Alexandra Okada, Monday 06 January 2014 |

Ligia Puppato, the Secretary of Digital Inclusion of Brazil Government, visited the Open University to gain insight into the future of Knowledge Media Technologies, especially in the context of open education and smart cities. She also took part in a webinar at KMi podium to launch the 3rd edition of the book, “Open Education Resources and Social Networks,” along with Peter Scott, the director of KMi, and the book’s editor, Ale Okada.

The webinar commenced with an opening address by Larry Cooperman, the president of Open Education Consortium from California, and Danilo Mendonca, OEC Brazilian member. It featured several co-authors of the book from different regions in Brazil and attendees from “Telecentros,” which are ICT centres established in remote areas as part of Brazil Government’s strategies for promoting Digital Inclusion.

During her presentation, Ligia congratulated all the participants in the book and emphasised Online Education as a key strategy for expanding formal, informal, and non-formal learning in Brazil—a country with vast geographical and social diversity. She stated, “Our challenge today, with so many projects being conducted, is to include people digitally, but mainly to ensure that they can have a sense of ownership of these technologies through open education.”

Larry Cooperman underscored the importance of a “Global open education infrastructure,” stating that achieving this goal can reduce the cost of university education and extend higher education to new populations that have lacked access. This, ultimately, serves as the social objective behind all the work reflected in the “OER and Social Networks” book.

The “OER and Social Network Book ” can be accessed at oer.kmi.open.ac.uk and was also published by EDUEMA in Brazil. Five hundred colour-printed copies were distributed free of charge.

Alexandra Okada, Monday 09 December 2013

…. The best paper award of the III LUSO Brazilian Conference on Distance Education and eLearning goes to …

Alexandra Okada, Antonio Serra, Silvar Ribeiro and Sonia Pinto, authors of “ Key Competences for co-learning and co-inquiry in the Digital Age”

This paper presents an exploratory investigation in development with preliminary results on “Key Competences for XXI Century Education in the Digital Age.” The method applied was cyber-ethnography with asynchronous observation (forum and wiki) and synchronous discussions (webconference) for analysing skills and competences developed during the process of co-inquiry and co-learning in two online environments. This study involves researchers from the UK, Brazil, Portugal, and Spain.

They initiated their interactions in the portal Encuentro.Educared of the “International Meeting on Education 2012-2013,” organised by the company Telefónica and also in the inquiry environment weSPOT (Working Environment with Social Personal and Open Technologies) funded by the European Commission. As a result of this study, it was observed that the portal led to the development of more explicit digital literacies, possibly because it was a simpler interface and familiar (forum). And in the inquiry environment, participants familiar with digital technologies had more opportunities to develop other skills related to Critical-Creative Thinking and Socio-Scientific Reasoning.

During this event, Ale Okada and COLEARN – an open research network, launched the 2nd edition of the book “Open Educational resources and Social Networks” with Carlos Teatine, the Director of Distance Education of the Brazil Government.

Ale Okada was the keynote who presented “Key competences in open, personal and massive environments,” describing case studies about OER, PLE, and MOOC.

Alexandra Okada, Thursday 21 November 2013

The 7th International Conference on Education (from April 2012 – November 2013), organised by Fundación Telefónica, is the 1st Massive Open Event on 21st Century Education. It brings together symposiums in many countries as well as a virtual network environment (Encuentro.Educared.org) for large-scale discussion.

Ale Okada was a keynote at the final event on the 12-13th November in Madrid with an audience of more than 700. Okada presented “Key competences for co-learning and co-inquiry in the digital age,” describing a case study about Telefonica’s Conference Portal (Encuentro.Educared.org) and weSPOT – a working environment with social, personal, and open technologies for inquiry-based learning (wespot.kmi.open.ac.uk). She also facilitated the closing web conference about “Key Competences for co-learning in open massive environments and Augmented Reality in Education, yesterday, 20th of November.

More than 50,000 people registered on Telefonica’s portal, including teachers, parents, head teachers, students, and educators. 5,000 active participants from South and Central America and Spain interacted in discussion forums, chats, web conferences, and social groups.

