CategoriesDigital learningEducation

What Duolingo taught me

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I consider Duolingo he best learning application available on the market to date. I have been using for quite almost 4 months and I thought it is useful to write down the reasons why I consider it to be an outstanding mobile-first learning app. I think all educational developers and instructional designers should take inspiration from Duolingo much as possible.  The reason is the combination of some important elements.

  • It's a mobile native application: it's thought as a mobile-first application, it offers also a desktop web version although 80% of users are mobile.
  • It uses gamification elements: it uses a structured learning plan divided into several learning stages which the user has to unlock progressively. For each level completed experience points are awarded. The app allows to compare the experience points collected periodically with other friend users.
  • It's free of charge and is ad-free.
  • It's fully adaptive to the learner. A opening test at the beginning of each course determines the level of expertise in the language. That influences the entire course.
  • Reinforces learning: it uses strength bars which decrease without constant training. In this way it encourages the user not to give up and learn more.
  • The GUI is well designed: the options are minimalistic and seamless.
  • It uses crowdsourcing: to earn money it asks the users to translate documents and review other translations. Crowd translation is not only a smart business model but is also the most reliable way to elicit ground truth.
CategoriesDigital learningEducation

Will this Revolutionize Education?

Yesterday I stumbled upon this video concerning the role of technology in Education. I found it particularly interesting because it validates what has been always my claim. Whichever educational technology we pick, which enhances or supports learning, that will be never part the learning-core, the sphere where the magic happens. The latter is a complex system of purely human dynamics: the learning process always boils down to the relationship among the teacher and the learner, and among the learner and his or her peers.

CategoriesEducationSocial

World education needs no #GESF

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Business men making business behind education at the GESF

 

The 15th and 16th of March 2015 the third edition of the Global Education & Skills Forum is taking place in Dubai.

The aim of this forum, as specified on their website is to

... bring together leaders from government, business, and education, as well as leading academics, social entrepreneurs, and other thought leaders, to focus on the research, models, and mechanisms that can create quality education and employment for all.

As the subtitle of the forum says, the event is focused on Education, Equity and Employment. These three keywords carry with them some fundamental issues that the world is facing today. Just to mention a few: access and distribution of education; safety of educational environments; discriminations toward gender, race, sexual orientation, socio-economic condition; unemployment, lack of social security and basic rights. And so on. 

CategoriesEducation

Why we need a paradigm shift from Quality Education to Right-based Education

The troublesome effects that the regressive austerity political measures undertaken by European governments have had on national leaded an increasing number people to join the call to focus on quality education all around Europe. The bell rang by students and teachers, in hundreds of demonstrations, on the disastrous effects that budget cuts and the process of privatisation of schools and universities, brought a wide civil society consensus on the need to oppose indiscriminately to such short-sighted remedies to save public money.

CategoriesEducation

IT - Rischi ed usi errati delle Learning Analytics

Capitolo estratto della tesi "le Learning Analytics per la valutazione formativa negli ambienti di apprendimento a distanza"  (scritta ad Aprile 2014). 

Privacy e anonimato

Abbiamo descritto come le Learning Analytics si fondino sui dati generati dai discenti e di come negli ultimi anni sia cresciuto esponenzialmente l’interesse a collezionare, analizzare e utilizzare questi dati per fare delle statistiche e delle previsioni riguardanti abitudini, preferenze, comportamento degli utenti. Contestualmente a ciò si è sviluppata una nuova e decisamente più marcata sensibilità verso il diritto alla privacy in rete, la quale passa da un livello di “argomento caldo” discusso nei blog, a primo punto dell’agenda politica delle Nazioni, recentemente discusso soprattutto in vista delle Elezioni Europee 2014[1]. Il problema della privacy in Europa è cresciuto prevalentemente a causa dello scandalo dei sistemi di sorveglianza messi a punto dall’Agenzia Nazionale per la Sicurezza statunitense[2]. La priorità politica è quella di stabilire regole più rigide sul trattamento e l’utilizzo dei dati sensibili.