As part of the 2009 European Year of Creativity and Innovation, the Higher Education Authority and Léargas have published a booklet. The European Language Label winning FÓN Project is featured.

The relevant part of the publication is below, and the whole booklet can be downloaded from the Léargas website (pdf, 5.6mb, 32 pages).

Continuing on our winning streak, I was honoured last week to be awarded a LearnTrends Innovation Award during the LearnTrends online conference. Learnosity won for our pioneering work with spoken language learning using mobile phones.

I really liked the fact that this was an award focused on innovation. The prize was to make a presentation at the LearnTrends event last week.

For more on the awards, see Tony Karrer's eLearning Tech blog and Jay Cross's announcement of the awards on the LearnTrends website.

I look forward to meeting Jay and buying him a pint next week in Berlin at Online Educa, and to participating in LearnTrends 2010!

On Friday 12th November, I was thrilled to pick up a coveted Gold award at the e-Learning Age awards held in the Sheraton Park Lane Hotel in London.

The awards, run by e-Learning Age Magazine, are seen as one of the most prestigious awards in the learning industry. They showcase the very best examples of work in the field, with winners representing everything from blue-chip multinationals to specialist start-up companies. There was almost 200 entries from 15 different countries, and so we were delighted to be shortlisted in two categories: Best Use of Mobile Learning and Most Innovative New Product or Tool in E-learning.

With so many entries, this is the most competitive year in the history of the awards. With standards so high, some categories have bronze, silver and gold awards for the first time. Learnosity was delighted to win a Gold award for Learnosity Voice in the Most Innovative New Product or Tool in E-learning category. Read more about it in the cover story of this month's edition of E-Learning Age Magazine.

Judges Comments

Last week the project we are doing with the Irish government was covered by the RTÉ News. RTÉ are the Irish national broadcaster. The segment includes a good overview of the project with contributions from Anne Looney (CEO of the NCCA), Learnosity, a representative of the teachers union (ASTI), along with students and teachers from one of the participating schools, Ratoath College.

RTÉ news story on Learnosity/ NCCA project broadcast 16th November 2009.

For more information on the project, please see the project website and the Irish language case study on the Learnosity website.

This TV coverage came about after Dr. Anne Looney from the NCCA mentioned the project on RTÉ Radio's Morning Ireland the previous week. A recording of that show is available to listen to below:

Anne Looney on RTÉ Morning Ireland November 2nd 2009 (MP3, 5 minutes, 3.4mb)

Read more about Dr. Looney in this glowing profile from the Irish Times, which describes her as "one of the most capable thinkers and managers in Irish education at any level". Having had the pleasure to work with Anne a number of years, I must say I agree.

The Handheld Learning Awards for Innovation & Best Practice were held during the recent Handheld Learning 2009 conference. I was proud to accept a prestigious Innovation Award in the Secondary Education category, for Learnosity Voice.

There was 200 nominees, with 36 finalists chosen from a panel of 8 Independent cross-sector judges. There was then over 4000 public votes to decide the winners. Many thanks to everyone who voted, and to the Learning Without Frontiers team who put on an excellent show and conference.

The awards were presented by well known TV presenter Jason Bradbury. The whole event was captured on video. If I had known it was being filmed, I might have said a few more words!

Gavin Cooney accepting Handheld Learning Award for Learnosity on Vimeo

Nomination Outline

At Handheld Learning 2009, I presented a session called Use of mobile phones for language learning. The presentation was on Monday 5th October in a seminar called "Best Practice in Action". For part of the presentation, Rhodri Thomas from The Open University was kind enough to join me.

A video of the presentation is below. It's also available on the HHL website and vimeo.com.

For more video from Handheld Learning 2009, go to Handheld Learning's channel on Blip.tv or subscribe via iTunes. The full conference proceedings are available with Video, Audio and Photographs. There is some great content there for anyone interested in Handheld and Mobile Learning.

