QR Codes as Mobile Technologies

http://www.qrcode.com/en/about/
and
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QR_code#Mobile_operating_systems 

 QR codes seem to be everywhere, and are used for many purposes. Everything from identifying products, conveying menu calorie information, and now, even funerary purposes on headstones. What do QR codes stand for?  QR codes means Quick Response codes. The code was named so because its purpose was to be read quickly. A QR code is a symbol that can encode 300 alphanumeric characters. According to (Wikipedia, 2017) " A QR code consists of black squares in a square grid on a white background." (See the example above). 

It can handle many types of data, such as numbers, a alphabetic characters, Kanji, and Kama symbols, binary, and control codes. QR codes are readable from any direction, 360 degrees. It completes this through detection patterns located at the three corners of the symbol. There are many applications  for QR codes. They can carry information both horizontally as well as vertically. They have a high capacity for encoding of data.

The history of QR codes seems to be somewhat unclear. According to Wikipedia, 2017, QR codes were developed for the Japanese automotive industry. In yet another source, QR codes.com, they were created  for the Japanese supermarket industry to help make check outs more efficient and more manageable. The bar code had its limits.  QR codes can store approximately 7,000 characters which can be images, sounds stored as binary data. QR codes can be incorporated into the classroom to provide links to resources, complete diagrams and images, and solutions can be coded and made available to students. This is a useful way to incorporate mobile technology into the classroom and use it for learning.

Mobile Learning

Mobile Learning

https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/community/blogs/82288880-044e-425b-8c33-eff85a81d066/entry/10-emerging-technologies?lang=en

 
While searching for emerging technologies I came across this blog post. I found it interesting that the blog writer, J. Homes was writing in 2014. I am thinking of all of the changes between then and now. Considering the half-life of knowledge, I am sure these statistics would be different today. Notice how the author mentions 12 months or less for mobile learning in 2014.

Mobile Learning (12 Months or Less)

This is taken from a blog written by J. Homes, December 5, 2014. I think it is interesting to see the progression of mobile learning after reading this article. He offers some interesting statistics. "By the end of this year, the mobile market is expected to consist of over 7 billion accounts (equating to about 3.4 billion users, or one in every two people on the planet); mobile traffic on the Internet is expected to surpass desktop traffic; and mobile users will have downloaded 70 billion apps across smartphones and tablets. Educational apps are the second-most downloaded in iTunes of all categories, surpassing both entertainment and business apps in popularity," (Homes, 2014). I thought it was interesting that educational apps were the second most downloaded. Perhaps they are first now. He gives some cool examples of how m-learning is being used listed below: I am sure that this has more applications now.

"Mathematics: Year four students at St. Leonard’s College, a primary school in Australia, are using tablets loaded with math apps and e-textbooks to access information, receive instruction, record measurements, and conduct research.

Music: Students at Institut International de Lancy in Switzerland use their tablets to create music in the school’s first iPad Orchestra. The iPads have provided opportunities for students with little to no training to create their own music with classmates.

Storytelling: Ringwood North Primary School in Australia participated in “The Epic Citadel Challenge,” wherein students and teachers collaborated to write a digital story based on the Epic Citadel environment and turn it into an app accessible via iOS mobile devices," (Homes, 2014). 

These examples really made me think of what else could be done with mobile learning, and what other subjects it could apply to. I thought of travel, art history, public relations, advertising, media studies, and science. There are so many creative applications for mobile learning. I was inspired by this blog post.

 

Can electric pulses to the brain boost your creativity?

http://sciencenordic.com/can-electric-pulses-brain-boost-your-creativity

 I found this article interesting and compelling. We as humans have a natural tendency toward creativity. I don't know if robots, androids, or any other AI will be able to have this skill. I found the article while "surfing" through technology related sites. It also reinforced the ideas of Dr. George Siemens and his theory of Connectivism and networking, from a neural level, to a concept level, and finally, a social level. It was an interesting connection.

ScienceNordic journalist Anne Rinnggard gave it a try. She describes what she felt as she went through the process. A helmet is put on the head and a pulse of electricity goes through the brain. Friis-Olivarious is a brain scientist, who for the past ten years has studied what happens in the brain when we are creative. He and his colleague, Balder Onarheim, who lectures in industrial design, have developed a device that "supposedly stimulates creativity by shocking the brain with two milliamps of current," (Rinnggard, 2016). The device is worn like a helmet (there are pictures of the researchers and device in the article). When the current is turned up, creativity is stimulated, and when it is turned down, concentration is stimulated. 

Friis-Olivarious explains where the electrodes are placed and says that the current does not change the brain at all, it just augments a natural process. The brain's billions of nerve cells, neurons, are constantly firing and sending electric pulses to one another. 

The article goes on to talk more about how the process works and points out some benefits to the technology and research. Of course there are skeptics. These scientists will continue to explore the possibilities and evaluate the process.

Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/

Facebook is probably the most widespread and most popular social networking site in the world. It connects people with one another so they can share thoughts, ideas, videos, photos, documents, and information. It is a for profit company launched in February of 2004. Founded by Mark Zuckerberg, Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Chris Hughes, and Dustin Moskovitz.

I find students looking at their Facebook accounts during class when the should be actively engaged in the class activity. It is imperative to learn how to incorporate Facebook into class activities. Facebook can be accessed by any device: cell phones, laptops, portables, desktops, and kindles.

Face book offers many features on its site. One of them is  a "trending" box. It is a place that adult learners can read about current events. There are news channels and feeds to subscribe to. Clubs to join, ways to purchase things, and helps build networking relationships. Facebook connects its users to many resources and other people. It can be linked to a Twitter account. Students can post on Facebook and microblog to Twitter feeds thereby connecting with others to share information and updates on news stories, current events, interests, personal relationships, photos, videos, documents, sites, and much more. Adult educators can create a class space on Facebook and use it to post comments to discussions, reply to questions, update class members about class activities, collaborate on projects and documents. It can be used to network with potential employers, internships and learn about companies and their mission statements.

This is a fabulous learning and networking tool that has the power to link people and resources. It is worth a look. Creating an account is free and one can share as much or as little as they would like about themselves. There are privacy settings that allow users to control who sees their posts and comments. It is a great way to connect and network, share information and resources.

Twitter
http:www.twitter.com

Twitter, Inc. "An online news and social networking service where users post and interact with messages, 'tweets,' restricted to 140 characters," (Wikipedia, 2017).
Twitter is an online social networking service. A "tweet" is put out by users to send and interact with other followers to the site. Sign-up is free, but one must be registered to participate. One can read posts even if they do not have an account. People can post and share their interests, information, ideas, pictures, messages,  and short videos. Tweets are limited to 140 characters or less. "Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey, Noah Glass, Biz Stone and Evan Williams and launched in July," (Wikipedia, 2007).

Twitter is a form of "microblogging." People use Twitter for many reasons, "users can group posts together by topic or type by the use of hashtags-words or phrases prefixed with a '#' sign. Similarly, the '@' sign followed by a username is used for mentioning or replying to other users," (Wikipedia, 2017).  

Twitter can be used in the classroom to follow news stories, answer questions, surveys, and send links to information. At http://www.teachhub.com/50-ways-use-twitter-classroom
by Samantha Milke, she lists 50 ways to use Twitter in the classroom. Here are 10 ways:
1. Tweet about upcoming due dates or assignments
2. Provide the class with a running news feed
3. Track memes
4. Write a story or poem
5. Live "tweet" field trips
6. Ask questions 
7. Role play (be someone other than yourself to "tweet")
8. Take & share notes
9. Sync with a blog
10. Take a poll
and of course much more. Try incorporating Twitter into the classroom. It can be a great tool!
 

