Smartphones give you wings: pedagogical affordances of mobile Web 2.0

Built on the foundation of four years of research and implementation of mobile learning projects (mlearning), this paper provides an overview of the potential of the integration of mobile web 2.0 tools (based around smartphones) to facilitate social constructivist pedagogies and engage students in tertiary education. Pedagogical affordances of mobile web 2.0 tools are evaluated, and student usage and feedback is outlined via an interactive multimedia timeline (using YouTube videos) illustrating how these mobile web 2.0 pedagogical affordances have transformed pedagogy and facilitated student engagement in a variety of course contexts. A rubric for evaluating appropriate smartphone choices is provided, and a model for implementing mobile web 2.0 pedagogical integration is presented. Keywords: mlearning, mobile web 2.0

Transforming pedagogy using mobile Web 2.0

Blogs, wikis, podcasting, and a host of free, easy to use Web 2.0 social software provide opportunities for creating social constructivist learning environments focusing on student-centred learning and end-user content creation and sharing. Building on this foundation, mobile Web 2.0 has emerged as a viable teaching and learning tool, facilitating engaging learning environments that bridge multiple contexts. Today’s dual 3G and wifi-enabled smartphones provide a ubiquitous connection to mobile Web 2.0 social software and the ability to view, create, edit, upload, and share user generated Web 2.0 content. This article outlines how a Product Design course has moved from a traditional face-to-face, studio-based learning environment to one using mobile Web 2.0 technologies to enhance and engage students in a social constructivist learning paradigm. Keywords: m-learning; Web 2.0; pedagogy 2.0; social constructivism; product desig

Integrating Mobile Web 2.0 within tertiary education

Based on three years of innovative pedagogical development and guided by a participatory action research methodology, this paper outlines an approach to integrating mobile web 2.0 within a tertiary education course, based on a social constructivist pedagogy. The goal is to facilitate a student-centred, collaborative, flexible, context-bridging learning environment that empowers students as content producers and learning context generators, guided by lecturers who effectively model the use of the technology. We illustrate how the introduction of mobile web 2.0 has disrupted the underlying pedagogy of the course from a traditional Attelier model (face-to-face apprenticeship model), and has been successfully transformed into a context independent social constructivist model. Two mobile web 2.0 learning scenarios are outlined, including; a sustainable house design project (involving the collaboration of four departments in three faculties and three diverse groups of students), and the implementation of a weekly ‘nomadic studio session'. Students and lecturers use the latest generation of smartphones to collaborate, communicate, capture and share critical and reflective learning events. Students and lecturers use mobile friendly web 2.0 tools to create this environment, including: blogs, social networks, location aware (geotagged) image and video sharing, instant messaging, microblogging etc… Feedback from students and lecturers has been extremely positive

Facilitating social constructivist learning environments for product design Students using social software (Web2) and wireless mobile device.

It is well understood and has been well documented that there is much to gain by using social software in creating collaborative learning communities. However little is known about using a context independent interactive collaborative environment with an emphasis upon sharing, ease of use, customization and personal publishing (MobileWeb2). This paper describes an innovative and integrated MobileWeb2 technology in a product design live project setting, that assists product designers to solve a real problem to serve a real client. Students and teaching staff use a smartphone to capture design decisions and prototypes and collate and share these via an online eportfolio. From the data collected from staff/students surveys it was found that this method provided a stimulating collaborative environment that develops personal skill to bring out their latent creativity in such a way that these will become part of their project. Opportunities for mobile web2 product design projects are outlined. The logistics of providing access to appropriate hardware and software for all students are also discussed

Stuck…in This Place: Shrinking Policy Space in New Brunswick

After New Brunswick’s 2010 provincial election, a new policy environment took shape, characterized by an awareness of, among other things, ballooning public debt, economic dysfunction, soaring health costs, and demographic decline. Employing institutionalist analysis, this essay canvasses these problems and examines the obstacles standing in the way of effective, concerted action to deal with them. New Brunswick manifests several factors making institutional change to address these policy challenges difficult.RésuméAprès les élections du Nouveau-Brunswick de 2010, un nouvel environnement politique a pris forme. Cet environnement a été caractérisé par une prise de conscience, entres autres, d’une dette publique astronomique, d’une économie dysfonctionnelle, de coûts de soins de santé qui montent en flèche et d’un déclin de la démographie. En s’appuyant sur une analyse institutionnaliste, cet article sonde ces problèmes et examine les obstacles qui freinent les actions efficaces et concertées nécessaires afin de les surmonter. Le Nouveau-Brunswick présente plusieurs facteurs qui contribuent aux changements institutionnels afin de traiter de ces défis politiques difficiles

Mobilizing learning: mobile Web 2.0 scenarios in tertiary education

Based upon three years of mobile learning (mlearning) projects, a major implementation project has been developed for integrating the use of mobile web 2.0 tools across a variety of departments and courses in a tertiary education environment. A participatory action research methodology guides and informs the project. The project is based upon an explicit social constuctivist pedagogy, focusing on student collaboration, and the sharing and critique of student-generated content using freely available web 2.0 services. These include blogs, social networks, location aware (geotagged) image and video sharing, instant messaging, microblogging etc… Students and lecturers are provided with either an appropriate smartphone and/or a 3G capable netbook to use as their own for the duration of the project. Keys to the projects success are the level of pedagogical and technical support, and the level of integration of the tools into the courses – including assessment and lecturer modelling of the use of the tools. The projects are supported by an intentional community of practice model, with the researcher taking on the role of the “technology steward”. The paper outlines three different scenarios illustrating how this course integration is being achieved, establishing a transferable model of mobile web 2.0 integration and implementation. The goal is to facilitate a student-centred, collaborative, flexible, context-bridging learning environment that empowers students as content producers and learning context generators, guided by lecturers who effectively model th

