CALL FOR MOBILE APPLICATIONS

Mid Atlantic Mobile Application Forum

June 14, 2012 – Princeton University, Princeton, NJ

Deadline for Submission: May 30, 2012

Entries will be judged on the following criteria:

Submission Guidelines:  Competition is open to new Applications for Mobile or Desktop Devices in the following categories:   Content, Location Services, M Health, Mobile Media, Personalized Services, Smart City Applications and Social Media which have been in existence for less than 2 years.  Each submission should include three statements outlined below:

Clarity
In 100 words or less, describe the problem your application has solved or the need it met for your customer and the technology deployed. This is your elevator pitch. Make it brief and to the point. Judges evaluation will be based on your entry based on the clarity and uniqueness of your offering.

Value
In 250 words or less, describe why someone would be compelled to purchase and use your technology application or process. Judges will evaluate the entry based on the strength of your description.

We suggest you include:

• The economic business case
• Estimate total demand for the solution (market size)
• Description of state of problem – size or urgency
• Does it solve a whole product solution
• Impact and Results achieved

Credibility
In 250 words or less, describe the credibility of your company and solution. Judges will evaluate the entry based on the strength of your description.  We suggest you include:

• Background of company
• Intellectual property
• Team experience
• Key partners – include service provides, carriers or other technology partners that were required to successfully deploy the solution

One winner from each category will be selected to present their product or service at our Media Application Forum on the afternoon of June 14 in a five minute demonstration/presentation.  The written summaries will be made available to NJTC members on the NJTC website and possible other venues in 2012.  All entrants are required to submit their submissions by May 30.   Selection Committee will include representatives from industry and academia and will be announced shortly.

For more information contact Paul Frank at pfrank@njtc.org.  For submission go to: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/NJTCmobile

CeLEA's current Board Chair, Mr. Claude Martel, is profiled in the current issue of Training Alliance magazine.  You can access the article onlinby linking here. 

Press Information, April 30, 2012

eLearning Africa to assess the effectiveness of mobile learning

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Mobile technologies, which play an increasingly important role in Africa's education systems, are set to stimulate debate at this year's eLearning Africa conference in Cotonou, Benin, from May 23rd to 25th. Through a range of interactive expert-led sessions, participants at eLearning Africa 2012, the Continent's leading conference on ICT for development, education and training, will explore the challenges, opportunities and success stories of mLearning.

Advocates of mLearning see it as a growing, popular, pervasive and effective tool for learners and teachers, citing the benefits it brings to education as well as to Africa's agricultural practices, healthcare systems and professional development. But are we underestimating the disruption that mobile technologies cause to formal educational systems in Africa?

Critics of mLearning argue that the use of mobile technologies distracts learners and undermines the traditional classroom setting thereby threatening to make teachers redundant. Furthermore the prevalence of mobile phones among African learners is inconsistent, limiting the effectiveness of mLearning strategies. Is the integration of mLearning being approached in a sustainable way, and what are its long-term implications for education systems in Africa and across the world?

eLearning experts from Africa and beyond will present their experiences of and perspectives on mLearning in diverse sessions such as "Success Stories of Mobile Learning Apps", "Mobile Devices for Food Security, Improved Agricultural Practice and Community Empowerment", "Managing Conflicting Stakeholder Perspectives on Mobile Learning: A Role Play Session" and "Interactivity Paradigm Shifts to Mobile Learning".

The annual eLearning Africa debate will offer all participants the opportunity to voice their views on mLearning and hear those of other eLearning professionals, including ICT4D practitioner Wayan Vota, a well-known blogger and Senior Director at Inveneo, and Cheryl Douglas, Programme Director, Teaching Biology Project of the Africa Genome Education Institute, South Africa.

According to Rebecca Stromeyer, founder of eLearning Africa and Executive Director of the international events and media company ICWE, "Whilst it is certainly not new, the use of mLearning has never been so widespread. eLearning Africa unites educational and ICT professionals from across all sectors in Africa and throughout the world, creating a unique platform for reviewing the latest issues in technology-enhanced education and training.  This year's eLearning Africa conference will therefore be the first of its kind to tackle the issue of mLearning from such a wide range of perspectives and within the context of other approaches to technology-enhanced education."

Indeed, mLearning is just one of 14 aspects of technology-enhanced education which will be explored in detail under the overall theme of eLearning and Sustainability at eLearning Africa 2012, the largest gathering of high-level policy makers, decision makers and practitioners from education, business and government. This year's conference will feature 12 pre-conference workshops, up to 60 sessions and over 300 speakers from Africa and beyond.

For more information, please visit

 http://www.elearning-africa.com/programme_programme.php.

eLearning Africa in a nutshell

eLearning Africa, 7th International Conference on ICT for Development, Education and Training May 23 - 25, 2012 Palais des Congrès de Cotonou, Cotonou, Benin

Organisers: ICWE GmbH, www.icwe.net, Government of the Republic of Benin

Contact: ICWE GmbH, Ms Andrea Gruenler, info@elearning-africa.com, www.eLearning-africa.com,

Tel.: +49 (0)30 310 18 18-0

Press Contacts

Christian Auchter & Claire Thrower

ICWE GmbH

Tel:  +49 (0)30 310 18 18-0

Fax: +49 (0)30 324 98 33

press-service@icwe.net

Check it out, we are on YouTube! BNH has recently created a new video highlighting the core capabilities of ADVISOR Enterprise.