The presentation itself is available below.

We are delighted to announce that our clients NCCA and Ratoath College have accepted the 2009 European Award for Languages- The Language Label for the FÓN project. The FÓN project used Learnosity Voice to incorporate mobile phones into the teaching, learning and assessment of Irish for nearly 400 second year students in 6 schools. The European Award for Languages is presented in recognition of a project's ability to engage language learners in a manner that is both meaningful and productive, while at the same time promoting a positive attitude towards both the learning and use of the target language.

To celebrate the European Day of Languages, the award was presented in a celebration ceremony held on September 25^th, by Professor David Crystal, writer, editor, lecturer and broadcaster, at an awards ceremony in Farmleigh, Dublin.

Jury comments for FÓN

Find out more about the awards on the Léargas European Language Label, or download the 2009 Language Label booklet (pdf, 2.6mb). Read more on our award on the NCCA and websites.

The FÓN project is currently being evaluated with findings due in late 2009. Preliminary findings have indicated that the project has had a hugely positive impact on student learning due to the following reasons:

• Students were motiviated by the technologies involved.
• More opportunities were provided for students to practise their Irish and converse with others on the project.
• There was a shift in learning from teacher led to student directed and this empowered students.
• The ability to self assess allowed students to compare their levels of fluency with others.

About the European Language Label

The European Language Label, formerly known as the European Award for Languages, is an annual award recognising projects where participants have found creative and innovative ways to improve the quality of language teaching, motivate students, and make the best of available resources. The European Language Label is co-ordinated by the European Commission and managed in Ireland by Léargas.

The general criteria for winning an award, agreed at a European level, are as follows: Initiatives should be comprehensive, provide added value in their national context, motivate the students and teachers, be original and creative, have a European emphasis, and be transferable in that they might potentially be a source of inspiration for other language initiatives in different countries.

This year's Irish winners were selected on the basis of excellence, innovation, creativity and their ability to serve as a model for others. For Irish projects to be eligible for an award they must be:

• Innovative- involving a new method, approach, or resource.
• Effective- the work must be already completed or at least be able to show progress to date and provide evidence of self-evaluation and ongoing critical review.
• Replicable- there must be potential for growth and the possibility of providing a model for other projects and situations.

We were thrilled to learn that Learnosity Voice has been nominated for a Handheld Learning Award. We were nominated in the Secondary category for the Innovation award, defined as "An initiative, project or product that has had the most positive impact within category".

Please vote for us by text LEARNOSITY to +44 7786 205 637. One vote per phone. Voting closes at midnight UK time on Monday 28th September.

All the very best to the others nominated: Studywiz and Creative Learning Lab / Waag Society. I look forward to seeing you at the Awards Ceremony at the conference in October.

Below is a video demo of the iPhone Application we created for The Open University. I previously posted some screenshots of this application.

Learnosity has been working with The Open University in the UK for the past few months. We did a pilot using the Learnosity Voice platform to deliver spoken language learning in the Intermediate French L120 course.

This iPhone application has been developed to replace/ augment the Learnosity Voice student web-interface. The application allows students review their answers, receive teacher feedback, and listen to sample answers using an iPhone or an iPod Touch.

Download the app from the iTunes App store. Note: Learnosity/OU login is required.

Learnosity / Open University iPhone App demo on Vimeo.com.

For those of you interested, this video created with the iPhone Simulator from the iPhone SDK, iSimulate, Jing, Soundflower and Quicktime Pro.

We are excited to see Learnosity nominated for two illustrious e-Learning Age awards. We have been shortlisted from almost 200 entries from organisations worldwide.

Learnosity Voice has been shortlisted in two categories:

• Best Use of Mobile Learning
• Most Innovative New Product or Tool in E-learning

We're in super company with some great products shortlisted in our categories. Best of luck to all those shortlisted. I look forward to meeting you all at the awards dinner on November 12th.

More information about the e-Learning Age awards.