program.

Regarding e-learning, Adobe Youth Voices has a set of open, downloadable curricula, called Adobe Youth Voices Essentials that empowers any educator to create breakthrough learning experiences. From material that provides a context for youth media making in general, to special content that illustrates the "how-to" of youth- centered instruction, Essentials helps educators teach the process of media making and strategies for exhibition and distribution.

Through AYV, youth ages 13 to 18 create compelling videos, animations, photo essays, presentations, music, and other pieces that contribute the essential perspectives of youth to critical topics and inspire new solutions to long-standing problems. Youth participating in the Adobe Youth Voices program both inside and outside of school are creating high-impact work to share with local and global audiences, they are also building valuable skills that open doors to future successes.

What are the Aspire Awards?The Adobe Youth Voices Aspire Awards is an international juried media competition that recognizes projects that best illustrate the program’s ‘Create with Purpose’ philosophy. This is the first global virtual media festival of its kind, honoring youth who creatively communicate a vision for change in their communities and lives through video, print and audio projects. Winning submissions are original, high-quality youth-produced multimedia created to address critical issues and effect positive change. 

We’re very pleased to have MTV, Dell and Samsung among our supporting partners for the first year of the Aspire Awards. As part of the 2012 AYV Aspire Awards, MTV will present the MTV ACT award. This award will recognize one young person whose exceptional video content leverages music, and provides a clear call to action for the audience to get involved. The MTV ACT award winner will win a trip to MTV studios in New York City, along with the other prizes provided by the Adobe Foundation and our generous partners.

Additionally, MTV Act will feature Aspire award winners at http://act.mtv.com/.

More details on the Aspire Awards can be found at http://youthvoices.adobe.com/awards/faq. Entries will be received through April 20. Following, the top 20 finalists per category will be showcased online at http://youthvoices.adobe.com/awards/ on May 4. Public online voting for the Audience Choice Award in each category will run May 4-June 8 and winners will be announced on June 18.

Winning youth producers will also have the opportunity to showcase their projects at partner film festivals, art galleries and exhibitions worldwide, including the Seattle International Film Festival, the Sarajevo Film Festival, Digital Arts Magazine, and many more.

How do they promote learning? How do they encourage the practical adoption of technology?In an environment where so many aspects of youth’s lives – from personal communications to entertainment to basic commercial interactions – are increasingly digital, youth often feel that when they learn in school and how they learn it are far removed from the reality of their everyday experiences. Through a mix of supportive learning environments and powerful technologies, Adobe Youth Voices is helping educators in schools and beyond develop unique, breakthrough experiences that re-ignite a young person’s passion for learning.

Adobe Youth Voices encourages the adoption of technology several ways. Working on their own and in teams with teachers and mentors, young people can express their creativity and vision, first through interactive discussion and story boarding and then using technology to capture and communicate their work. Program participants are encouraged to go out into their communities, interview peers and community experts, and along the way, capture real-world footage and images that best communicate their stories.

What are some examples?· In Kampala, Uganda, 19-year-old Ronald Kasendwa produced a documentary about gender disparity in science.

· Similarly, in London, 14-year-old Rameesha Malik created a short film showcasing how people from different countries meld into a unique blend of backgrounds and cultures.

· For RajKumar Raikwar, a 15-year-old in Delhi, Adobe Youth Voices provided the change to develop a media piece called "Beating Terror" about the impact of terrorism on children.

Please find several more examples on in the Adobe Youth Voices media gallery.

This program is not impacting youth, but also the educators. Here are supporting statistics for you:

YOUTH: After participating in the Adobe Youth Voices program:
· 90 percent reported that they are interested in continuing their education after high school

· 83 percent learned to express their opinions in new ways

· 86 percent reported that they can influence others with their ideas

· 79 percent improved their abilities to work with a group to solve a problem

EDUCATORS: After participating in the Adobe Youth Voices program:
· 80 percent report improved efficiency with technology to engage youth with concepts like story- telling, media formats and media literacy

· 78 percent of educators report a deeper understanding of how to facilitate youth-led projects and how the media creation process fosters 21st century skills

· 70 percent of educators report a deeper understanding of youth development and how to tap into youth interest and motivation

What are some of directions that Adobe Youth programs are pursuing?

