Name: Matt, aka "Matt Finholt-Daniel"
Posts by Matt Finholt-Daniel:
- Buy the international plan through your current provider. While this option is less than ideal from almost every perspective, it generally does work. The biggest negative is that you will have a HUGE bill waiting for you when you get back.
- Purchase an unlocked phone while you’re abroad. Cell providers in most countries don’t subsidize their phones so they don’t have any need to lock them. Purchasing one of these phones will allow you to take it almost anywhere and put any local pre-paid SIM card in it without concern. The drawbacks to this method are that they are significantly more expensive since they aren’t subsidized and that you won’t have any of the applications/contacts/email that you currently have on your phone.
- Call your provider and ask them to unlock your phone for you. If you don’t have an iPhone (I’ll explain more later), give your U.S. provider a call and explain that you’re traveling internationally and would like to use local SIM cards in your device. They will, of course, try to sell you on their international rate plan but be calm and persistent in explaining your need. Assuming you meet their criteria for unlocking (often that you’ve been with the company for more than x weeks) they will generally walk you through the process on the phone.
- What happens to all the assets that our organization and others around the world have produced? Are they now defunct?
- Can HTML5 really meet our needs?
- Moving forward, should we totally disregard Flash-based technologies as an option?
- the lessons helped teachers identify and use resources more effectively,
- it made it easier to learn because they could observe effective teachers model skills in front of student learners,
- the lessons can be used over and over again, and
- learning could take place from the media player at any time and in any place the teacher might be.
- Soccer Ball: By embedding a kinetic energy generator within a soccer ball, children can play their favorite game after school and bring the ball home to provide light for their home or charge the batteries in their electrical devices.
http://www.soccket.com/#!ball
- Solar Panels: The worldwide advancement in manufacturing technologies has improved the efficiency and brought the price of solar panels down to a reasonable level. Here are a couple of vendors that caught my eye:
http://www.solio.com/2011/
http://www.solarusbcharger.co.uk/
- DIY Wind Turbines: Wind turbines can be constructed out of a wide variety of locally available materials and provide a very cost effective way to generate electricity:
http://www.instructables.com/id/Ted-Baer-s-Bicycle-Wheel-Windmill/
http://www.gizmag.com/student-develops-wind-turbine-for-the-developing-world/9835/
- Portable hydro-electric power: While I haven’t found any of these yet on the market, this creative idea has a lot of potential in areas with water resources nearby.
http://www.ubergizmo.com/2010/03/bourne-energy-bpp-2-hydroelectric-backpack/ - Native Application: Native Applications offer the deepest functionality set since they can tie into the devices APIs to make use of features like cameras, motion sensors, and the like. They also provide a fast and device-consistent User Interface.
The down side to native applications is that you need to produce a separate application for each of the devices that you’d like to run the software on. Unfortunately, this isn’t as easy as calling an “export for IPhone” process. The major mobile Operating Systems (Android, iOS, BlackBerryOS and Symbian) are all build using unique technologies and your software will have to be built from the ground-up to support it.
- Web Application: Web applications are run through the browser the mobile device and can be very effective in the delivery of eLearning. An added bonus is that your current web development team can make the transition to mobile development without learning a completely new set of languages.
Some drawbacks are that the speed and availability of the content are dependent on the internet connection so the learners experience may not always be top-notch.
- Hybrid Application: Hybrid Applications consist of a core application that is installed on each of the devices and relies on content and updates being fed to it through the internet.
- Cross platform delivery
- The code can be reused from training designed for desktop viewing
- It’s easier to find developers that know HTML and JavaScript than it is to find developers that know how to create programs for each of the device operating systems
- You control your own updates rather than relying on the publish and review process of an app store
- MP3: Lessons and lectures can be presented to the learner in audio format.
- Video: In addition to lessons and lectures being presented in video format, video is a perfect means to demonstrate techniques and best practices within the classroom
- Radio with recording: Many MP3 players offer the ability to listen to FM radio and record the content for future listening. Using this in conjunction with typical IRI methods can expand its usefulness by allowing on-demand access to previously recorded lessons.
