Today E-Learning Council interviews Mayra Aixa Villar, an instructional designer from Argentina who is focused on helping organizations harness the potential of mobile for learning solutions. Mayra first came to our attention because of posts on ASTD's blog on the Fundamental Considerations for Designing mLearning solutions. 

ELC: Mayra, can you tell me a bit about yourself?

Mayra: I started to research e-learning in 2009, the research was part of my M.A. thesis on Applied Linguistics (sub-field Computer Assisted Language Learning) and this allowed me to be appointed by the United Nations to evaluate some eLearning and instructor-led courses as an intern in 2010. That year, I also prepared some interactive presentations and I started to learn how to use rapid elearning authoring tools such as Articulate Studio and Adobe Captivate. Last year, it was pretty intensive as I could apply the knowledge and skills acquired to real projects, and I worked as a freelance Instructional Designer for two IT companies here in Argentina. So, ID has been a step-by-step process for me (I have also been teacher/instructor since 2004).

ELC: Last year you got interested in Mobile.

Mayra: Yes, at the end of last year.

ELC: What got you interested in mobile learning?

Mayra: I am finishing my MA thesis now and then I want to pursue a PhD in Educational Technology and I want to focus on mLearning for e-inclusion (M4D) in developing countries.

ELC: Great! I'm from India originally and have seen the explosion of mobile, especially low bandwidth mobile, in India. Is it similar in Argentina and South America?

Mayra: Absolutely! I have been reading local and international research papers that show that mobile technologies can help to improve people´s education dramatically in those countries.

The speakers at mLearnCon recommended a large variety of books. Here are some recommendations I captured

Road Map to Mobile Learning presented by Marcus Turner of Atomic Axis Mobile Solutions and Sanjay Nasta from MicroAssist E-Learning at E-Learning Symposium 2012.

More Mobile Learning Resources are available at mLearning Council

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Roadmap to Mobile Learning Webinar Coming Soon

Marcus Turner and Sanjay Nasta delivered Roadmap to Mobile Learning at E-Learning Symposium 2012 in Austin. Missed it? Want to learn what's new in the rapidly changing world of mobile learning? We've are working on scheduling Marcus and Sanjay for a webinar soon. Sign up below and we will email you when we have the webinar scheduled.

Content curation has become a hot topic in 2012.  Corrine Weisgerber, an associate professor at St. Edwards University, has an excellent presentation on content curation.  She differentiates content curation from content aggregation--content aggregation can be automated but content curation requires the human touch for finding, evaluating and contextualizing information.