Moving forward, Adobe Youth Voices is exploring workforce development connections to provide scholarships and internships. In the future, we want to build an efficient and productive pipeline of talent to college and higher education institutions. We are also exploring an increased amount of international exhibition opportunities.

What do you see as an exciting new direction?

Through the use of mobility, touch tools and cloud platforms, Adobe Youth Voices hopes to deliver programming in interesting, exciting and intriguing ways that engage youth.

　

　

Build-Your-Own Flashcards: Online and Mobile Devices

If you want to make the most of your downtime while waiting in line, in the doctor’s office, or getting ready for an event, flashcards in on your phone or tablet can help you build your vocabulary. The nice thing about flashcards is that there are many places that allow you to build your own flashcards, as well as access ones that have been created and are being shared.

If you’re interested in creating your own online flashcards, you may wish to check out the following free resources:

Quizlet:  http://www.quizlet.com
You can make cards in English, Spanish, or French, and can incorporate images. You can share your quizzes with your friends or students. It’s also mobile-friendly, and can be used on the iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, Android, Windows Phone, Kindle Fire and Nook.  You can also generate matching games that include a clock to give you practice working under time pressures.

Braineos:  http://www.braineos.com
Free online flash cards that you can create and share. You don’t have to sign up, but can simply log in with your email address. You can use questions as well as terms. Unfortunately, it’s not possible to add graphics at this time, which limits the ways you can use it. For example, for Human Anatomy, it would be good to include at least a sketch.

Scholastic Homework Hub: http://www.scholastic.com/kids/homework/flashcards.htm
This is a very easy-to-use interface designed for young users. You can print the flashcards. It does not support graphics.

Flashcard Machine: http://www.flashcardmachine.com
The interface is easy to use. No graphics are supported. The existing archives of shared flashcards contain cards with very weird definitions. This is a great example of how you must be careful to align your flashcard definitions with official content.

ProProfs Flashcard Maker: http://www.proprofs.com/flashcards/
Can create downloadable flashcards so that it is not necessary to be connected to the cloud. Can also print flashcards.  Does not allow graphics to be uploaded.

FlashcardExchange:  http://www.flashcardexchange.com
Can create and save flashcards in many languages. According to the website, there are more than 47 million flashcards in their flashcard library.  There is an amazing array of topics in the library, in subject matters as intriguing as Canine Acupuncture points. Unfortunately, there are no graphics. The ads are pretty intrusive.

Anki: http://ankisrs.net/i
This is a very versatile app that does not say it creates flashcards (except in its very thorough and easy to follow manual), but the approach and the functionality are very similar.  The overall learning goals are to reinforce active recall. Anki is functional across a surprising number of platforms and mobile devices. I also appreciated learning that it's optimized for low bandwidth, to reduce data transfer costs. The app is free for download, and the interface is refreshingly clear of annoying and intrusive ads. For that reason, I recommend donating to support it.

Interview with Tre Azam, Myndplay: Innovators in Education Technology Series

Using technology that measures your brainwaves to learn how to train more effectively for sports and to deal with stress (PTSD, performance anxiety, etc.) is becoming more affordable, easy-to-use, and accessible. Welcome to an interview with Tre Azam, founder and CEO of MyndPlay, a BrainWave training and entertainment platform.

1. What is your name and your relationship to technology, including assistive technologies?
My Name is Tre Azam, I am founder and CEO of MyndPlay which is a BrainWave training and entertainment platform that allows users to control video media using their mind, this also allows for constant neurofeedback during online training videos which can then be used for remote therapy and monitoring as well as personal emotional management development.


2.  What is EEG Brainwave Technology? 

EEG I stands for Electro Encephalograph it is used in hospitals all over the world to monitor brainwave activity, it works by measuring the electrical impulses in your brain. By measuring the impulses we canget an insight into what the emotional state of the user is, this is done by analysing the brainwave patterns .

3.  How can you measure brainwaves to learn how to control your mental state and to improve your focus?

In 2004 a company called NeuroSky innovated within this field by creating algorithms for particular states the 2 main states identified were mental concentration (focus) or mental meditation (relaxed), these were then divided up into a scale of 1-100. By providing the user with a meter to get visual feedback means an insight like never before into our mind, we then use the applications to incentivise development of those functions by controlling the stimuli and training the response.

