At the Handheld Learning Conference last week I presented with Lyndsay Grant a workshop entitled ‘Mobile Learning Exchange‘ that overviewed mobile learning and then hosted something of a discussion about common approaches and concerns.

One of the conversations from the ‘exchange’ related to the question of where the tools are to support schools recognising and supporting students as members of ‘pulstating networks of learning’. Who will create these tools that are appropriate to localised needs but that bring together the wide range of applications needed to support different ways of mobile working? These are the sorts of tools that provide students the opportunity to author and to share infomation; for teachers to use student data and importantly to make the most of the real links between the local community and activities within the school. An important instigator of that conversation was Richard Anderson from Wolverhampton CLC. He also has posted his reflections on the conversation.
We can point to Long Tail products, especially those niche Web 2.0 apps (such as those I’ve added to my Diigo account and those on the Futurelab website), but the challenge is two fold. What are the different applications that are needed, and how can they be brought together to build a set of tools that are manageable and effective?
The first challenge then, what are the black box tools that you want to support you trying something new in your classroom? What are the functions that you need to enable you to support learners using new sites of learning, accessing a wider amount of information or linking to non-present experts? What sort of technologies would you commission to enable your students to learn from students in other classes or other schools?

I’ve started gathering a list of the tools that I think are useful, but it would be productive to begin a spec list of the tools demanded by the innovative teachers reading this blog. Could we create a list of demands and tools that may be brought together through tools such as Yahoo Pipes or RSS feeds? The first challenge is the activity spec leading to the tools, the second… perhaps a challenge to the wider developer community to find ways to bring them together?

Maybe the new Twine app, described as “the first mainstream Semantic Web application” could help bring together the resources, knowledges and approaches needed…

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This entry was posted on Friday, October 19th, 2007 at 1:05 pm and is filed under distributed resource, schools, tools and technology, web 2.0. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.