Positionality

I spend most of my time with one foot on the Afrikan continent in Namibia, the other on the North American continent in the USA and my arms are stretched out to the world and beyond. As such I am a comparativist, concerned not just with how “things” impact me and the immediate community in which I find myself, but believing that knowing how others do, view, and see things, significantly helps me better understand myself and the world in which I travel.

I am continuously developing and (re)formulating myself and my identity. I take solace and guidance from the likes of Kwame Nkrumah in my empathic belief that “I am not African because I was born in Africa but because Africa was born in me.” I am not merely where I was born, where I come from, my race, gender or my educational qualifications. All those characteristics and many others form who I am and are a building block of the future me. Like Frantz Fanon, I believe that I am not a prisoner of my history, my origin or my abstract destination. I am but a traveler and “In the world through which I travel, I am endlessly creating myself. I am a part of Being to the degree that I go beyond it.” I say all of this not to construct a treatise on identity, my personal philosophy, nor justification (apology). I write this because I believe in openness, and I want to be upfront about who I am; the me that I know as of the moment I post this.

Academically Speaking…

My areas of research, writing & presentations revolve around emerging technologies in education; diffusion of mobile devices in teaching and learning; Mobile Learning; Design for Mobile Devices; Indigenous knowledge; Openness (access, education, resources, pedagogy); Comparative International Education; and the role of culture in the development and evaluation of learning technologies.

Currently, I am an Associate Professor in the Educational Technology Program at Oklahoma State University. I graduated with a dual-title doctoral degree in Learning, Design, and Technology in the Learning and Performance Systems department and in Comparative and International Education Program in the Department of Policy Studies at Penn State University. I hold a Master of Science in Instructional Systems and Technology from Cabrini College, Master of Science in Multimedia Technology, Master of Arts in Corporate Communication, Bachelor Arts in Media Studies and Political Science from Duquesne University.

This website is a space to share my thoughts and to engage in conversations

Instructional Design Competencies Study

This study explores the issues, challenges, and emerging trends affecting instructional designers today. We are interesting in finding out if ID competencies have changed especially in light of new technologies and practices.

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Popya: Using mobile phone for speaking and listening fluency.

We are working on a system that can allow users from places where English is not a native langue but is the language of instruction. Popya is a low-end, low-cost and an open-source Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system which can be used to deliver English listening and speaking fluency practice activities to students and teachers.

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Learners as designers

I agree with Victor Papanek (1971)’s argument that we are all we are all designers because design is a basic human activity that we engage in all the time. This is especially true when it comes to young children whose day is spent in all types of design activities that adults often refer to as “made up games”.

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iPad in various contexts

I took an iPad with me while traveling to Namibia to do research on the use of mobile phones by students in Namibia. At the time of my trip, the iPad had just been released in the US and was not available internationally.

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MLearning village
This blog details 2 research projects I worked on in July 2011 in Namibia.

Project 1: Adopting mLearning applications in education: The experience of Namibian Students and Teachers (with funding support from the Africana Research Centre and the Comparative International Education program).

Project 2: Exploring student’s experience with the iPod (with technology support from the Penn State Education Technology Services)

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Below are some useful sites I found while procrastinating….I mean being productive on line:

Instructional Design Related

• http://www.instructionaldesigncentral.com/

PhD Journey

• http://www.phdcomics.com/

Resources on Mobile Learning

• mLearnopedia – http://mlearnopedia.com/
  A website on mobile lifestyles and technologies
• Most mobile – http://jonathandonner.com/  – Research and discussion by Jonathan Donnera researcher in the Technology for Emerging Markets Group at Microsoft Research India in Bangalore.
• The International Association for Mobile Learning (IAMLearn) – http://mlearning.noe-kaleidoscope.org/ – an organization to promote excellence in research, development and application of mobile and contextual learning.
• MOBIlearn – http://www.mobilearn.org/index.php – a research and development project exploring context-sensitive approaches to informal, problem-based and workplace learning by using key advances in mobile technologies.

Design Resources

• Interactions Magazine – http://interactions.acm.org/index.php
• Small Surfaces – http://www.smallsurfaces.com/
  – Small Surfaces is a site about design for mobile technology.
• Interaction-Design.org? – http://www.interaction-design.org/
  – Interaction-Design.org  makes research accessible on Interaction Design, User Experience (UX), Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Information Architecture (IA), Human Factors, Usability, and related fields.
• Design Issues – http://www.mitpressjournals.org/loi/desi
  – The first American academic journal to examine design history, theory, and criticism, Design Issues provokes inquiry into the cultural and intellectual issues surrounding design.

Articles to Read

• A Guide to UX Design and Design Thinking for Kids – https://praxent.com/blog/ux-design-thinking-for-kids-guide