- Audio Recorder: Audio recording functionality can provide the learner with a mechanism for feedback, questions, or assignment submission
- Camera: Using a built-in camera, learners can visually document their progress and easily submit it for review and grading.
- Removable Media Cards: Once a player is distributed to a learner, additional lessons and materials can easily be loaded by inserting a new media card with the additional content on it.
- Cost: Purchasing the technology will require an upfront investment and training. Unit costs per device can be reduced through quantity purchasing and it’s not necessary for every teacher to possess a device. One approach would be to allow teachers to “check out” the devices from their regional training centers.
- Quality Training Materials: Given the paradigm shift from Cascade or IRI to media, content creators would need to be trained to produce materials that fully utilize the new medium.
- Recharging the Devices: Many locations in developing countries lack the power infrastructure necessary to recharge the devices. There are, however, many small businesses in most areas that recharge devices using solar panels, batteries or other means for a small charge. Another option would be to have the regional training centers be responsible for charging the devices.
- According to the CTIA website, 93% of the U.S. population subscribe to wireless telecommunications as of June 2010. To clarify, that’s 292.8 million people.
- Of those 292.8 million people, 264.5 million of them have data-capable devices of which 61.2 million are smartphones. That translates to approximately 20% as of June 2010.
- On November 1st, a Nielson survey was released reporting that 28% of the U.S. cell phone market is using smartphones and that 41% of people acquiring new phones opted for smartphones over standard featured phones.
- http://www.mobileawesomeness.com/ - This is a great site that will let you get an idea of how others are, for better or worse, approaching the mobile web. There is also a great list of resources to support you.
- Designing for the Mobile Web - This is a good article that outlines many of the key factors that you should consider when developing a mobile site.
- Mobile Web Design: Tips and Techniques - A great resource for the technical details of designing mobile sites.
- A Guide to Mobile Web Design Tips and Tricks - This is a great list of resources for mobile development.
- Top-down buy-in: Very few successful eLearning initiatives start at the grass-roots level. The reality of eLearning is that, like standard training, it involves the cooperation of people across the entire organization. Human resources are required to set up and maintain the infrastructure, develop the eLearning content, and support the learner. Additionally, the learners often require some sort of incentive to participate in the eLearning. Incentives could include adhering to company policy, gaining professional development opportunities, or receiving direct payments. When it comes down to it, the only people who have the sway within any organization to mobilize enough staff and provide the necessary incentives are the people at the top. Simply put, if the top management of the organization is not on board, the initiative will fail.
- Bottom-up enthusiasm: Just because an organization puts the infrastructure in place does not guarantee that an eLearning initiative will be successful. The necessary enthusiasm can come from a shared vision of the need for or value of eLearning, it can be generated through marketing efforts that promote eLearning, or it can be created through reward and recognitions systems put in place as the program is designed. Regardless of the source, enthusiasm for the program at all levels must exist if the program is to succeed.
- Identify the goals: There are a thousand and one reasons for a Ministry of Education, University, Government, or Corporation to implement eLearning. Before you can begin designing a solution that will best fit your needs, you must first identify your goals and the standards by which you will measure your success. A few examples of goals are:
- Ensure that everyone has access to the same high-quality training materials. (This goal is often part of an initiative to phase out the ineffective waterfall training method, whereby schools send one “master” teacher to be trained and he/she is responsible for training all the teachers at his/her school. Anecdotal evidence reveals that a very small percentage of the knowledge imparted in training actually makes it to the teachers in the field.)
- Reduce training costs associated with bringing learners to a central location and paying for their room, board, and transportation.
