[CfP] The PLE Conference

I like to announce the Call for Papers for the first “PLE Conference” in Barcelona, Spain this year.

Personal Learning Environments (PLE) include the tools, communities, and services that constitute the individual educational platforms learners use to direct their own learning and pursue educational goals. The idea of the PLE represents a shift away from the model in which students consume information through independent channels such as the library, a textbook, or an LMS, moving instead to a model where students draw connections from a growing matrix of resources that they select and organize. Because they emphasize relationships, PLEs can promote authentic learning by incorporating expert feedback into learning activities and resources. A PLE also puts students in charge of their own learning processes, challenging them to reflect on the tools and resources that help them learn best. By design, a PLE is created from self-direction, and therefore the responsibility for organization—and thereby for learning—rests with the learner ….

Executive Commitee “Global Time”

Es freut mich außerordentlich, dass ich in das Executive Commitee der Online Konferenz “Global TIME: Global Conference on Technology, Innovation, Media & Education” aufgenommen wurde die das nächste Mal von 19. – 20. Februar 2010 stattfinden wird.
Ich bin selbst auch sehr gespannt wie es ablaufen wird, aber definitiv ein Schritt in die Zukunft von Konferenzen. Hier sind die Topics gelistet.

Global TIME is an online conference organized by the non-profit, international, educational Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE) and co-sponsored by EdITLib–Education and Information Technology Digital Library.

[publication] The Benefits of Geo-Tagging and Microblogging in m-Learning: a Use Case

Our publication “The Benefits of Geo-Tagging and Microblogging in m-Learning: a Use Case” of this year MindTrek 2009 conference is online available.
Abstract:

The recent years have shown the remarkable potential use of Web 2.0 technologies in education, especially in the context of informal learning. The application of Wikis for collaborative work is one example for this theory applied. The support of learning in those fields of education, which are strongly based on visual location-based information, could also benefit from Geo-Tagging, a technique that has become popular lately. This paper presents first development results on the combination of these two concepts into a geospatial Wiki for higher education, TUGeoWiki. Our solution proposal supports mobile scenarios where textual data and images are managed and retrieved during m-Learning in- the-field as well as some desktop scenarios in the context of collaborative e-Learning. Within this scope, one critical issue arises while adding and updating textual information via the collaborative interface, which can be cumbersome in mobile scenarios. To solve this problem, we integrated another popular concept into our solution approach, Microblogging. Thus, the information pushed via short messages from mobile clients or microblogging tools to our m-Learning environment enables the creation of Wiki-Micropages as basis for subsequent collaborative learning scenarios.

Reference: Safran, C., Garcia-Barrios, V.M.; Ebner, M. (2009) The Benefits of Geo Tagging and Microblogging in m-Learning: a Use Case, in Proceedings of ACM Academic MindTrek 2009 – Everyday Life in the Ubiquitous Area, MindTrek 2009, Tampere, Finland, p. 135-141, 2009

[conference] USAB 2009 “Usability & HCI Learning from the Extreme”

uni_linzDie USAB 2009 findet heuer vom 9. – 10. November 2009 in Linz unter dem Motto “Usability & HCI Learning from the Extreme” statt.

Our 2009 topic is Human–Computer Interaction for eInclusion (HCI4eIn), culminating in the 5th annual Usability Symposium USAB 2009.

Mission Statement: “Interfacing the Interface” for a better eInclusion!

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) pervaded many parts of our daily lives. Due to its flexibility (multimedia connected with multimodality) it offers a huge potential for people with disabilities and others with functional limitations to interact with electronic systems and services.

Hier geht es zur Webseite / Programm. Wir werden auch mit einer Publikation / Präsentation vertreten sein und freuen uns auf spannende Diskussionen – cu there.

Summary of Special Track MASHL 2009

The Special Track on “MashUps for Learning (MASHL09)” within the ICL 2009 conference is over and Sandra and I are very happy that we had a great time, great presentations as well as discussions. We like to thank also our “Best Paper Award” sponsored by ROLE project (represented by Ralf Klamma) for their help.

Again, thanks to Michael Auer to be part of his conference, to all presenters for their great work as well as all participants to create such successful sessions.
A special thanks also to Sandra from mine for creating the overview slides, the YouTube Video and for the great team work – it was simply a pleasure to work with you:

Interest on article “How People are Using Twitter during Conferences”

Amazing, our article as well as our presentationHow People are Using Twitter during Conferences” gathered much more interest as ever expected.
There was a big report on Read/Write Web a month ago “Study Reveals High Levels of Twitter Use at Conferences” and our presentation on slideshare reached the “Hot on Facebook”

How People are using Twitter at Conferences is being talked about on Facebook more than any other document on SlideShare right now. So we’ve put it on the homepage of SlideShare.net (in the “Hot on Facebook” section)

as well as the “Hot on Twitter” list:

How People are using Twitter at Conferences is being tweeted more than any other document on SlideShare right now. So we’ve put it on the homepage of SlideShare.net (in the “Hot on Twitter” section)

Thanks to all who were and are interested in our research and keep us motivated to do further work.

Final program of Special Track at ICL2009 online

Mashups for Learning

A track organised by:
Dr. Sandra Schaffert, Salzburg Research, Austria
Dr. Martin Ebner, Graz University of Technology, Austria

mashl2009-bild

The special track “Mashups for Learning” (MASHL2009) takes place within the “International Conference on Interactive Computer Aided Learning” (ICL) in Villach, Austria.
Here you can find again the CALL for Paper.
Now we can announce the final program (including 4 Full Papers and 3 Short Papers) of the two sessios which will take place on Thursday, 24/09/2009 – we are looking forward to great discussions about the topics: