ML Community

PEOPLE

  • Mohamed Ally. Director and Professor Centre for Distance Education 
Athabasca University. Dr. Ally’s areas of research and expertise include mobile learning, workplace learning, e-learning, distance education, and program planning and development.
  • Inmaculada Arnedillo-Sánchez has lectured in Learning Technologies in Trinity College, Dublin since 2002, she is a researcher in the College’s Centre for Research in IT in Education (Crite), and a member of the Kaleidoscope Mobile Learning SIG Steering Committee. She organised the SIG’s “Beyond Mobile Learning” workshop and contributed to the SIG’s first VDS Workshop. Inmaculada has been involved with the IADIS Mobile Learning conference series since its inauguration and chairs its 2008 conference.
  • Jill Attewell, research manager of the Research Centre for technology enhanced learning. Between 2001 and 2004 Jill was the Programme Manager of the EC 5th framework research and development programme m-learning which explored, with partners, practitioners and learners in the UK, Italy and Sweden, the use of mobile phones and palmtop computers to engage young people in learning and help to develop their literacy and numeracy skills. Jill is a member of the organising committee for the international MLEARN conference series and co-chaired MLEARN2003 and MLEARN2004.
  • Judy Brown. Judy Brown is a Mobile Technology Analyst who has been involved in technology for learning for over 25 years and with mobile learning since 1996. She coordinates the mlearnopedia.com site.
  • Matthew Kam. Assistant professor Carnegie Mellon University. To change the world, that change has to begin within ourselves. My research group investigates how we can draw on the latest education research to design e-learning applications that impact literacy and language learning among underserved communities throughout the world. We adopt a participatory approach in which we work with end-users to understand their needs, attitudes, sociocultural practices and political environments. Despite being technology innovators, we maintain a healthy skepticism about technology, using numerous feasibility studies and field trials as our reality check. Research interests: computer-assisted language learning, educational games, literacy technologies, mobile learning, technology in the developing world. Involved in MILLEE project.
  • Desmond Keegan. Desmond Keegan received his BA (Hons) from University College Dublin in Classical European Civilization. He received his MA from University College Dublin in Medieval European Civilization, studying under the late Professor Dr Ludwig Bieler. He received a Post-Graduate Diploma in Education from the University of Adelaide. His PhD thesis on The Theory and Practice of Distance Education was published by Croom Helm as Foundations of distance education in 1986. The second edition was published by Routledge in 1990 and the third edition followed in 1996.
  • Paul Kim. The small-city-sized enterprise Stanford University is actually made up of seven major schools. Sitting at the helm of the Information Technology infrastructure of the School of Education is CTO Paul Kim who has held the post since 2001. This site, designed by SUSE IT team, provides a snapshot of Dr. Kim’s recent activities.
  • Liz Kolb. I am currently a doctoral student at the University of Michigan studying Learning Technologies. I am also an adjunct Professor at Madonna University and a former high school teacher and technology coordinator.
  • Agnes Kukulska-Hulme Professor of Learning Technology and Communication in the Institute of Educational Technology at The Open University, UK, and Co-Head of the Technology Enhanced Learning Group. She has been working in mobile learning since 2001, leading several research projects investigating mobile learning innovation at The Open University and across the UK.
  • Marcelo Milrad. Marcelo Milrad is a Professor of Media Technology at the Department of Computer Science, School of Mathematics and Systems Engineering, at Växjö University (VXU) in Sweden. He is also the director of the Center for Learning and Knowledge Technologies (CeLeKT). His current research interests include the design of learning environments to support learning about complex domains, collaborative discovery learning and the development of mobile and wireless applications to support collaborative learning.