- Planning: eLearning is not a one-size-fits-all solution. To achieve success, every eLearning implementation needs to be tailored to its specific environment. When planning and designing an eLearning solution, be sure to take into account:
- The goals of the initiative
- The training culture within your organization
- The technical abilities of the people involved (both the learners and the instructors)
- The hardware, software, and network limitations
- Training Content Creators: Long-term sustainability is one of the primary concerns of organizations as they begin to implement eLearning. Nobody wants to be reliant on expensive external vendors to produce and maintain their training. On the other hand, nobody wants to have low-quality eLearning courses cluttering up their system and degrading the success of their initiative. Training your own staff to produce high-quality and instructionally-sound eLearning content is one of the best investments you can make to support the long-term viability of the project.
- Supporting the learner: The move from stand-up training to eLearning is a major paradigm shift, and can be a challenging and stressful experience for your learners. This is especially apparent when the learners are not particularly tech-savvy. To ensure that you don’t lose your learners and, as a result, sink your initiative, it is absolutely necessary to provide as many ways as possible for your learner to obtain support when they have questions. This support can take the form of a telephone help line, an email address of the instructor, or a website that answers questions.
The ITEN Network: Why every teacher should know about this community
May 1st, 2012It is well known that Teachers, School Leaders, and Teacher Trainers are key actors in maintaining and improving education systems around the globe. At the school level, however, the teachers themselves are the most important factor affecting individual student performance. When teachers lack the training and skills necessary for managing a modern-day classroom it becomes impossible to maximize the potential of the students. Nowhere is this more apparent than throughout the developing world.
This past week I had the pleasure of attending the 56th annual Conference of the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES) where teams from around the world gathered to share their experiences and ideas on the improvement of education systems. While I attended many fantastic presentations on a wide variety of topics, one session in particular stuck out to me as a fantastic resource for teachers. Team leaders from the Inter-American Teacher Education Network (ITEN) showed off their free-to-use professional network and development platform.
Funded by Organization of American States (Not US States but North American, Central American, South American, and Caribbean nation-states), ITEN provides a wide range of valuable resources for improving teacher performance. The ITEN site provides content in both English and Spanish through three primary methods. These include an online community, webinars, and a series of online courses.
The online community of ITEN was designed to encourage collaboration and interaction between teachers throughout the Americas. Monthly blogs address common issues affecting teachers and include topics anywhere from “Contemporary issues in technology and teacher education” to “how do some students overcome their socio-economic background”. Further discussions are encouraged on any teaching-related topic through their online forums and OAS community forums.
ITENs webinar series addresses relevant themes in the field of teacher education. From conflict resolution to ICT integration to effective classroom management, the webinars provide a wealth of information for teachers in their ongoing quest for professional development.
Last but not least, ITEN provides online courses focused on introducing ICT into the classroom using constructivist methods through student centered learning and collaborative project based learning. With all the 1:1 laptop initiatives currently rolling out or already in place, teachers, more than anything, need to learn how to effectively use these new technologies in their classroom.
ITEN is an ever-expanding set of resources and a solid community for teacher improvement that is available to anyone in the world. Best of all, it’s free! If you haven’t already heard of them, I’d suggest you check it out. For the school leaders and teacher trainers out there, please point your teachers at it. For those of us in the business of improving education systems, take a close look and see how you can integrate it into your projects.
International Travelers - Where’s the phone at?
February 7th, 2012For those international travelers among us, one of the biggest headaches and points of confusion that we regularly face relates to using our cell phones while abroad. Nobody wants to pay exorbitant international roaming rates to make or receive calls from home. Additionally, the last thing we want is to make our international friends, family, or colleagues call a U.S. number when we’re located down the block. The ideal situation is for us to purchase a local pay-per-use SIM card that we can use while we’re traveling AND to have it work in our regular every-day phone.
The major roadblock that we encounter is that U.S. cell phone carriers have a tendency to lock the phone so that it will only accept its own SIM cards. Their logic makes sense; U.S. carriers subsidize the purchase cost of phones and make up the difference through the duration of your contract. As a result, the last thing they want is for someone to use them for a cheap phone and then move to another carrier.