Extending the aridity record of the Southwest Kalahari: current problems and future perspectives

An extensive luminescence-based chronological framework has allowed the reconstruction of expansions and contractions of the Kalahari Desert over the last 50 ka. However, this chronology is largely based on near-surface pits and sediment exposures. These are the points on the landscape most prone to reactivation and resetting of the luminescence dating ‘clock’. This is proving to be a limiting feature for extending palaeoenvironmental reconstructions further back in time. One way to obviate this is to sample desert marginal areas that only become active during significant arid phases. An alternative is to find and sample deep stratigraphic exposures. The Mamatwan manganese mine at Hotazel in the SW Kalahari meets both these criteria. Luminescence dating of this site shows the upper sedimentary unit to span at least the last 60 ka with tentative age estimates from underlying cemented aeolian units dating back to the last interglacial and beyond. Results from Mamatwan are comparable to new and previously published data from linear dunes in the SW Kalahari but extend back much further. Analysis of the entire data set of luminescence ages for the SW Kalahari brings out important inferences that suggest that different aeolian forms (1) have been active over different time scales in the past, (2) have different sensitivities to environmental changes and (3) have different time scales over which they record and preserve the palaeoenvironmental record. This implies that future optically stimulated luminescence work and palaeoenvironmental reconstructions must consider both site location and its relationship to desert margins and sediment depositional styles, so that the resolution and duration of the aridity record can be optimally understood

Preserving the palaeoenvironmental record in Drylands: Bioturbation and its significance for luminescence-derived chronologies

Luminescence (OSL) dating has revolutionised the understanding of Late Pleistocene dryland activity. However, one of the key assumptions for this sort of palaeoenvironmental work is that sedimentary sequences have been preserved intact, enabling their use as proxy indicators of past changes. This relies on stabilisation or burial soon after deposition and a mechanism to prevent any subsequent re-mobilisation. As well as a dating technique OSL, especially at the single grain level, can be used to gain an insight into post-depositional processes that may distort or invalidate the palaeoenvironmental record of geological sediment sequences. This paper explores the possible impact of bioturbation (the movement of sediment by flora and fauna) on luminescence derived chronologies from Quaternary sedimentary deposits in Texas and Florida (USA) which have both independent radiocarbon chronologies and archaeological evidence. These sites clearly illustrate the ability of bioturbation to rejuvenate ancient weathered sandy bedrock and/or to alter depositional stratigraphies through the processes of exhumation and sub-surface mixing of sediment. The use of multiple OSL replicate measurements is advocated as a strategy for checking for bioturbated sediment. Where significant OSL heterogeneity is found, caution should be taken with the derived OSL ages and further measurements at the single grain level are recommended. Observations from the linear dunes of the Kalahari show them to have no bedding structure and to have OSL heterogeneity similar to that shown from the bioturbated Texan and Florida sites. The Kalahari linear dunes could have therefore undergone hitherto undetected post-depositional sediment disturbance which would have implications for the established OSL chronology for the region

Management: Leading & Collaborating in A Competitive World -9/E.

Leading & Collaborating in a Competitive World is a text with a fully modernized functional approach. This text is maintaining the four traditional functions of planning, organizing, leading, and controlling, while modernizing and re-visioning the concepts as delivering strategic value, building a dynamic organization, mobilizing people, and learning and changing. Bateman/Snell’ results-oriented approach is a unique hallmark of this textbook. In this ever more competitive environment there are five essential types of performance, on which the organization beats, equals, or loses to the competition which are cost, quality, speed, innovation and service. These five performance dimensions, when done well, deliver value to the customer and competitive advantage to you and your organization. Throughout the text Bateman & Snell remind students of these five dimensions and their impact on the “bottom line” with marginal icons contributing to the leadership and collaboration theme, which is the key to successful management. People working with one another, rather than against, is essential to competitive advantage

The 2020 Provincial Election in New Brunswick: The First Canadian COVID-19 Election

AbstractNew Brunswick’s 2020 election was Canada’s first election during the COVID-19 pandemic. It produced a slim majority government for the Progressive Conservatives under Premier Blaine Higgs after all-party talks to create a quasi-coalition arrangement failed. The major parties continued to decline in voter support, and two newer parties, the Green Party and the People’s Alliance, still have a presence in the Legislative Assembly. The Liberal Party failed to win seats in Anglophone New Brunswick, reducing their support to just the francophone areas of the province. Higgs is left to govern a province polarized along linguistic lines with French-speaking New Brunswickers distrustful and unsupportive of the premier.RésuméL’élection provinciale au Nouveau-Brunswick en 2020 a été la première élection provinciale au Canada pendant la pandémie du COVID-19. Elle a mené à l'élection d'un gouvernement avec une faible majorité pour le Parti progressiste-conservateur sous le premier ministre Blaine Higgs après l'échec des pourparlers entre tous les partis pour la création d'un arrangement de quasi-coalition. Les partis traditionnels continuent de voir leur soutien s'effriter au sein de l’électorat, et deux nouveaux partis, le Parti vert et l’Alliance des gens, ont toujours des représentantes à l’Assemblée législative. Le Parti libéral n'a pas réussi à remporter des sièges dans les régions anglophones de la province, réduisant son soutien aux seules régions francophones de la province. Les considérations linguistiques jouent un rôle de premier plan dans la polarisation politique dans la province. Higgs doit ainsi gouverner en tenant compte des citoyennes francophones qui sont méfiantes et peu favorables au premier ministre.Key words: New Brunswick, Election, Election campaigns, polls, Majority government, BilingualismMots-clés : Nouveau-Brunswick, Élections, Campagnes électorales, Sondages, Gouvernement majorité, Bilinguism