4. What are some of the advantages of being able to use brainwave technology?

by using brainwave technology you gain insight and knowledge into how your mind works and what affects it most, for sporting peak performance it has been used for decades with expensive lab equipment to try and identify weaknesses in emotion or a personal individual triggers, brainwave technology takes out the guess work.


5. How are you using MyndPlay to help individuals with PTSD? 

MyndPlay began with the idea of providing a platform to help manage psychological and emotional problems without the need for ongoing therapy and expensive sessions, therapy is at the heart of what we do.

Tre is also a therapist in the field of trauma and has always looked for ways to integrate great training methods that can be combined with neurofeedback to provide personalised remote therapy for sufferers of all emotional turmoils.

On the myndplay app store we have a growing list of treatments for a range of problems including PTSD.

6.  Sports performance? 

the US Olympic archery team were amongst the first to work with our partners neurosky to find a cheaper alternative to expensive lab setups, building on that platform MyndPlay has since created a range of apps and training tools for sports caches and athletes to train themselves to manage their emotional in order to allow them to perform at their best. With athletes it is a matter of training both focus and calm as it is imperative for top level success to have both, a state often referred to as the zone.

for sports one of the limiting factors has been location, it is hard to carry a lab around with you.  With MyndPlay Pro coaches and atheletes can record their brainwaves directly onto their phones and then transmit that information to a desktop where it can be analysed.


7.   How might MyndPlay programs be used with elearning (including digital textbooks)?

for elearning the ways it can be used are many, it can be a tool for measuring a persons level of interest and appropriate the work based on that, or it can be a tool that forces the user to remain in the correct “learning” state in order to allow them to keep learning. We are working on a few academic tools with schools in the UK.

8.  Do you have links to demos or white papers?

there are quite a few whitepapers on how the neurosky chipset and the headsets have been used for different things, I will try to dig some out and send to you.

we have a number of videos on ours and our partner NeuroSky youtube pages.

http://www.youtube.com/myndplay
http://www.youtube.com/neurosky

Interview with David Myers, V.P., Michigan Virtual University, Innovators in E-Learning Series

Online learning for children from ages 12 to 18 is an area of great growth and promise, as more schools move from strictly brick and mortar to blended approaches. The Michigan Virtual University has been an innovator in the field and offers courses to a wide array of schools and learners, who are able to obtain the courses in many ways.. Welcome to an interview with Dr. David Myers, Vice President of Educational Programs and Outreach.

1.  What is your name and your relation to e-learning
Dr. David Myers, Vice President, Educational Programs and Outreach, Michigan Virtual University
Michigan Virtual University designs, develops and provides online learning to middle schoolers and high school students as well as professional development for Michigan educators.  I am responsible for coordinating the activities of four areas of the company.  These are:  curriculum and instruction, product development, customer service, and marketing, sales and communication.  Michigan Virtual University works with local public and private schools in three areas.

Since 2000, MVU has worked with the legislature, governor's office, local and private schools as a catalyst for change.  Supporting early adaptors and introducing a new instructional approach was both challenging and rewarding.  Moving from a traditional instructional delivery model in brick-and-mortar schools to online or blended learning has grown since the inception of the Michigan Virtual School in 2000 with the delivery this year of about 20,000 enrollments.  MVU through the MVS provides both online content and online instructors that are Michigan certified and highly qualified in their areas of teaching.

Through its professional development portal Michigan LearnPort®, MVU has also pioneered moving part of teacher training away from a one-size-fits-all model to one that serves the unique needs of individual teachers with professional development when it is needed, anytime, anywhere.  Michigan LearnPort uses the Meridian Global LMS  and supports about 15,000 educators yearly with nearly 25,000 enrollments.  Michigan LearnPort also provides collaboration spaces, record-keeping and reporting,  MVU also acts as a capacity builder with its customers, providing consultant services, training and strategic planning assistance as schools seek to provide effective programs to meet the growing needs of their communities.