  • Hiroaki Ogata. Associate Professor, Dept. of Information Science and Intelligent Systems, Faculty of Engineering, Tokushima University.
  • Caryl Oliver. Caryl Oliver is one of Australia’s pre-eminent authorities on how technology is changing the training and learning environment. caryloliver.com provides services to those who would like to embrace mobile and new technology for learning, but who may not know where to start.
  • Carol Savill-Smith, Carol Savill-Smith works as a researcher in the Technology Enhanced Learning research centre at the LSN, where she has principally worked in the field of mobile learning and computer games. Most recently, she has worked on a mobile learning project which allowed 19 teachers and tutors to be able to author or adapt mobile learning materials for he specific needs of their students in their particular context. The project report ‘Mobile learning in practice - piloting a mobile learning teachers’ toolkit in further education colleges’ will be available soon.
  • Mike Sharples, Professor of Learning Sciences and Director of the Learning Sciences Research Institute at the University of Nottingham. He has an international reputation for research in mobile learning and the design of learning technologies. He is President of the International Association for Mobile Learning.
  • David Schrag.  David Schrag is an independent E-Learning consultant, who specializes in mobile and micro learning. He also designs, manages and builds mobile and regular websites for international clients.  David has 9 years experience in the field of mobile internet technology (mostly software) and has been writing newsletters, articles and tutorials on this subject for about 7 years.
  • Giasemi Vavoula. Lecturer at University of Leicester, School of Museum Studies, involved in several projects on m-learning.
  • Katrin Verclas. Katrin is the co-founder and editor of MobileActive.org, a global network of practitioners using mobile phones for social impact. Katrin has written widely on mobile phones in citizen participation and civil society organizations, mobile phones in health and for development. She is a co-author of Wireless Technology for Social Change, a report on trends in mobile use by NGOs with the UN Foundation and Vodafone Group Foundation, and author of A Mobile Voice: The Use of Mobile Phones in Citizen Media. Katrin’s background is in IT management, IT in social change organizations, and in philanthropy. She has led several nonprofit organizations, including as the Executive Director of NTEN: The Nonprofit Technology Network, the national association of IT professionals working in the more than one million nonprofit organizations in the United States. Previously she served as a program officer at the Proteus Fund, focusing on the use of technology in civic and democratic participation, and in government transparency. She is the editor of Managing Technology to Meet Your Mission, published by Wiley & Sons., and author of a chapter in Mobilizing 2.0, a book focused on engaging young people and the use of technology. She is a frequent speaker on ICTs in civil society at national and international conferences and has published numerous articles and publications on technology for social change in leading popular and industry publications. She is 2009 TED Fellow and a fellow at the MIT Media Lab.
  • Tony Vincent. Tony focuses on free and inexpensive ways to engage learners. From netbooks and web applications to iPods and podcasting, Tony has put together information for teachers that is easy to understand, relevant, and free of charge. Please consider hiring Tony to speak or conduct workshops at your conference or school. Tony taught fifth grade in Omaha, Nebraska for six years, and three of those years his students were pioneers in educational handheld computing. Then, as technology specialist at Willowdale Elementary, Tony brought the newest technologies into classrooms. Whether it was digital video, blogs, email, podcasts, or handhelds, Tony helped Willowdale teachers and students understand the usefulness of new technologies. Currently, Tony is self-employed as an education consultant. He conducts workshops, presents at conferences, and writes books based on his teaching experiences and passion for new technologies.