Although the results of using ADVISOR speak for itself, sometimes getting the message across on why you should try it in the first place can be difficult to explain. To summarize, ADVISOR Enterprise is a web based decision support tool to help organizations develop and implement effective, efficient training strategies as well as assess their impact. We hope that this medium will clarify the complex task of training needs analysis. The video release also coincides with the redesign of the ADVISOR Enterprise logo and tagline. As the assessment of training needs is crucial to operational readiness and mission success, BNH strives to help you plan better to achieve more. 

At BNH, we are driven by innovation and providing personalized solutions for your training needs analysis initiatives. We would welcome your feedback. Take a look at our new video and tell us what you think.

See the video

Calian is currently building a team of Senior Programmers for a large Bid with the Dept of National Defence, near Fredericton, NB. If successful, this contract would begin a.s.a.p to March 2013. The team would be involved in developing web-based training courses for the Military on-site. (an eLearning background is required)

If you know of anyone that would like to take a look at these opportunities, plase feel free to pass along my email address and they may contact me directly at  v.dake@calian.com

Click here to go directly to the job posting!

http://bts.calian.com/en/career_jobs/jobdescriptionmutiple.asp?curr=7&WebJobPostingsID=6661

Valerie Dake 

Recruiter - Training, Operations & Maintenance

C A L I A N

Tel: (613) 599-8600 x240

Toll Free No: 1-877-225-4264 x240

Cell: (613) 266-7590

Fax: (613) 591-2248

101-340 Legget Drive

Ottawa, ON, K2K 1Y6

http://bts.calian.com

http://www.calian.jobs

Company Now One of World's Largest Education Open Source Service Providers --Moodlerooms, NetSpot Will Continue to Operate Independently

From the March 18, 2012 edition of The Chronicle of Higher Education (http://chronicle.com) 

By Nick DeSantis

Harsh economic realities mean trouble for college leaders. But where administrators perceive an impending crisis, investors increasingly see opportunity.

In recent years, venture capitalists have poured millions into education-technology start-ups, trying to cash in on a market they see as ripe for a digital makeover. And lately, those wagers have been getting bigger.

Investments in education-technology companies nationwide tripled in the last decade, shooting up to $429-million in 2011 from $146-million in 2002, according to the Na­tional Venture Capital Association. The boom really took off in 2009, when venture capitalists pushed $150-million more into education-technology firms than they did in the previous year, even as the economy sank into recession.

"The investing community believes that the Internet is hitting edu­cation, that education is having its Internet moment," said Jose Ferreira, founder of the interactive-learning company Knewton. Last year Mr. Ferreira's company scored a $33-million investment of its own in one of the biggest deals of the year.

Linke here to access the full article.

Submissions for the 2012 International E-Learning Awards - Academic Division, presented by the International E-Learning Association (IELA), are due soon! The Entry Submission Page is posted on the IELA site and the deadline for submission is June 1, 2012. 

For those of you who do not watch the MERX web site regularly, please note that Supply and Services Canada issued the 2012 Learning Services request for supply arrangements and standing offers on February 23.  The solicitation closes on April 3.  There is plenty of paperwork to read and information to provide, so if you are interested you should not delay in obtaining the bid documents from MERX.

The solicitation process will generate lists of qualified suppliers from which any federal government department or agency can identify and procure the services of companies for specific learning related projects.  Call-ups of up to $250,000 qualify for this process, and call-ups under $25,000 may be directed by a department to a single supply arrangement holder.

The Government is looking for suppliers in the following streams of activity:

1. Strategic Learning Advisory Services
2. Instructional Design and Development Services
3. Custom Elearning Products Programming
4. Rapid Elearning Products Programming
5. Quality Assurance
6. Multi Media Design and Development
7. Project Management
8. Training Delivery

Companies (or consortia/joint ventures) may submit qualifications for as many of the streams as they wish.   Companies must have been in business for a minimum of three years to qualify or, in the case of joint ventures at least one partner must meet this requirement.  In addition, each stream carries with it minimum requirements for cumulative billing revenues in the stream over the past 5 years.  These minimums vary from one stream to the other, ranging from $50,000 for the Quality Assurance stream to $300,000 for Instructional Design and Development, and Custom Elearning Products Programming.

Bidders may also designate geographic areas they are available to work, ranging from “National” to specific sub-regions/cities, so even if you cannot supply a service nationally, you will still be eligible for work in the regions/areas you designate.

Any supply arrangement issued under this bid will be for one year only, with an annual refresh of the solicitation and a quarterly opportunity for new companies to submit bids.

These are just some highlights - as we all know “the devil is in the details” so I suggest you download the rfp from MERX as soon as possible and let us know if you have any comments, positive and negative, about the process.  Just click here to access a discussion forum we have set up for Learning Services.