2.  What do you consider to be some of the emerging challenges in elearning today?
There are myriad challenges facing schools, teachers, students and parents as online learning moves from being a novelty to a recognized part of instructional delivery. Schools face the challenge of deciding what can best be delivered in traditional approaches and what can best be delivered through technology.  They are also faced with deciding whether to build their own content, buy from a quality provider or barter with others in a combined approach.  Blended learning, combining elements of both traditional and online learning, may become the best approach.  In order for this to take place, teachers trained in traditional methods will need to learn new skills including becoming proficient with the hardware and increasingly complex software that's available.

Online learning through Michigan LearnPort provides some of this needed training.  Students need to transfer their interest in technology from pursuits in social media and recreation to learning traditional content.  Parents will be faced with decisions on which type of learning best suits their child and what is the best content and when it should be introduced.  All parties will be facing the issue of quality.  How does one know that learning is taking place, and whether or not one model is better than another?

As the market for online learning increases, the number of for-profit providers will grow.  Determining how to identify quality providers and distinguish them from those just looking for profit will be a challenge.  Relying on just sorting them out in a traditional market sense may yield many under-educated students.  Unlike making a mistake in purchasing a product that can be returned, discarded or a new one purchased, students that loose valuable learning time with inadequate education will take a long time to make up the lost ground.

3.  What are some of the opportunities that have presented themselves recently?
MVU is investing considerable energy in two areas.  The first is the continued development of high-quality content.  As partners in organizations like the State Virtual School Leadership Alliance, the International Association of K12 Online Learning and the National Repository of Online Content, MVU is working with experts across the country to insure that Michigan students and teachers have access to the best possible content delivered by the best-trained teachers.  MVU has also developed programs for schools interested in developing strategies for introducing or expanding online learning in their communities.  As part of a capacity-building role, MVU is working with individual schools interested in capitalizing on 12 years of experience in online learning.


4.  Where are some of the biggest problems and inadequacies with the learning management systems that many people use?
Most learning or content management systems are excellent in a few key areas, but not in all areas.  Of particular interest in K12 is access to progress information on individual students and groups of students.  Pulling data from the databases in a LMS is a challenge because the data needed is oftenvery specific to the individual approach a student takes through the content and the need is to identify patterns that yield the best results.  This kind of data is not usually a main focus of LMS developers.  Another area of need is for up-to-date "dashboarding" where school personnel, students and their parents (guardians) have instantaneous access to all kinds of information that is easily viewed.  In education, many decisions are made each day on what resources or help might address a student's needs.  The more data and the ease in compiling/displaying the data offer huge potential for intervening with (and redirecting) students.

5.  How have you overcome them?  What has your strategic objective involved?
MVU spends a lot of time looking at new products, new media, and new approaches to teaching and learning.  MVU recently developed a program that brought together representatives from about 30 school districts to discuss and plan for innovation.  This think-tank, so to speak, will tackle some of the issues in online learning to help MVU decide what is needed most by our customers and what might promote individual schools to risk change.

As for the LMS, MVU recently retooled the LMS that powers its online portal for K-12 teachers called Michigan LearnPort. Michigan teachers, school administrators and other school staff rely on the portal, in part, to earn continuing education units, take state compliance courses and satisfy other professional development needs. Our upgrade from Meridian's legacy product, the Knowledge Centre, to Meridian Global LMS 2011, is helping us improve content delivery, reporting, security and the user experience.


6.  What do you think will constitute the future of e-learning? What are the "next generation" technological breakthroughs likely to be?
Online learning is part of the fabric of K12 education.  There is likely to be a balance between traditional brick-and-mortar delivery, complete online delivery and a combination of the two in a blended approach.  The next wave of technology is likely to be in the area of assessment of learning.  Education needs highly complex software capable of analyzing each individual's approach to learning, constantly changing the level of instruction and the pedagogical approach; so that, learning is challenging, yet not too difficult.  Most experts in the field of online learning believe that the role of the teacher will remain important.  Teachers will be relieved of some planning of instruction much like when textbooks were introduced, but there will be added emphasis on the diagnosis and prescriptive skills of the teacher.  Individual learning plans will replace planning a single approach for a group of students.

7.  What are some of your favorite "for fun" books?
I love to read historical fiction like "Coming into the Country," by John McPhee, mysteries and thrillers for pure escapism.  The best books I've read lately, or am currently reading that are more professionally oriented are "Crucial Conversations," "Outliers," by Malcolm Gladwell, and "Decision Points," by President George W. Bush.

