Ensemble. Presentation at Media&Learning 2010, Bruxelles

Faculty of Education, University of Florence (Italy)

Using podcasting and MMS to provide learning opportunities for immigrant citizens

Giovanni Bonaiuti, Maria RanieriUniversità di Firenze

Media & LearningBruxelles, 25/11/2010 www.ensemble-project.org


The project

Ensemble project is funded by the European Union within the LLL Programme (2008-2010).

Italy

France

United Kingdom

Partner: • Università di Firenze• Comune di Prato

• Department of Yvelines• Centre Regional de Documentation Pedagogique de l'Academie de Versailles

• GiuntiLabs (UK).


The overall background of the ENSEMBLE project is provided by the European policies about the immigrants’ integration and by the recent communication “European i2010 initiative on e-Inclusion - to be part of the information society”.

In this communication the Commission underlines the role of ICTs to enabling the conditions for everyone to take part in the information society by

• bridging the “accessibility – broadband and competences” gaps;

• accelerating effective participation of groups at risk of exclusion, and

• improving the quality of life.

Background and Aims of the Project

Inclusio

n and

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n and

socia

l integratio

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socia

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Ensemble aims to develop a strategy for the use of communication technologies to encourage the cultural and social integration of citizens, relying on widely available tools such as mobile phones, mp3 players and netbooks.

The general idea


«m-Learning» for all!

• The Ensemble project is based on the idea that technologies can fully deploy their potentials only when they are easy to use and well integrated in the (existing) habits of their users.

• Imposing unnatural practices never produces great results...


The experimentation has been carried out in two European municipalities:

- Versailles (France)- Prato (Italy)

on groups of people of different ethnic group: mainly Chinese in Italy and North african in France

Experimentation


Two types of target groups were identified:

• adults, first generation migrants,• young people, second generation migrants.

Target group


In line with the overall premise of the project, it were adopted technological devices widely distributed in both groups.

In our vision, the adoption of tools already known (by the users) would have facilitated the training session.

The training activities addressed to the students were supported by MP3 players.

The work with parents was enhanced by the use of mobile phones.

The project’s tools


For the students: - 64 podcast - 16 learning object (in Moodle LMS)

For their parents: - 160 MMS

The teaching process was carried out by using “easy to use” formats: podcasts for students, and MMS for parents.

At this purpose we produced and used a series of micro-lesson content in different formats:

The communicative formats


Podcast

LO/Web forum

Tracking data (eg SCORM)

Learning guide

LMS Moodle

StudentsStudents

TeachersTeachers

User-produced podcast

Student’s setting


Users data (tracking of SMS/MMS)

Learning guide

ParentsParents

Parent’s setting


Work Plan

4 Modules on the following topics:– European Citizenship– Intercultural education– To be parent, to be children/student– Old and new addiction

Every week:– Students listened to 4 episodes– Parents received 8 MMS

Every month:

Meeting in the school

(beetween teachers, students and parents)

One month for each topic = Four months


ContentsModuleModule UnitUnit

1 European citizenship

European Union: An Introduction

The European Citizenship: rights and obligations

Work in the EU

The Euro and financial affairs

2 Intercultural Education

One country, many cultures

Sport

Body language and cultures

Internet as a tool for intercultural dialogue

3 To be parent, to be student

Convention on the Rights of Child

The European Programme for the Mobility of Students

The French School System/The Italian School System

Rules and community school life

4 Old and new addictions

Health food and nutrition

Videogames: addiction or creative game?

Alcool and Teenagers

Drugs and Teenagers


• Repetition and variation: short messages present information about the same subject in a cyclical pattern, but from different perspectives and integrating contents.

• Openness and interaction: each cycle ends with open questions for users, who can ask for further information or discussion on the topic (in class, but also at home).

• Context and control: users may choose when, where and how to use - during the day - the learning materials according to the context.

Learning Design Principles


• The length of each episode does not exceed the attention span (3-6 minutes);

• The language must be simple and clear (short sentences);

• Respect of rules and principles derived from the cognitive load theory (eg don’t use information not strictly related to content, avoid of inessential music, etc);

• Use of prosodic emphasis and sound strategies (bullets sound, effects, etc.);

• Create a “sense of conversation” with the user;

• Adoption of a similar pedagogical structure also to promote the development of a "ritual of listening”

• Activation: use of strategy (“ironic situations”, curious questions, etc.) to endorse active personal response.

Podcasts’ Features

Oral communication. Spoken language is a natural way to learn (we experience from birth) but in terms of teaching it must be made appropriate choices.


Information Integration SynthesisIntroduction Answer(podcast produced by the student)

Learning process (students)

Question


Podcast example

Clic here for some examples:http://www.ensembleproject.org/modules/wfdownloads/viewcat.php?cid=33


• Using visual that can be correctly interpreted by people from different countries and cultures;

• Pursuit of self-consistent picture and reduction of the written text;

• Respecting the rules of visual design and principles of Mayer’s multimedia learning (eg principles of proximity, alignment, repetition and contrast);

• Attention to the device: the small screen size limits the amount of viewable content and timing of use

• Respect of the rules of the theory of cognitive load (eg, attention to the target, consistent with the messages, reducing extraneous components, reduction of intrinsic load: chunking, sequencing, pacing).

MMSs’ Features

Visual communication. We are daily immersed in the images, but for teaching with images we need to do appropriate choices.


Learning process (parents)

InformationInformation

QuestionQuestionAnswerAnswer

IntroductionIntroduction

IntegrationIntegration


A single MMS content


A single MMS content (2)


Let see an example

Clic here to see the video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ml9sSMSQEB4


Where are project’s resources?


Thank you! [email protected]

www.ensemble-project.org