IABL2017

The 2nd World Conference on Blended Learning

April 26-28, 2017

Toronto, ON, Canada

George Brown College

Pre-conference Workshop 5:


Literacy Uplift - Mobile tools for language literacy

Audience: Novices and Intermediate

According to the Canadian Learning and Literacy Network (CLLN), 42% of all Canadian adults between age 16 and 65 have low literacy skills. At the same time existing programs are struggling to address and support this population. Mobile technology can provide a support for adult learners.

This workshop is supported by SSHRC Partnership Development Grants – Community and College Social Innovation Fund (890-2015-2017)

Project website: http://literacyuplift.georgebrown.ca

Literacy Uplift

Przemyslaw Pawluk

George Brown College

Agnieszka Palalas

Athabasca University

Vandra McQuarrie

Literacy Nipissing

Svetlana Lupasco

TESL Toronto

Phil Cowcill and Krista Hildner

Development Made Simple

What will you learn in this workshop?

In this workshop, attendees will be introduced to mobile tools for language literacy with the focus on the new mobile solution for language literacy learners, that is developed by the team from George Brown College, Athabasca University, Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL) Toronto, Literacy Nipissing, and Development Made Simple. Participants will have a chance to test this new tool and will be also presented with the preliminary results of the research.

Pawluk

Przemyslaw Pawluk

George Brown College

Przemyslaw (Pshemek) Pawluk is a professor at the School of Computer Technology at George Brown College in Toronto, teaching mobile, web and game development. He has worked successfully with Research and Innovation Office at George Brown College on various research projects advising both industry partners and participating students. Przemyslaw holds a Master of Science in Software Engineering degree from Wroclaw University of Technology and Blekinge Institute of Technology. Przemyslaw is an active researcher. His work is focused on two areas: mobile education and cloud computing. He is a co-founder and vice-president of Mobi-Learning Inc. responsible for technological aspects of their solutions.

Agnieszka Palalas

Agnieszka Palalas

Athabasca University

Dr. Agnieszka (Aga) Palalas, long time teacher and researcher of adult education and educational technologies, has focused for over a decade on exploring and developing blended and mobile learning solutions. Dr. Palalas has been involved in numerous blended learning projects in North America, Ghana and India. Amongst other assignments, she has worked as a Mobile Learning Specialist at George Brown College, Toronto, Canada as well as in a cross-cultural blended learning project involving Ghana, Canada, and the USA. She is currently teaching graduate courses in m-learning, technology-assisted education, and distance education courses at Athabasca University, Canada and the University of New Mexico, USA. She is also consulting on mobile and blended learning educational interventions. Dr. Palalas has published a number of articles and book chapters pertaining to mobile and blended learning. She has been active in local and international professional associations and is a regular presenter at international conferences. In her over-20-year experience as an educator, Dr. Palalas has taught in the classroom and online, reviewed and designed curriculum, provided professional development, worked as a programmer and instructional designer for mobile, online, F2F, and blended learning programs. She is excited to be able to contribute to the field of blended learning as a founding director of the International Blended Learning Association.

Vandra McQuarrie

Vandra McQuarrie

Literacy Nipissing

Vandra McQuarrie is Executive Director of Literacy Nipissing. She is experience literacy teacher passonate about her students.

Jim Kinney

Svetlana Lupasco

TESL Toronto

Svetlana Lupasco a passionate Adult ESL and LBS professional, teacher trainer and PD champion committed to a culture of continuous learning, reflective practice, community development, peer support and collaboration.

Phil Cowcill

Phil Cowcill

Development Made Simple

Phil Cowcill is the senior eLearning specialist of Department of National Defence. Phil started in multimedia development in 1985 when he was part of a team that developed Canada’s first Level III interactive videodisc, and he has been working full-time in the multimedia field since then. In 1995, Phil joined Canadore College where he set up, coordinated, and taught the interactive multimedia post-graduate program. Thompson Publishing released Phil’s first academic publication in 2004, and he joined Macromedia/Adobe in 2007 as a quality assurance engineer. Phil travels and speaks at a variety of educational and multimedia conferences all over North America.

Jim Kinney

Krista Hildner

Development Made Simple

Krista Hildner is a full-time mobile application developer at Canadore College who slants towards building educational applications. When Krista isn’t developing mLearning or mobile applications, she teaches part-time in Canadore College’s mobile-application development department.