Interview with Caroline J. Smith, George Washington University: Innovators in Education Series

A new collection of essays, Feminist Cyberspaces (Cambridge UP, 2012) addresses innovations in technology and how they can be used to expand access to education. In addition, the collection brings together new views / approaches to feminist theory in light of technological innovation.

1. What is your name, affiliation, and relation to education and/or e-learning?
Caroline J. Smith, Assistant Professor, The University Writing Program, The George Washington University

At GW, I teach a first-year composition course. In our program, instructors are encouraged to plan their courses around themes that interest them. I've taught courses about women's contemporary popular fiction, food writing, and even the television series Mad Men. Many of my courses focus on gender representations. And, I am a big advocate of online resources. We use blogs each semester as a place for students to practice their writing and read and respond to each other's work. I've also taught an online version of the course over the summer.

2. What was your role in Feminist Cyberspaces?
Sharon, Alvina, and I - along with another colleague, Carolyn Bitzer - presented on a panel together at the National Women's Studies Association. The panel focused on teaching, technology, and the Women's Studies classroom. There was such interest in it that we decided to edit an anthology. I served as one of the editors and co-wrote the conclusion for the anthology.

3. How does the body of work / the work you did with the collction complement your own research, teaching, and other activities?
As a graduate student, I taught for the Women's Studies program at the University of Delaware. Though I teach writing courses now, I feel they are very much influenced by the teaching that I did at Delaware and my scholarly interest in representations of women in contemporary popular fiction (I have a book about chick lit and another coming out about food memoirs). In each of my writing courses, we analyze, research, and write about texts often in relation to gender. I find feminist philosophies of pedagogy to inform the way I structure my courses and conduct myself in the classroom.

4. What are some of the key issues addressed in the collection?
I think an overall theme that I took away from the anthology was the idea of community. Each essay discusses really interesting approaches to using technology in the classroom, and while it may seem that technological advances could separate individuals (i.e. you might imagine each student typing away on her laptop from the comfort of her own home rather than engaging with each other in the physical classroom space), many of the essays explicitly or implicitly discussed how students still felt connected to one another. For me, this continuing theme was interesting to discover and speaks to just how important community is for feminism.

5. How do some of the core concepts of feminism and gender equity theory apply to technology?
Some of the essays in our anthology address the way in which technology can be an "equalizing" factor for women. For instance, Sharon's introduction talks about the way in which women are making their presence known in virtual worlds. Other essays, though, talk about the ways in which real life gender inequalities can manifest themselves online.

6. Where has the Internet fulfilled and failed to fulfill some of its early implicit promises?
This is a good question. I'm not sure I have the best answer, but I do think that - for those women with access to the Internet - that the Internet can offer some amazing opportunities for publishing to a wide audience. I'm working on a project now where food blogging is a component, and I find that many food bloggers started writing for themselves, publishing on the Internet, and realized how much their work resonated with others as they started getting more and more feedback. It's exciting to me that so many women have embraced blogging - many who might not have had a chance to be formally published.

7. What are some of your teaching, research, and other activity plans for the future?
This year, I've been on leave from teaching at George Washington. I had a baby last May, named Henry, so I had the fall off from teaching for family leave. This spring, I am on sabbatical, working on a project about contemporary women's food memoirs. When I return to teaching in the fall, I'll once again be teaching my course of Mad Men.

Interview with Mickey Levitan, Courseload: Innovators in E-Learning Series

Delivering course materials is being accomplished in innovative ways. Welcome to an interview with Mickey Levitan, co-founder and CEO of Courseload, an aggregator and distributor of digital textbooks and course materials. 

Screen Capture #1: Courseload

1.  What is your name and your relation to e-learning?
 Mickey Levitan, Co-Founder/CEO of Courseload. We are a device-and content source-neutral aggregator and distributer of digital textbooks and course materials.  The Courseload model and and platform address the major impediments that have slowed the transition from print to digital course materials in higher education, helping colleges and universities to lower the cost of education and leverage tools that contribute to better educational outcomes.