So, the big question is, “what options are there for international cell phone service?” Assuming you have a phone that is capable of working on international networks (world phone), here are a few options for you:
So, for you iPhone users out there, here’s the 411. AT&T will not unlock your iPhone for you no matter how loud you cry. Verizon and Sprint, however, will unlock your phone for use with SIM cards if you have the iPhone 4S. If you’re locked into AT&T the only options are for you to purchase an Apple Unlocked iPhone from their online store at full price ($649-849) or to jailbreak your device and perform a SIM unlock through some additional software. I’ve been down this jailbreak road and, let me tell you, it’s not at all worth the hassle.
Without a doubt, the best option is to have your provider unlock your current phone if it’s possible. That way you retain access to all your email, contacts, and applications. Many countries also offer pay-per-use data plans to go along with their SIM cards that let you retain all the comforts of home on your device.
Flashing the Education World: Is there still a place for Adobe Flash in eLearning?
December 6th, 2011For quite some time, eLearning producers have relied heavily on the use of flash technologies to provide a consistent, engaging, and media-rich platform for delivering learning material to the widest variety of people. Flash technologies have been the platform of choice because they offer extreme flexibility coupled with deep market penetration. Having the Flash plugin installed on 99% of the computers out there allowed eLearning producers to build it once and have it work virtually everywhere.
As with everything in the software industry, the only constant is change (and rapid change at that). A few short weeks ago, Adobe dropped a couple of serious bombshells on the developer community. First off, they decided to drop support for their mobile version of the Flash player. This is truly significant because of the ever-increasing prevalence of mobile devices (phones and tablets) in our everyday lives. Not being able to deploy eLearning through mobile devices cuts out a large, and ever-growing, segment of the target audience.
The second major bombshell is that Adobe decided that their Flex product no longer made business sense for them to maintain so they tossed it out to the open source community. It appears, for all intents and purposes, that Adobe has called it quits on Flash technologies and is instead embracing HTML 5 as the wave of the future.
After the initial shock of these announcements wore off, I found myself with about a million questions. Some of these questions included:
The long and short of it is that, for the time being, Flash isn’t dead. Our assets aren’t going to be useless overnight and they will continue to be valuable for years to come. With regard to the viability of HTML5 as a replacement technology, I think that’s a bit of a mixed bag. HTML5 and its related technologies hold a lot of promise but, at the current moment, they aren’t supported by many of the legacy browsers that we need to target in our eLearning products. One approach that many people have taken is to implement HTML5 components that fall back to their Flash equivalents if the features aren’t supported.
Looking to the future I think it’s clear that sticking with the status quo isn’t the best business strategy. As time goes on and technologies mature, Flash will play less of a role in eLearning courses. Until then, my recommendation is continue to use Flash only where you need it and to start focusing on other technologies that will take you into the future.
A Tutor in my Pocket
September 13th, 2011One of the primary focuses of international development agencies around the world is education. As the old Chinese proverb says, “Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime.” Simply put, education provides a solid foundation for a person to improve their standard of living and that of the community they live in.
While the concept is elegant in its simplicity, it quickly becomes challenging to implement in countries with very little infrastructure or funding to support it. Bringing teachers into a central location for training is extremely expensive and using the cascade model of training trainers within their regions isn’t always as effective or cost effective as one would like. As a result, a greater emphasis has been placed recently on using Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to provide Open and Distance Learning (ODL) opportunities to teachers throughout the developing world.
There have been many successful implementations using technologies such as SMS, Interactive Radio, and online training to name a few. Technology, however, is rapidly evolving and there are now many more viable tools that can be used for ODL. I recently had an opportunity to participate in a small pilot that used media players to deliver continued professional development training to 26 teachers in a poor sub-Saharan country.
The media player that we used is essentially a significantly less expensive version of an iPod touch. It featured expandable memory, video playback, audio playback, a camera, an eBook reader, an FM radio, and a voice recorder among its many features. These features, when used together, enabled us to deliver a truly engaging learning experience in a compact package to teachers in isolated villages.
