SoMobNet (Social Mobile Networking For Informal Learning) One Day Seminar - April 16, 2012

The rise of social networking sites (SNSs) and mobile devices over the past ten years has been one of the most inuential phenomena in digital technology. They are now used by many people who integrate them into their daily lives, and the services and devices are playing an increasing role in mediating the access to knowledge and cultural resources across different contexts of life. As such, the topic of social and mobile networking demands the sustained attention of the educational researchers.

To date, a great deal of work on the topic is still characterized by techno-centric discourse largely underpinned by a deterministic understanding of the relationship between society and technology. This has arguably led to an underestimation of the potential for, and importance of, agency and cultural practices of the user as well as the content and context generation to support community-building processes through the integration with other socio-technical mechanisms such as social networks. At the same time, the analysis of socio-technical mechanisms which support the content and contextgeneration process requires a better understanding of the affordances and potential of social and mobile technologies. The aim of this seminar is to explore educational and socio-cultural perspectives on the use of the increasing convergence of mobile devices and digital media for social networking in formal and informal contexts of learning.  These seminars are intended to offer a space for researchers and practitioners to exchange ideas, experiences and research on social mobile networking for informal learning.

An exciting day discussing new educational research and its applications at UBC:

Time/Date: April 16th, 9:15-11:45
Session: Mobile Devices and Digital Media for Social Networking in Learning. Presented by Social Mobile Networking for Informal Learning
Location: IKBLC, Lillooet Room
Registration: http://www.events.ctlt.ubc.ca/events/view/1561

**A light lunch will be served after this session

Time/Date: April 16th  12:00 – 2:00
Session: Dr. Richard Halverson, What Schools Can Learn from Games and New Media as Information Technologies
Location:  IKBLC, Lillooet Room
Registration: http://www.events.ctlt.ubc.ca/events/view/1575

Time/Date: April 16th, 2:15-4:00
Session: A Discussion on the Future of Mobile Learning at UBC
Location: IKBLC, Lillooet Room
Registration: http://www.events.ctlt.ubc.ca/events/view/1563>

Description: Following the morning’s presentations on Social Mobile Networking for Informal Learning, join our guests from the SoMobNet, and special guests from UBC, for a discussion on strategies and mobile initiatives. After reviewing the key issues, and previewing coming initiatives at our university, participants will be invited to explore opportunities, articulate needs and define priorities for future planning.

In addition to the SoMobNet group, we will be joined by Natasha Boskic (EPLT, UBC Faculty of Education) to consider the latest developments in the field. Also presenting will be Jan Carter (Manager, Web Services, Information Technology, UBC) who will preview some of the exciting enhancements to our university’s mobile communication infrastructure that are presently being developed.

Location:  Irving K. Barber Learning Centre, University of British Columbia (hosted by the Centre for Teaching and Learning Technology, CTLT)

SoMobNet (Social Mobile Networking For Informal Learning) is a capacity building network part-funded by STELLAR, the Network of Excellence on TEL funded within FP7 (see http://www.stellarnet.eu).  The SoMobNet Theme Team focuses in particular on how network-based technologies may foster the sense of community and reciprocal learning and aims to investigate the following research questions: (1) How can/do mobile devices support workers’ community building through social networks? (2) What models of assessment are possible through new mobile devices in informal learning situations? (3) How can mobile devices support workers’ training between real (e.g., their ofce, or classroom and so on) and online contexts (e.g., social networks)? SoMobNet website: http://www.somobnet.eu

For more information, please contact Lucas Wright, Learning Technology Specialist, Centre for Teaching and Learning Technology

Stolen Memories is a detective story about filmmaker Kagan Goh’s personal quest to return a photo album “stolen” from a Japanese Canadian family during the Japanese internment.

The filmmaker’s brother bought a photo album along with a framed photograph of a Japanese samurai warrior that once belonged to a Japanese Canadian family, at a garage sale for a mere $5 apiece.  When his brother asked the Caucasian man who sold him the album how he had come to possess such a precious family heirloom, he replied indifferently that he found it in the attic collecting dust and he just wanted to “get rid of it.”  The photographs are dated 1939.  Three years before the Japanese internment.

To attend this event, please visit our registration page.

After the bombing of Pearl Harbour in 1942, Japanese Canadians were ordered to turn over property and belongings to the Custodian of Enemy Alien Property as a “protective measure only.”  Caught in the whirlwind of anti-Japanese hysteria and paranoia, all of the Japanese descendents living in Canada at the time were rounded from their homes and herded off to internment camps and declared “enemy aliens.”  They had no choice but to leave everything behind.  The album was left behind when the family was interned and their possessions were either seized by the Canadian government and sold for a pittance, or stolen by looters.

Kagan Goh, aided by Mary Seki, his 70-year old detective sidekick, embarked upon a quest to find the rightful owners, find out what happened to them and return their lost photo album to them.  Documenting the search as well as redressing the wrongs of the past is a symbolic “homecoming” – coming home in terms of returning to a place of self-acceptance, belonging, wholeness and healing.

Stolen Memories reflects deeply rooted issues of prejudice which have affected the Japanese Canadian community throughout the last one hundred years, experienced not just by the family but by the Japanese Canadians who helped in the quest to return the ‘stolen’ photo album.  The extraordinary story is a microcosm within the macrocosm of the Japanese Canadian legacy.

Breaking the Silence is a short documentary written and directed by Kagan Goh and produced by Imtiaz Popat.  The documentary is about Akihide John Otsuji, a Japanese Canadian who was imprisoned for defying a racist law called the Dispersal Campaign. After the Japanese internment, Japanese-Canadians were given the choice to either repatriate to Japan or move east of the Rockies, but not allowed to return to the West Coast. Aki returned to his hometown in Vancouver and was promptly imprisoned and labeled a criminal by the Canadian government. Mary Seki considers him to be a hero. “Breaking the Silence” is about Mary Seki’s quest to clear her brother’s name.

This event will take place at on May 29, 2012 at 6.00-7.00PM at the Dodson Room (Room 302) of the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre.  1961 East Mall, Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z1

To attend this event, please visit our registration page.

As part of ExplorASIAN, and in partnership with Kagan Goh’s Stolen Memories, Monkeyking Motion Pictures, and Vancouver Asian Heritage Month Society.

For more information, please contact Aleha McCauley or Allan Cho.