The Conference was organised around nine themes:

1. Society and work;
2. Technologies and Environments;
3. Digital Age;
4. Teaching and learning;
5. The role of educators;
6. Changes and Leadership;
7. Family;
8. Formal, Informal and Non-Formal Learning;
9. Vision and Trends.

More than 80 on-site events were organised over a two-year period for approximately 700 attendees per meeting, including policymakers, journalists, and other institutions.

The events attracted 300 international experts, renowned scholars, and education specialists worldwide such as John Moravec, Judi Harris, Richard Gerver, George Siemens, Alejandro Piscitelli, Roger Schank, Alberto J. Cañas, David Albury, Ferran Ruiz, César Coll, Daniel Contreras, Stephen Downes, Juan Domingo Farnós, Fernando Savater, …

Related Links:

• Portal Encuentro Educared
• Booklet Competencias-Clave para co-aprendizaje y co-investigacion
• co-inquiry and AR – video clip 2min

Alexandra Okada, Monday 18 November 2013

Established by UNESCO in 2001, World Science Day for Peace and Development is celebrated worldwide on 10 November each year. The Day is an occasion to recall UNESCO’s mandate and commitment to science. This annual event was instigated as a follow-up to the World Conference on Science, organized jointly by UNESCO and the International Council on Science in Budapest (Hungary) in 1999.

The Day offers an opportunity to reaffirm each year our commitment to attaining the goals proclaimed in one of the twin documents adopted by the World Conference on Science: the Declaration on Science and the Use of Scientific Knowledge and to follow up the recommendations contained in the Conference’s Science Agenda: Framework for Action.

Ale Okada was invited to participate in the World Conference on Science 2013. She presented two European projects whose aim is to foster scientific cooperation between scientists, researchers, educators, learners, and citizens through co-inquiry-based learning.

The WeSPOT project (Working environments with social, personal, and open technologies for inquiry-based learning) started in October 2012 and is being led by Dr. Ale Okada and Dr. Alexander Mikroyannidis. It aims at propagating scientific inquiry as the approach for collaborative science learning and teaching in combination with today’s curricula and teaching practices. WeSPOT will support the meaningful contextualization of scientific concepts by relating them to personal curiosity, experiences, and reasoning.

The ENGAGE project (Equipping the Next Generation for Active Engagement in Science) is starting in January 2014, led by Dr. Ale Okada. Its aim is to help teachers develop the beliefs, knowledge, and classroom practice for RRI (Responsible Research and Innovation) teaching. This requires adopting a more co-inquiry-based methodology, which gives students the opportunity for self-expression and responsibility for coming to informed decisions through collaborative and open scientific research projects.

Both KMi Projects (WeSPOT and ENGAGE) highlight the rationale behind celebrating World Science Day each year, which is rooted in the need for a new social contract for science, one that acknowledges the importance of the role science, educators, and scientists play in creating sustainable societies and ensures that citizens (including all learners) are kept informed of developments in science and empowered to participate in science. Our case studies in the UK, Brazil, Portugal, and Spain aim to build bridges between science and society through co-learning and co-inquiry by engaging intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations, scientific research institutions, professional associations, the media, science educators, and schools (teachers and students).

Related Links:

• e-conference program
• History of UNESCO

Alexandra Okada, Tuesday 03 September 2013

The book Knowledge Cartography: Software Tools and Mapping Techniques, edited by Okada, A., Buckingham Shum, S., and Sherborne, T., was launched on the 4th of November 2008 – 400 pages, with all the maps and images in color!

It is a great pleasure to announce that the 2nd edition of this book will be published in 2014 by Springer.

Since its online publication, there have been a total of 6642 chapter downloads on SpringerLink’s online platform.

Over the last few years, the download figures have been as follows:

• 2012: 1015 Downloads
• 2011: 1559 Downloads
• 2010: 1520 Downloads

This book was considered one of the top most downloaded eBooks in the relevant Springer eBook Collection (The Advanced Information and Knowledge Processing Series) in 2012.

Contact: Alexandra Okada

Related Links:

• Knowledge Cartography Content
• Knowledge Cartography SPRINGER

The key theme of the VIII International Conference on ICT in Education – Challenges 2013, held in Portugal in July 2013, was “Learning anytime, anywhere.”

