Nokia and the Pearson Foundation have announced two significant expansions of their Mobile Learning Institute program: The Mobile Learning Institute Leadership Network and the Digital Arts Alliance Leadership Institute.

Beginning this summer, and continuing through the 2008-2009 academic year, these two initiatives will more than triple the number of teachers served by the Mobile Learning Institute, providing regional, professional development workshops to teachers and academic teams eager to explore ways in which they and their students can experience firsthand how laptop computers, video production equipment, and mobile technologies are changing the ways that information will be organized, presented, and shared.

The new Mobile Learning Institute Leadership Network will offer two- and three-day, free hands-on sessions for teachers in regional workshops in at least 11 North American cities each year, in addition to continuing student and educator support in California, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New York, and Texas school districts.

The second initiative, the Digital Arts Alliance Leadership Institute, will provide comprehensive digital arts training to more than 100 additional technology educators from across the U.S., in conjunction with the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) and other partners.

These educators will receive support while working in school- or district- based leadership teams. Beginning later this summer and continuing through the coming academic year, team members will build digital arts skills and share approaches to applying these skills for their own school’s advocacy and recruiting purposes. They will also develop shared implementation plans for integrating digital arts programming in their school or district – plans that will serve as the foundation for continued online training and support during the coming year.

“We know the amazing impact the Mobile Learning Institute has had for teachers and their students,” said Mark Nieker, president of the Pearson Foundation. “By expanding the program and joining forces with ISTE, we’re increasing the number of teachers who can deliver these experiences to students year after year. We’re also making it possible for teachers across the country to learn from each other about the most effective way to integrate digital arts and to encourage 21st Century Skills within their classroom practice.”

The Digital Arts Alliance is the consortium founded by the Pearson Foundation that promotes digital arts in K-12 education through fully funded and staffed programs delivered directly to schools and community centres nationwide. Digital arts involve creative expression using digital technology in a variety of media, including Web design, flash movies, computer graphics, digital photography, and other forms of interactive tools.

Each of these new initiatives is designed to extend the Mobile Learning Institute’s Student and Educator Residency programs, which have served more than 12,000 students and teachers in classrooms and summer programs across the U.S. since 2005.

About the Mobile Learning Institute

The Mobile Learning Institute delivers engaging, personalized, project- based learning right to the classroom, giving students and teachers the opportunity to create digital presentations that share their perspectives and their understanding of classroom objectives. Working together, they design, develop, and complete the collaborative digital-arts projects they can share with each other, with their families, and with their community. In the process, students develop core subject knowledge together with essential learning, information, life and career skills. Teachers become equipped to engage their students’ in a way that promotes classroom objectives and important 21st century skills. http://www.mobilelearninginstitute.org/

Perhaps the UK needs a Mobile Learning Institute?

What do you think?

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