Instagram Adds Boomerang, Mention Tags, and Links to Instagram Stories: Instagram introduced two new tools “to help you make your story even more fun, Boomerang and mentions,” and announced that it’s starting “to test links inside some stories.” Boomerang, which “lets you turn everyday moments into something fun and unexpected,” can be selected as an additional format option under the Record button. Boomerang records and stitches together “a burst of photos into a mini video that plays forward and backward.” Users can also tag and mention people in stories just as they do in Instagram captions and comments. These updates for Instagram Stories are available as part of Instagram version 9.7 available for iOS in the Apple App Store. It’s also available on Android and Windows.
Facebook Opens Sponsored Messages on Messenger: As part of a larger Messenger update “designed to provide visibility into optimal entry points, enhance existing conversations and enable you to build better overall experiences,” Facebook made sponsored messages within Messenger generally available to all advertisers. According to Facebook, “sponsored messages give businesses the ability to send targeted updates, information about promotions, reminders and other relevant messages.” All Facebook advertisers can now reach people through sponsored posts and ads in the news feed and direct them to a conversation in Messenger.
Periscope Introduces New Ways to Connect With Audiences: Periscope rolled out “three new ways to connect with your audiences and the communities on Periscope – with Superfans, groups, and logging into Periscope.tv.” The new Superfans feature allows broadcasters to identify and target the top 10 “most engaged” members of their audience. Building on this information, broadcasters can now create groups where they can “broadcast to and share videos with more granular sets of people” such as friends, superfans, or a community built around specific interests. The Superfans and Groups features are available on the Periscope app for Android and iOS and on the web.
Periscope recently updated Periscope.tv with an “easier way to search, browse suggested and highlighted channels” and has just rolled out “a more complete web experience” that allows users to send hearts in any live video on Periscope.tv.
Snapchat Adds New World Lenses, Rewind Capabilities, and Support for Spectacles: With its recent updates for iOS and Android, Snapchat introduced World Lenses. Similar to Snapchat’s Selfie Lenses, the new World Lenses change your background and surroundings. According to TechCrunch, “some World Lenses will actually animate your face too and can have different effects depending on if you use your front- or rear-facing camera.” Snapchat also added the ability to rewind individual snaps and entire stories with just one swipe.
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more on social media in this IMS blog:
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=social+media
Get your Arduino basics:
Write a program, build a circuit, solder a wire, here is where your Arduino journey begins!
more about Arduino on this campus:
http://blog.stcloudstate.edu/arduino/2016/11/09/arduino-basics/
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Mobile Device Management – Strategies for Success
Wednesday, November 09, 2016 | 02:00 PM EST // 11:00 AM PDT
Join us for this free webinar
explore the use and management of mobile devices at schools. Whether your school offers school-issued, BYOD or a combination of both device ownerships
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more on BYOD in education in this IMS blog:
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=byod
International Journal of Mobile and Blended Learning (IJMBL)
Editor-in-Chief: David Parsons (The Mind Lab by Unitec, New Zealand)
Published Quarterly. Est. 2009.
ISSN: 1941-8647|EISSN: 1941-8655|DOI: 10.4018/IJMBL
Description
The International Journal of Mobile and Blended Learning (IJMBL) provides a forum for researchers in this field to share their knowledge and experience of combining e-learning and m-learning with other educational resources. Providing researchers, practitioners, and academicians with insight into a wide range of topics such as knowledge sharing, mobile games for learning, collaborative learning, and e-learning, this journal contains useful articles for those seeking to learn, analyze, improve, and apply technologies in mobile and blended learning. The journal spans theoretical, technical, and pedagogical issues in mobile and blended learning. These embrace comprehensive or critical reviews of the current literature, relevant technologies and applications, and important contextual issues such as privacy, security, adaptivity, and resource constraints.
Topics Covered
- Comprehensive or critical reviews of the current literature
- Evaluation of mobile or blended learning in practice
- Future of mobile or blended learning
- Knowledge Sharing
- Learner interaction/collaborative learning
- Mobile games for learning
- Mobile or blended learning applications
- Mobile or blended learning applied at different levels of education from pre-school to tertiary and beyond
- Pedagogical and/or philosophical underpinnings of mobile or blended learning
- Privacy and security issues
- Related research in learning, including e-learning and pedagogical approaches
- Resource constraints in the delivery of mobile or blended learning
- Reviews of the application of mobile or blended learning in multiple contexts
- Role of Wikis, blogs, podcasts, messaging, other online tools, and Web 2.0 components in learning delivery
- Roles of mobile, pervasive, and immersive technologies in education
- Technologies that directly or indirectly support mobile or blended learning systems (devices, networks, tools etc.)