Organized by the ICT in Education Competence Centre of the University of Minho Institute of Education, the conference covered a wide range of issues structured in three main topics:

• Emerging environments
• Digital and curriculum
• Digital evaluation

The topic “Emerging environments” focused on the most recent technological innovations, exploring future developments related to education and training.

As a keynote speaker, Ale Okada presented the project WESPOT, “Working Environment with social, personal, and open technologies for inquiry-based learning.” This project’s features, deeply rooted in digital and networked technology, aligned well with the conference’s key theme.

The conference attracted over 400 attendees from higher and basic education, with all keynotes also live-streamed to increase open access to the conference. Notably, Okada mentioned that increasing access to conference talks through live webcasts was not a new concept for Challenges. Seven years ago, during the initial editions of Challenges, Okada presented Open Learning Technologies of the OpenLearn Project through webinars using FM, which gained widespread access. Challenges was the first international event to allow online presentation of a conference paper, a significant and innovative opportunity that paved the way for many other online talks in various events. This approach significantly expanded the reach, both geographically and temporally, through the video web conferencing application FM.

During Challenges 2013, Okada also launched her book “Open Educational Resources and Social Networks,” edited by the OU KMI and published by UEMA University in Brazil. Free printed copies were distributed at the conference and received by the Chancellor (Rector) of the Open University in Portugal, the Educational Projects Director of the Education and Science Ministry, as well as the Director of EUN (European Schoolnet).

Alexandra Okada, Wednesday 17 October 2012

The kickoff meeting of the weSPOT project took place in Heerlen, Netherlands. Funded by the European Commission, 9 partner institutions will collaborate throughout the next 3 years to provide a Working Environment with Social, Personal, and Open Technologies for Inquiry-Based Learning across European higher academic institutions and schools.

The weSPOT environment will support users (from 12 to 25) in developing their inquiry-based learning skills through smart support tools for orchestrating inquiry workflows, including mobile apps, learning analytics, and social collaboration.

KMi – represented by Ale Okada, Alex Mikroyannidis, and Peter Scott – will be responsible for Personal and Social Inquiry Workflows as well as two pilots related to Biodiversity and Food.

weSPOT is addressing the key issue of innovating inquiry-based learning by integrating social, personal, and open technologies to connect informal and formal learning experiences. During the project, a reference model for inquiry skills and a diagnostic instrument will be developed to measure individual performance in the defined inquiry skills.

Related Links:

• weSPOT Project

Alexandra Okada, Wednesday 03 October 2012

Innovating learning through Education 3.0 was the key theme of the first conference InovaEduca 3.0, which was held in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on 1st October. This event provided a forum for researchers and practitioners to meet and discuss the wide range of principles and practices on the uses of technology for improving competences and skills in the Digital Age of Open Knowledge.

The term Education 3.0 has recently emerged to highlight the importance of preparing all students for this digital age. Keats & Schmidt (2007) describe Education 1.0 as a one-way process. Education 2.0 focuses on interactive online learning. Education 3.0 is characterised by “rich, cross-institutional, cross-cultural educational opportunities within which the learners themselves play a key role as creators of knowledge.” Advances in technology have been changing the ways we communicate with other people, how we acquire and assimilate information, as well as how we create knowledge. Users, both organisations and individuals, can now create their own networks, construct content together, and enable formal or informal learning collaboratively (Okada, Connolly, and Scott, 2012). According to Jim Legel (2012), the Education 3.0 School should encourage students to:

• Work collaboratively on problems worth solving
• Engage in self-directed research
• Learn how to tell a good story
• Employ tools appropriate to the task
• Learn to be curious and creative

These issues were discussed at InovaEduca 3.0. More than 500 attendees from higher and basic education came to engage in a program that contained keynotes from Brazil, the USA, and the UK: Adriana Martinelli (Ayrton Senna Institute); Angel Marchelli (Microsoft); Jim Lengel (New York University); Gil Giardelli (Miami Ad School); Luciano Meira (UFPE, Brazil); Vani Kenski, Gil Marques (USP – Brazil), and Ale Okada (Open University – UK).