The training delivered on the media players consisted of 5 lessons. Each of the lessons contained writings in eBook format , two videos, and an assignment that directed the learner to complete a task and document it using the camera or audio recorder functionality.
Going into the pilot, our two biggest concerns were that the teachers wouldn’t have access to the electricity needed to charge the device and that the technical ability required to interact with the device would be too high a hurdle. Fortunately, our fears seemed to be unfounded as everyone was able to charge the devices (although 6 noted that it was challenging) and, after only participating in one brief training session, all but 1 teacher indicated that they felt totally confident using the device without any need for additional instruction or use of the manual.
As for the general reaction, the teachers were very excited about the possibilities that using media players for instruction and all of them felt that they had learned effectively from the device. One teacher described it as a “tutor in my pocket”, most of them were asking when they would receive additional courses, and all of them were sad about having to return it.
When asked the hypothetical question about what if they had to advise the Minister of Education on the best way to help teachers develop, whether to provide media players with instructional lessons, like those they had just completed, or to spend equivalent funds on additional materials for the teacher’s classroom, nearly 90% of the participants indicated they would advise the Minister to provide media players to teachers with more lessons like these. Some of the reasons cited for this preference were that:
The big question is; are media players a viable tool teacher training in the developing world? The answer would have to be “I don’t know”. Before we can jump to that conclusion, we’d need to run this pilot with a much larger group. If I had to give a gut feeling on it, I think there is some great potential here and I look forward to having another opportunity to expand this research.
Powering the Digital Age in the Developing World
May 10th, 2011I was recently in Malawi, Africa to kick off a small pilot test of using alternative technologies, in this case MP3 players, as a delivery vehicle for teacher training and continued professional development. In Malawi, like many other developing countries, a very small percentage of the population has access to electricity through an organized electrical grid. This fact proved to be a major point of criticism for our pilot. Fortunately, this criticism proved unfounded as every participant in our pilot said that they had access to some means to recharge the devices.
This experience got me wondering about the variety of creative ways that people are finding to charge their electrical devices such as cell phones, radios, and media players in an environment that generally lacks the infrastructure to support them. While there are too many to list them all, here are a few of my favorites:
The beautiful thing about all these solutions is that they enable communities to access power without having to rely on centralized infrastructure. While costs are likely prohibitive for every household to own one of these devices, it does provide a solid business opportunity for enterprising members of the community.
Developing eLearning in a Mobile World
March 17th, 2011This week I had the pleasure of attending a presentation by Keith Knuth, a Principal Software Architect at Lawson software, in which he discussed how the mobile device revolution is changing the face of eLearning. Keith’s presentation was to the Digital Learning Forum, a group committed to the exchange of cutting edge information around the production of eLearning, so the focus was on what to consider when producing for the medium rather than a blue-sky talk about the possibilities.
Given the penetration of mobile devices that are connected to high-speed data networks, it makes nothing but sense for us producers of eLearning to start seriously considering mobile devices as a target platform for our products. The big question is where to begin. Keith did a great job of breaking it down for us at a high-level. Essentially, you need to take a solid look at the functionality you need to be included within the training and use that information to decide your development approach. The three options are:
From a productivity standpoint, Keith recommendation is to consider the web application first. They have the benefits of:
If you must create a native application, check out the cross-platform development tools from Appcelerator, Pyxis, Rhomobile, and PhoneGap. These tools don’t do everything but they can certainly kick start your development.
As for the learning content delivered on these mobile devices, the only thing that we really need to stay away from is our beloved flash. Everything else, including LMS integration, is a definite possibility.
Using Alternative Technologies for Teacher Training in Developing Countries
January 5th, 2011One of the great challenges in the developing world is finding sustainable methods for improving teacher training. Two of the most common methods in use today for training teachers are Cascade Training and Interactive Radio Instruction (IRI). While both of these methods have contributed to long-term improvements, they each have some inherent drawbacks and limitations.