2.  What is Courseload?  How does it work?
Courseload is an end-to-end solution that enables schools to harness the benefits of digital course materials.  It is software platform that works in conjunction with a school's Learning Management System (LMS), aggregating requested content, distributing the content to students based on classes they have selected and providing a set of tools for highlighting, annotating, collaborating, searching and evaluating that can be used across content from multiple sources. It also handles interfaces with publishers and school systems.

3.  What do you think are some of the core issues facing e-learners and e-learning organizations today?
Not unlike the issues faced by the music and film industries a decade ago, the education industry is currently constrained by measures put in place by publishers to constrain piracy – measures that impede adoption and diminish user satisfaction. Courseload’s approach was conceived to overcome these major impediments that are inherent with all digital content.  The approach is designed for schools that can charge students for their course materials along with tuition, thereby eliminating the economic incentive for illegal copying.  If all students have already purchased the content, who needs to steal it?

This approach changes the economics for publishers who lose revenues to the used book market and piracy and then react by raising prices on new texts. With 100% sell-through guaranteed and illegal copying eliminated, publishers can lower prices dramatically and improve their own profitability. They can also eliminate the cumbersome restrictions on copying, printing, offline access, number of devices, or length of access that historically have made digital content less attractive to end users.

By creating conditions in which eTexts can be more widely used, schools can harness the teaching and learning advantages that come with broader application of digital tools and richer course content.  By creating a platform that can aggregate and distribute content from all sources – proprietary, open source, self-generated, audio and video – academic institutions can take advantage of the growing choices the digital world provides.

Screen Capture #2:  Courseload

4.  What are some of the "disruptive technologies" that will continue to impact elearning in the next few years?
 Successful and disruptive platforms in Courseload's space will:
•    Show demonstrable contribution to improved learning outcomes
•    Enable learners and instructors to collaborate outside the traditional classroom molds
•    Accommodate a variety of teaching and learning styles
•    Leverage technology to provide insight into how students are learning and how instructors can help them succeed.
•    Can consume a variety of content types and formats - both text-based and interactive multimedia – so that users have a common experience with a single set of tools to perform basic functions. These platforms will need to consume proprietary, open-source, and self-generated content
•    Help control escalating cost of education

5.  What are some of the new digital platforms for course texts?
The focus among newer platforms is on "self-publishing".  As self-published texts proliferate, it will be interesting to track what new models emerge to ensure the kind of rigorous editing & review process that has been the hallmark of proprietary content. Some of the newer platforms include: Apple iBooks2, Thuze and Inkling. The Flagship Flock includes Courseload, CourseSmart, VitalSource, Kno and Nookstudy.  A major distinction between platforms is whether they are designed to go direct to consumer or for institutional partnership.  The latter offers potential advantages on cost, collaboration and analytics.

6.  Is it necessary for students to be connected to the internet in order to access the textbooks via courseload? How do you deal with the issues of bandwidth and people who do not necessarily have universal and persistent access?
Courseload is a cloud-based SaaS platform that is content source, device-, and LMS-agnostic. It can be accessed both on and offline. The Courseload platform does not have bandwidth issues in and of itself as it is a cloud-based, light weight platform that does not consume much bandwidth. Where access or bandwidth issues arise, Courseload has an offline capability. Thus far, we have not encountered bandwidth issues with schools using our platform. In schools where all students do no have access to a computing device, the potential cost savings of $600/year with digital provides ways, through financial aid, to justify the up front purchase of a capable device.

7. Are there contingency plans for individuals who are using a smartphone for access and whose provider has blocked or slowed access? How do we keep from creating "bandwidth hogs" when we insist that everything be streamed / accessed from the Cloud? How can we overcome the problem?
Courseload's contingency plan for access is our offline capability. Once the user logs in to the online version of the Courseload platform, the Courseload application can be quickly downloaded to the user's personal device. All digital content associated with the user's courses is then also available without being tethered to the internet.  Courseload has not encountered bandwidth issues because our platform is very light weight in terms of the bandwidth required.

