Title: Chronicling Portable Practices in Urban Environments
Abstract: Ethnographers studying mobile and portable technologies must reconsider basic methodological commitments towards observation and the framing of social and cultural context. As people's social relations and access to culture and knowledge becomes mediated by networked technologies, the ethnographer must consider the context for behavior as a hybrid between the physical environment with co-present others and the networked "virtual" environment. What conceptual and methodological frameworks enable us to conduct this kind of real/virtual ethnographic research in networked and mobile worlds? This talk will review a number of studies conducted at Keio University's DoCoMo House research lab that utilize hybrid methods of observation, interviewing, and diaries to get at a range of different approaches to studying the use of portable technologies in urban space.

Biography: Mizuko Ito is a cultural anthropologist of technology use, focusing on children and youth’s changing relationships to media and communications. She is part of a research project supported by the MacArthur Foundation, “Kids’ Informal Learning with Digital Media,” a three year ethnographic study of kid-initiated and peer-based forms of engagement with new media.  She is also conducting ongoing research on Japanese technoculture, looking at how children in Japan and the US engage with post-Pokemon media mixes. Her research on mobile phone use in Japan appears in a book she has co-edited, Personal, Portable, Pedestrian: Mobile Phones in Japanese Life.  She is a Research Scientist at the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California, and a Visiting Associate Professor at Keio University in Japan. http://www.itofisher.com/mito.

Professor David Livingstone
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, Canada.

Title: Basic Research on Lifelong Learning: Recent Survey Findings and Reflections on ‘Capturing’ Informal Learning
Abstract: The presentation will summarize findings from the 1998 and 2004 Canadian national surveys of lifelong learning and work, including profiles of and relations between paid/unpaid (domestic, volunteer) work and formal (schooling/adult courses) education and informal (job/housework/volunteer work/general interest related) learning. Features of the hidden informal part of the “iceberg” of adult learning will be emphasized, particularly the very weak links between formal education and informal learning. Methodological limitations of both survey and case study empirical research to date on informal learning will be noted, with some reference to the ongoing computerization of everyday life. Implications for “tracking” or “capturing” informal learning in mobile contexts will be suggested.

Biography: Dr. D.W. Livingstone is Canada Research Chair in Lifelong Learning and Work at the University of Toronto, Head of the Centre for the Study of Education and Work at OISE/UT, professor in the Department of Sociology and Equity Studies at OISE/UT, and Director of the SSHRC-funded national WALL research network on “The Changing Nature of Work and Lifelong Learning” (see www.wallnetwork.ca). He was born in Vancouver, B.C. He holds an Honours B.A. in sociology from the University of British Columbia and a doctorate in social relations from Johns Hopkins University. He has also been the principal investigator of the OISE/UT Biennial Survey of Public Attitudes Toward Education in Ontario since 1978. His books include: Working and Learning in the Information Age (Ottawa: Canadian Policy Research Networks, 2002), Hidden Knowledge: Organized Labour in the Information Age (Garamond Press and Rowman & Littlefield, 2003)(with P. Sawchuk), The Education-Jobs Gap: Underemployment or Economic Democracy (Garamond Press and Percheron Press, 2004, second edition), International Handbook of Educational Policy. (Springer, 2005) (edited with N. Bascia, A. Cumming, A. Datnow and K. Leithwood). His current research interests include an array of studies of relations between paid/unpaid work and formal/informal learning, most notably combined surveys and case studies of relations between education and jobs. Forthcoming books include: The Future of Lifelong Learning and Work: Critical Perspectives (Rotterdam: Sense Publishers, 2008) (edited with K. Mirchandani and P. Sawchuk) and Education and Jobs: Exploring the Gaps forthcoming in 2008.

Title: Evaluation methods for mobile learning

Abstract: Evaluation has been identified as a ‘big issue’ of mobile learning. Assessing the effectiveness of mobile learning may involve tracking groups and individuals moving under their own volition over a wide area, including private spaces, interacting with a variety of technologies, possibly developing skills and knowledge over long periods of time. In addition, both the technologies and the educational approaches to mobile learning are evolving rapidly, so formative evaluation methods are needed to inform the co-design of new combinations of learning and technology.

I shall discuss the evaluation methods for three major mobile learning projects – MOBIlearn, MyArtSpace, and PI: Personal Inquiry – and indicate how they addressed the issues of a) co-design of learning and technology, b) evaluation of learning of individuals and groups across settings, and c) the ethics of running studies to monitor learning activity inside and outside the classroom. The talk will make particular mention of the socio-cognitive engineering approach of MOBIlearn, the multi-level evaluation for MyArtSpace and the ethical guidelines of the PI project.

Biography: Mike Sharples is Professor of Learning Sciences and Director of the Learning Sciences Research Institute at the University of Nottingham. He has an international reputation for research in mobile learning and the design of learning technologies. He inaugurated the mLearn conference series and is President of the International Association for Mobile Learning.  As Deputy Scientific Manager of the Kaleidoscope Network of Excellence in Technology Enhanced Learning he coordinates a network of 1100 researchers across 90 European research centres.   His current projects include PI: Personal Inquiry, a collaboration with the Open University UK to develop 21st century science learning between formal and informal settings, and a national survey of social networked learning at home and school. Recent projects include MyArtSpace for mobile learning in museums and the L-Mo project with Sharp Laboratories of Europe to develop handheld technologies for language learning. He is author of 160 publications in the areas of interactive systems design, artificial intelligence and educational technology.