- Theoretical approaches to mobile or blended learning solutions
- Use of mobile or blended learning in professional environments
Mission
The primary mission of the International Journal of Mobile and Blended Learning (IJMBL) is to provide comprehensive coverage and understanding of the role of innovative learning theory and practice in an increasingly mobile and pervasive technological environment. As technology enables a more seamless experience of device supported learning worlds that may integrate mobile, embedded, augmented, and immersive technologies, we may expect to see increasing interest and activity in blended approaches to learning. IJMBL brings together researchers at the forefront of this field, in both technology and pedagogical practice and assists them in the development and dissemination of new approaches to both mobile and blended learning.
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More on mobile and blended learning in this IMS blog:
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=mobile+learning
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=blended+learning
Teaching Critical Thinking: Some Practical Points
By: Linda B. Nilson, PhD
http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/effective-teaching-strategies/teaching-critical-thinking-practical-points/
Critical thinking scholars also agree that questions are central to students acquiring critical thinking skills. We must ask students challenging, open-ended questions that demand genuine inquiry, analysis, or assessment—questions like these:
- What is your interpretation/analysis of this passage/data/argument?
- What are your reasons for favoring that interpretation/analysis? What is your evidence?
- How well does your interpretation/analysis handle the complexities of the passage/data/argument?
- What is another interpretation/analysis of the passage/data/argument? Any others?
- What are the implications of each interpretation/analysis?
- Let’s look at all the interpretations/analyses and evaluate them. How strong is the evidence for each one?
- How honestly and impartially are you representing the other interpretations/analyses? Do you have a vested interest in one interpretation/analysis over another?
- What additional information would help us to narrow down our interpretations/analyses?
Some teaching methods naturally promote inquiry, analysis, and assessment, and all of them are student-active (Abrami et al., 2008). Class discussion may be the strongest, and it includes the debriefings of complex cases, simulations, and role plays. However, debates, structured controversy, targeted journaling, inquiry-guided labs, and POGIL-type worksheets (https://pogil.org/) are also effective.
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more on critical thinking in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=critical+thinking
Book Announcement: Implementing Mobile Language Learning Technologies in Japan
New book: Implementing Mobile Language Learning Technologies in Japan
by Steve McCarty, Hiroyuki Obari, and Takeshi Sato
Publisher: Springer Singapore / SpringerBriefs in Education (107 pages)
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 Introduction: Contextualizing Mobile Language Learning in Japan
Chapter 2 Mobile Language Learning Pedagogy: A Sociocultural Perspective
Chapter 3 Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology Case Study:
Smartphone App LINE for EFL Peer Learning
Chapter 4 Osaka Jogakuin University Case Study:
Mobilizing the EFL Curriculum and Campus Infrastructure with iPods and iPads
Chapter 5 Aoyama Gakuin University Case Study:
Blended Learning and Flipped Classrooms utilizing Mobile Devices
Chapter 6 Conclusion: Implementing Language Learning in a Mobile-Oriented Society
Abstract
This book explores theoretical and practical aspects of implementing mobile language learning in university classrooms for English as a Foreign Language in Japan. The technologies utilized, such as smartphones, iPads, and wi-fi, integrate students’ hand-held devices into the campus network infrastructure. The pedagogical aims of ubiquitous mobile learning further incorporate social media, blended learning, and flipped classroom approaches into the curriculum. Chapter 1 defines mobile language learning within dimensions of e-learning and technology-assisted language learning, prior to tracing the development of mobile learning in Japan. Chapter 2 documents the sociocultural theory underpinning the authors’ humanistic approach to implementation of mobile technologies. The sociocultural pedagogy represents a global consensus of leading educators that also recognizes the agency of Asian learners and brings out their capability for autonomous learning. Case studies of universities, large and small, public and private, are organized similarly in Chapters 3 to 5. Institutional/pedagogical and technological context sections are followed by detailed content on the implementation of initiatives, assessment of effectiveness, and recommendations for other institutions. Distinct from a collection of papers, this monograph tells a story in brief book length about theorizing and realizing mobile language learning, describing pioneering and original initiatives of importance to practitioners in other educational contexts.
Authors
Steve McCarty lectures for Kansai University, Osaka Jogakuin University, KIC Graduate School of IT, and the government agency JICA.
Hiroyuki Obari, PhD in Computer Science, is a Professor at the Aoyama Gakuin University College of Economics in Tokyo.
Takeshi Sato is an Associate Professor at the Division of Language and Culture Studies, Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology.
Ordering information from Springer
Paperback (ISBN: 978-981-10-2449-8):
http://www.springer.com/us/book/9789811024498
eBook (ISBN: 978-981-10-2451-1) or individual chapters:
http://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-981-10-2451-1
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more on mobile technologies in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=mobile+devices