8.  What do you see as high-growth areas in terms of textbooks / course content / course materials?
We expect the growth to come in three areas:
1.    Applications that support school priorities and preferences, e.g. content-source, device, and system agnostic; offer capabilities that truly make a difference in cost and educational outcomes
2.    Publishing tools that make it easier to create, harness and adapt digital courseware (interactive, multi-media, adaptive, self-paced, assessment, analytics, etc.) that will supplant traditional textbooks
3.    Platforms that provide a common set of digital tools that can be used across content from all sources across all courses and that are built to integrate with the veritable explosion of offerings and applications

9. What would you like to see happen in the near future?
One of the potential benefits of moving from digital to print is to lower supply chain costs.  There is a potential win-win for content developers and content users if there is a fair and equitable redistribution of the available economic rents. If this happens quickly, it will accelerate the transition to digital.

Interview with Dr. Stuart Johnstone, Univ of Wollongong / NeuroCog Solutions - Innovators in E-Learning

Using brainwave-powered feedback is easier than ever thanks to affordable sensors and headsets, plus free apps that work on virtually any system, from smartphones to tablets to laptops. This is a breakthrough for elearners wanting to make sure that they can effectively maintain attention and focus while maintaining a calm, relaxed state that is ideal for learning, especially for elearning, where distractions can be problematic. Welcome to an interview with Dr. Stuart Johnstone, research psychologist at the University of Wollangong, who is heavily involved in developing software such as Focus Pocus that can help learners improve their memory, focus, attention, and emotional state. It can also be used to improve impulse control.

1. What is your name and your relationship to learning?

Dr. Stuart Johnstone. I am an research psychologist at the University of Wollongong (Australia). I do research into neurocognitive training for improving learning outcomes for children with AD/HD and also those without AD/HD. We look at behaviour and brain electrical activity, or EEG, to see if the training has had any benefits for the children. We’ve also looked at using EEG as a way of improving the training outcomes. I’ve consulted with Dr. Joseph Graffi, CEO of NeuroCog Solutions, on behalf of the university in the design of commercial software based on our research outcomes.

2. What are new findings about measuring brainwaves outside the head? Why does it matter? How can the knowledge help you?

People have been recording the electrical activity of the brain from the scalp for nearly 100 years. A really important recent development is the appearance of consumer devices for doing this in an easy and convenient way with dry sensors wirelessly. No need to be stuck in a lab using messy gels and wired up to huge machines!

EEG matters as it gives us information about the neural activity going on in the brain, and tells us things like whether or not a person is calm, or concentrating, for example. We can use that information in a few ways. One is to let the person know how well they were concentrating during some other sort of task, like a memory or maths task. The other is to give them constant feedback about, for example, their concentration level so that they become aware of how it feels to have low and high concentration and possibly learn to control it a bit more effectively.

3. What is the equipment? How easy is it to use it?

The consumer device we’ve used in our research, and that’s used in Focus Pocus, is the NeuroSky MindWave or MindSet. They are simple headsets that record EEG from the forehead area and send that information wirelessly into the computer. They do some calculations to provide a couple of useful measures, one is “attention” which ranges from low to high and the other is “meditation” which ranges from tense to calm. We use them in the software in the ways I mentioned earlier.

The headsets are very straight forward to use. They only take about 10 seconds to fit. No fiddly wires or messy gels like you’d see in the lab or at the neurologist. This was really important for our research as we wanted kids to be able to use it at home on an almost daily basis – put the headset on, start the software and get going.

4. What is Focus Pocus? Describe what is and how it works?

Focus Pocus is a PC game created by NeuroCog. The user is a wizard in training! There are 12 mini-games and a boss level.

It was designed to be a fun way for kids aged 6 to about 12 or 13 years of age to exercise important psychological processes that help them to get the most out of learning situations. Things like being calm and concentrating, holding things in your memory, controlling your impulses and ignoring distractions.

There’s a training mode as well as challenge and multiplayer modes just for fun. The training mode takes a child through 25 sessions of fun training, ending each day with the boss level, where they get to battle the evil necromancer using items they’ve earned during the days training.

The better they do the better their spells and tricks! The training mode is similar to the training used in the research studies which showed that the children’s behaviour improved.

Parents can track their child’s progress using on online app called FocusIn. There is a report generated every day and at the end of the training. Parents of kids in our research studies at the university said that was really important to them, so NeuroCog built it in.

5. How can Focus Pocus be used by adult learners to improve their state control, working memory, and impulse control? Are there techniques that work with adults that are not used with children?