Cascade Training, where a small group of trainers train a larger group who in turn train a larger group, is expensive to operate. Additionally, the training that reaches the classroom is often diluted and inconsistently delivered across training sessions. IRI, where the training is delivered over the radio, is great at delivering the materials directly to the learner but there is no flexibility in its availability and its accessibility is limited to schools that are within broadcast range.
While I’m not suggesting that we retire these training methods, I think it is important that we continually evaluate the role that advances in technology can play in providing quality-enhancing alternatives. One specific alternative technology that has some serious potential is portable media players.
With the industry trend of continuing to pack more features into a product while lowering the cost, modern media players have the capabilities to contain a truly engaging learning environment for a modest price. A few notable common features with learning applicability are:
Through creative combinations of materials and media, portable media players have the potential to dramatically improve distance learning in developing countries through on-demand, engaging instruction that’s delivered directly to the learner.
As for sustainability, a number of challenges will need to be addressed before media players can become a sustainable solution. Some of these challenges include:
Through a project funded by USAID in Malawi, we are currently in the process of pilot testing the viability of using media players for teacher training. The immediate response has been encouraging so we’re very excited to pull together the final results in a few months. I’ll be sure to post an update when that happens.
Gone Mobile – Planning for the Mobile Revolution
November 2nd, 2010If the realization hasn’t already struck you, consider this a wakeup call. Mobile is here to stay. If you want to maintain a competitive edge in the common market place, it’s time to incorporate mobile delivery into your online strategies.
Before we dive into a list of things to consider as you begin to plan for mobile delivery, let’s look at a few recently published statistics:
My general philosophy is to take statistics with a “grain of salt,” so I’m not putting too much stock in the specifics of these numbers. It is clear, however, that an ever-increasing percentage of U.S. population is becoming reliant on smartphones and access to the mobile web.
So, what do we do about it? The short answer is to make sure your company has an online presence that is both intuitive and engaging for mobile users. Here are a few things that you should consider as you plan for Mobile delivery.
Simplify
Screen real-estate on mobile devices is a valuable commodity. While smartphones like the iPhone and Android are technically capable of displaying the “full web” through their browsers, the result is that the user is required to do a lot of zooming and scrolling to access the content. It’s extremely important to pare down your content to the most important elements to improve the user experience.
Build a Mobile Theme
Rather than compromise the quality of your main site by removing content, it’s a good idea to setup a separate theme or site that is purpose-built for mobile delivery. One industry standard that is emerging is to automatically redirect users to a new URL (m.mycompany.com or www.mycompany.com/mobile) if they are accessing the site from a mobile device. Many content management systems (CMS), blogs, and storefronts on the market today support theming and mobile redirection out of the box. For those sites that aren’t using a CMS, there are tons of great resources available that give step-by-step instructions on how to set this up manually. A couple of good search phases that will get you started in Google are; “Designing for a Mobile Web” and “Mobile Web Application Development”.
Optimize your Navigation
Many mobile devices rely on touch-screen interfaces to navigate through content. Be sure to keep that in mind as your planning your navigation scheme. Most of the traditional web navigation schemes are clumsy and difficult to interact with on mobile devices. Design the navigation a little larger and omit the non-critical elements.
Even though planning for mobile seems complicated on the surface, the reality is that there is a vast amount of resources to make this process easier. Here are a few of them to get you started:
What are your thoughts? Leave a comment.
Best Practices for a Successful eLearning Initiative in Developing Countries
August 25th, 2010Over the past 10 years, Seward has had the opportunity to work in a number of developing countries around the world to assist in planning for and implementing eLearning initiatives. During that time, we’ve seen initiatives succeed and we’ve seen initiatives struggle. Based on our experience, here are some best practices that can help your initiative be successful:
Overall, there is little doubt that eLearning is a valuable tool for improving educational systems in developing countries where the infrastructure supports it. Hopefully, following these few best practices can help you avoid the pitfalls of an unsuccessful implementation.