 UX to LX: The Rise of Learner Experience Design

https://www.edsurge.com/news/2016-06-20-ux-to-lx-the-rise-of-learner-experience-design

The term user experience (UX) was coined by Don Norman in the mid '90s, while he was vice president of advanced technology at Apple. The term "refers to an abstract way to describe the relationship between a product and a human," (Kilgor, p. 1, 2016). Norman argues that technology must evolve to put user needs at the forefront. It is about tailoring the online experience to the needs of end users. UX principles are being applied to learning in the form of (LX) designs.

Instructional design or learning experience (LX) is "forcing colleges and universities to think differently about how they construct digital courses,"(Kilgore, p. 1, 2016). Lots of new data now enables instructional designers to decode learning patterns and design courses accordingly.

LX (learning experience) designers merge design-thinking principles with curriculum development and add emerging technologies to help shape content to specific student behavior and preferences. LX (learning experience) designers embrace graphic design, multimedia content and production, research-based standards and social media, (Kilgore, 2016). This technique helps cultivate active and adaptive learning. How people interact with data can be seen by their "digital footprint." UX (user experience) and LX (learning experience) designers continue to find new ways of connecting people with information and technology.

Graphic from: 8 Resources Exploring Learning Expereince Design (LX Design) by Kelly Walsh (2017). www.emergingedtech.com

Virtual and Remote Laboratories 

https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/community/blogs/82288880-044e-425b-8c33-eff85a81d066/entry/10-emerging-technologies?lang=en

Virtual and remote laboratories reflect the current trend in K-12 education toward more authentic online education, although I believe that adult learners can benefit from this technology too. I think it could also be used in Criminal Justice to do virtual fingerprinting, use Google Earth, and maps to help in investigations. It can be used to research the location of certain plants, look at animal populations, and much more! Though this technology is four to five years away from mainstream use in schools,  but the benefits of implementation are already clear. Virtual and remote labs offer flexibility, as students can run experiments as many times as they like, both in and out of school. This is important as we do most of our learning "outside" of the classroom. This gives students a way to do experiments anywhere. Because these labs are designed to allow for easy repetition of experiments, students feel less pressure to execute perfectly the first time. In the controlled environments of these labs, students are safe, even if they make an error.

Here are some examples given:

Chemistry: Dr. David Yaron, Associate Professor Chemistry at Carnegie Mellon University, developed ChemCollective, a project of the National Science Digital Library, to create flexible interactive learning environments in which high school students can approach chemistry more like practicing scientists. I live in Pittsburgh, PA so this university is near to me.

Marine Biology: In Lysekil, Sweden, high school students use virtual tools to explore the marine environment of Gullmar Fjord on the Swedish west coast, learning in the process how scientific knowledge is created. The students use a virtual ocean acidification laboratory to conduct studies on the acidification of the marine environment.

Mathematics: High School students in North Carolina are using Geometer’s Sketchpad to understand how theorems are developed. The software is accessed through North Carolina State University’s virtual computing lab, a cloud-based learning environment with an interactive online community where teachers share tips on the software used as well as the projects undertaken.

Fun With Words and Parts of Speech

http://www.madlibs.com/
and
https://www.eduplace.com/tales/ 

These sites are Mad Libs and Wacky Web Tales respectively. They are fun ways to fill in missing words or phrases to create a funny story. To accomplish this one must know and give examples of parts of speech such as: nouns, plural nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, and so on. I like to use these as "ice breakers," creative conversation starters, brainstorming tools and just for fun. Mad Libs are sold in books, but there are a few that are downloadable from the site. The Wacky Web Tales are available online. Hope you have fun with them. 

Tour Builder
 https://tourbuilder.withgoogle.com/

Tour Builder is a way to share/show people the places that you have visited and the experiences you had there. It works with Google Earth. The program lets you pick the location on the map, add photos, text, and video to highlight that place. It was originally designed to give veterans a way to record all the places that their military service has taken them and preserve their stories, with family, friends, or other veterans. Now it has been opened up for all users. There are many applications for this emerging technology. It can be used to bring attention to causes, record trips or vacations to share with others, research wildlife, natural resources, introduce cultures, and much more. It is a versatile tool wtih endless creative potential.