Focus Pocus could be used by adults, but the wizard in training theme was designed mainly with children in mind.

6. What do you see as the future of Focus Pocus and the applications?

I started doing this type of research because parents were constantly telling me they did not want to have to medicate their children who had AD/HD. My hope is that this type of training can be helpful as an alternative to medication, or as an adjunct to it. NeuroCog have done a great job of taking a fairly boring research tool and making it great fun for kids to play.

The good thing is that the principles behind the training methods are relevant for all children so Focus Pocus gives all kids a chance to improve those skills while having fun.

Interview with Michael Schutzler, Livemocha.com, Innovators in E-Learning Series

New approaches to online learning take advantage of new mobile devices and the willingness of learners to engage across platforms, technologies, and infrastructures. Learning languages is no different, and the focus now with new technologies, which are used in online forums, bachelor degree programs, graduate programs (for example, and online master's in Spanish), and even Ph.D. programs is all about interactivity. Welcome to an interview with Michael Schutzler, CEO of Livemocha.com.

What is your name and your relation to eLearning?

My name is Michael Schutzler. I am the CEO of Livemocha.com, the world’s largest online language learning community. I have been formally trained as an instructor in several disciplines including Telecommunication Systems Troubleshooting, Water Safety, Zen Meditation, and Executive Coaching. I am an avid technologist, internet entrepreneur and angel investor. I am PASSIONATE about providing teachers useful technologies to make learning both exciting and effective.

What is Livemocha?

Livemocha.com is 13 million people helping each other learn skillful conversation in 38 languages. The company was founded in 2007 and is dedicated to creating a world in which every human being is fluent in multiple languages.

What is Livemocha's instructional philosophy? How does it help with learning language?

First, the team at Livemocha believes that language is a performing art, not merely an intellectual pursuit. Therefore, we emphasize skill development - in particular, we emphasize conversational competency.

We encourage and reward every language learner to try to communicate using the tools he or she learns in each lesson. Since the advent of the Internet and especially with the explosive growth of Skype, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and many other forms of communication - we encourage both typed and spoken conversation skills. Of course, we also encourage each learner to share their own native language skills with other members who are eager to learn.

In this way, everyone gets to fumble for a few minutes with a new language and then shine for a few minutes when they share insights into their own language.

In what directions would you like to see education go? Why?

About sixty years ago, our nation had a wake-up call called Sputnik. Suddenly, we were in a race to ensure that our kids were the best at math and science so we could beat the Soviet Union in military and technical development. Meanwhile, funding for public schools has eroded in the past few decades and the result is a public school system obsessed with math and science curricula while jettisoning the humanities.

We do so at our peril. The rest of the world considers bilingual a baseline requirement for higher education and professional advancement. Those powerful communication technologies I already mentioned (Skype, LinkedIn, etc.) are making it possible for even the smallest company to reach global markets. Among the Fortune 500, more than 30% of the current job openings have bilingual as a requirement. Our education system cannot meet that demand.

Livemocha wants to ensure that every person reaches their full potential through skillful conversation in multiple languages. That’s why we created the Livemocha Scholarship program. By donating 5 million dollars worth of Livemocha services to underfunded community colleges and high schools in 2012, we’re hoping to give teachers the resources they need to help students become global citizens.

What is Livemocha doing to promote language learning?

We are partnering with many organizations throughout the country and around the world. Livemocha is already in use in thousands of high schools, colleges, corporations, libraries, non-profit organizations, government agencies, and more.

Our most recent endeavor helps schools build stronger language programs with the help of native speakers and teachers from around the world.

The Livemocha Scholarship Program, which launched on January 11th, 2012, is needs-based and will give US high schools and community colleges the ability to apply for free or deeply discounted language learning solutions with the goal of rebuilding language training programs to serve our nation.

Schools can find additional information and apply for the scholarship program. Simply visit www.livemocha.com/scholarship or email scholarship@livemocha.com.

Enter for a chance to win $100 gift card from Follett Bookstore!

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Teacher Salary

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Click here for the orginal graphic, with an interesting op-ed piece:

http://www.onlinedegree.com/infographics/teacher-salary

Teacher Salary Infographic created by Online Degree