Okada had a special participation through a live web conference. Her talk focused on COLearning – Collaborative Open Learning where teachers and students are colearners – partners in the process of sensemaking, understanding, and creating knowledge together. She introduced two books launched in KMi and UNESCO this year:

• “Collaborative Learning 2.0: Open Educational Resources” (by IGI Publishers) was written by 58 authors, who are leading researchers and practitioners in their field, from 14 countries: Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Germany, Greece, India, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, The Netherlands, UK, and the USA.
• “Open Educational Resources and Social Networks” (by Scholio Publishers) written by 35 research groups from South and North America and Europe. This e-book was developed during the OpenScout Project based on “the OER Flow” developed by Scott Leslie and Okada.

She also described two examples of co-inquiry based learning projects for Innovating learning through Education 3.0:

The project WESPOT “Working Environment with social personal and open technologies for inquiry based learning,” funded by the European Commission, is starting now (2012 – 2015). Its aim is to provide technologies for students to perform their scientific investigations collaboratively. Students will also be able to share their inquiry accomplishments in social networks and receive feedback from the learning environment and their peers.

The project developed in 2008 “Flying across Brazil, Portugal, and France” by schools from these three countries won the competition “Innovative Educators,” sponsored by Microsoft. Students’ co-investigation focused on the “14-Bis” aeroplane built by Brazilian pioneer Alberto Santos-Dumont and flown in France in 1906 – setting the first aviation record in Europe. Students in the project used blogs and FM to share information between countries about the 14-bis aeroplane and Santos-Dumont’s life.

Related Links:

• Keats Schmidt 2007
• Jim Legel 2012
• Innovative Educators, sponsored by Microsoft
• InovaEduca 3.0
• Voo BPF

Alexandra Okada, Monday 23 April 2012 | 

“Collaborative Learning 2.0: Open Educational Resources,” edited by Ale Okada, Teresa Connolly, and Peter J. Scott (Open University, UK), aims to understand how OER and Web 2.0 can be deployed successfully to enrich the collaborative learning experience and ensure a positive outcome in terms of user-generated knowledge and skill development.

This book presents the current state of the art in collaborative learning through Open Educational Resources and Web 2.0. It offers the latest research through case studies, trends, and also considers future developments within the field. With a solid theoretical foundation and precise guidelines, the authors analyze the benefits that these “user-generated content, resources, and tools” promise. “Collaborative Learning 2.0: Open Educational Resources” was written by 58 authors, who are leading researchers and practitioners in their field, from 14 countries: Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Germany, Greece, India, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, The Netherlands, the UK, and the USA. The book comprises about 560 references, 168 key terms and definitions, and 25 chapters, including introductions. It is organized into four sections:

Section 1 – “Widening participation and OER Communities

Section 2 – “Producing, reusing, and recreating OER

Section 3 – “Sharing User-generated content

Section 4 – “Social Learning, Rich Media, and Games

The chapters cover a wide range of topics, including assessment, collaborative learning, communities of practice, continuous professional development, interactive contents, knowledge sharing, new media environments, OER in higher education, personal learning environments, peer support, social media, social networking, social learning, virtual laboratories, and Web 2.0. This project began in January 2010, and the process of writing, reviewing, as well as publishing this book occupied the editors and authors for almost two years. Find out more at the book’s website.

Related Links:

• KMI OER BOOK
• IGI PUBLISHERS

Significant funds have been invested internationally in the development of learning content for reuse

Reusing online resources is one of the essential strategies for a sustainable approach to e-learning.

“Learning resources are insufficient to attend the needs of higher education. The estimated number of academic students around the world in 2025 is 160 million” (See John Daniel, Mega Universities and Knowledge Media – Kogan Page 1996).

Create Relevant Resources

For Koper (2001), many educational institutions are adopting new approaches to increase effectiveness due to several factors such as the need for:

– a more individualized and personalized approach to learning

– collaboration, discussion, and product creation

– teaching complex skills

– lifelong learning

Koper, EJR (2001) Modeling Units of Study from a Pedagogical Perspective: The pedagogical metamodel behind EML, Open Universiteit Nederland. [Link: http://eml.ou.nl/introduction/docs/ped-metamodel.pdf]