Associations, groups, organizations

IAML is th organizer of the annual MLEARN conference and of a summer school.

  • Handheld learning. Handheld Learning is part of the Learning Without Frontiers organisation. Our focus is on learning and teaching practice enhanced by the use of mobile and ubiquitous technologies. Our vision is that the technologies that are becoming increasingly commonplace within the everyday lives of many people will also be used for powerful learning experiences both in and outside the traditional education environment. Since 2005 we have hosted one of the largest international conferences focussed on this rapidly emerging trend in learning. The annual Handheld Learning Conference now draws an audience of nearly 1,000 people from across the globe to meet, discuss and network. We also undertake independent research studies, consultancy, bespoke events and special projects. As a consequence of our large community network if we don’t know the answer we probably know someone who does. We were formed in 2004 by Graham Brown-Martin who had envisaged the use of mobile computing devices for learning by children since the mid-1980’s when one of his companies was awarded a government grant to develop one. Handheld learning is the organiser of the annual Handheld learning conference.

  • MobileActive. A global network of people using mobile technology for social impact. Mobile phones are proliferating at astounding rates across socio-economic and cultural boundaries, revolutionizing the way we organize ourselves. With more than 4.5 billion mobile subscriptions in circulation in 2009, they are found in every corner of the world, used by people to communicate with each other, and access and deliver information and services. These trends are highly promising for NGOs and civil society organizations that can now engage people on issues that matter most — through always-on, always-on-hand devices. MobileActive.org’s vision is to help organizations make use of the most ubiquitous communications technology in the world with data, tools, and how-to resources; build a network of practitioners and technologists in a supportive community of practice; and highlight and explore the many innovative campaigns and projects — their lessons learned. In short, we want to make it easier for any organization interested in using mobile tech to do so.

  • London Mobile learning group. Mobile learning is an emerging, and rapidly expanding field of educational research and practice across schools, colleges and universities as well as in the work place. The London M-learning Group brings together an international, interdisciplinary group of researchers from the fields of cultural studies, sociology, semiotics, pedagogy and educational technology from the Institute of Education, the University of Kassel, the London Metropolitan University and the University of Verona. The group is working on a theoretical and conceptual framework for mobile learning around the notion of cultural ecology. The analytical engagement with mobile learning of the group takes the shape of a conceptual model in which educational uses of mobile technologies are viewed in ecological terms as part of a cultural and pedagogical context in transformation. Members of the group work on various projects and publications with each other, and organise joint events. 

  • Meraka Institute. African advanced institute for information and communication technologies.Innovations suited to South Africa’s unique multicultural, multilingual and developmental circumstances are required to confront the challenges in education. Effective mechanisms are needed for sharing, building, growing and applying the knowledge gained in academic research projects. The approaches used will combine the practical focus of development projects with the rigour of academic research and stringent evaluation. Research, development and innovation will be linked to implementation within a framework of an overall ICT in Education strategy. The aim of the group is to influence and support the transformation of education in South Africa where each child benefits from an environment where technology is embedded into learning and teaching. A core team of ICT in Education specialists, researchers, analysts and engineers within Meraka will be built up over the next few years to work in partnership with multi-disciplinary researchers at tertiary educational and research institutions in South Africa and worldwide.
  • Waag society. Right from its inception, Waag Society has been involved with education and, primarily, with its modernisation. The goal of the Creative Learning Lab within the domain Education is innovation. The interests and capacities of the pupils are the focal point: the domain sees them as media producers, not merely as consumers. Innovation is the Education domain’s objective. Its approach is based on individual interests, and emphatically views pupils as media producers. This means that, instead of being treated as passive consumers, they get to grips with subjects that reflect their own environment and experiences. Within the educational domain there are conjunctions with many educational organisations. The Creative Learning Lab is housed at newly renovated Pakhuis de Zwijger (warehouse for culture and new media). The Lab provides facilities where it will be possible to work actively and directly with a wide variety of digital tools. Also, the Platform for Education and Innovative Media was added to the Education domain as a forum where professionals in this area can exchange information.
  • LinkedIn Mobile Learning Global Consortium. This group will serve as a collaborative forum for the ways and methods being used to push the envelope beyond the cutting edge of mobility, which help people learn, connect, and achieve, as it relates to academia, government, industry, and the mass consumer market.
  • Learning and Skills Developing Agency - LSDA. LSDA NI is part of the Learning and Skills Network (LSN), which is a new organisation committed to making a difference to education and training. We do this by delivering quality improvement and staff development programmes that support specific government initiatives through research, training and consultancy and by supplying services direct to schools, colleges and training organisations. By collaborating with key partners and through flexibility and innovation, LSDA NI has established a reputation for excellence in supporting learning and skills and will continue to operate under the name of LSDA NI. Our remit in Northern Ireland has quality improvement central to all our activities in support of the post-16 education and training sector.