Alexandra Okada's profile document
Description for Alexandra Okada
Alexandra Okada
Alexandra Okada
Alexandra
Okada
Research Fellow
alexandraokada
Ale Okada is a Research Fellow at the Knowledge Media Institute at the Open University, senior consultant to the Association of Science Education UK, visiting senior lecturer at the University of Sao Paulo, Brasil and the Open University of Portugal. She also leads the open research network COLEARN on collaborative open learning.
Her research through 10 projects in Europe and Brazil focuses on knowledge and social media technologies to foster Scientific Digital Literacy - future citizens embracing the potential of science and technology. She has a particular interest in innovative approaches that empower colearners to develop key competences and succeed in the 21st century. She is currently the principal investigator of ENGAGE and co-investigator of weSPOT, and collaborator in various projects: Catalyst and MK:Smart
She has supervised 10 doctoral students to successful completion including in Brazil and in Portugal. She is currently supervising two postdoctoral students and pHD students funded by CAPES & FAPESP - Brazil and FCT -Portugal. She has also been acting as an external examiner in different overseas universities.
Before joining the OU-UK, Okada worked for Brazil Government in diverse projects for teaching professional development and digital literacy. She also worked at Johnson & Johnson and IBM.
She holds a BSc in Computer Science, a MBA in Knowledge Management and Marketing, a MA and PhD in Education-Technology. Her publications comprise more than 100 papers in international conferences and academic journals, 40 book chapters and 15 books.
The Open University account for Alexandra Okada
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Alexandra Okada's membership at KMi
Alexandra Okada on Facebook
Alexandra Okada on LinkedIn
Alexandra Okada on SlideShare
@aleokada (Alexandra Okada on Twitter)
Alexandra Okada's participation in FlashMeeting Technology
FlashMeeting Technology
FlashMeeting Technology
2003-07-04
The lightest possible video-conferencing software application
Hook-up your web cam, plug in your microphone, go to a web page ...
and the Centre for New Media's FM Technology you to make an instant meeting - any time, any place, any platform! FM technology comes from the prize-winning FlashMeeing Project. It provides a host of features packed into a small applet direct in a web page. As the applet is implemented in using Adobe's Flash, the most widely available and most compatible of browser plugins, it is incredibly lightweight, efficient, good looking, and you probably will not have to download anything extra at all for it to work!
Alexandra Okada's participation in Compendium
Compendium
Compendium
2000-01-01
Managing the connections between information, ideas, interpretations and arguments
The Compendium tool and mapping method combines meeting facilitation, modelling and collaborative hypertext. It can be used to capture discussions and arguments in meetings, integrating perspectives from multiple stakeholders, and the construction of a collective memory resource. It is a collaborative project with international partners, and an active user community.
In March 2013 the codebase was formally taken over by the user/developer community coordinated through the Next Generation site http://compendiumng.org.
The archival site of the Compendium Institute at http://compendiuminstitute.net
Alexandra Okada's participation in Prolearn
Prolearn
Prolearn
2004-01-01
2007-12-31
Network of Excellence in Professional E Learning
This work aims to expand professional learners engagement with the best of European Interactive Media research. Corporate training still needs effective competence mapping and performance evaluation tools to support business learners. Indeed, corporate clients actually need the same access as all learners to an ideal portal learning system: ie. that will offer them a tracked experience with a set of 10 Euro learning modules, complete with credits and real interaction with peers, tutors and content; anywhere, anytime. This workpackage doesnt promise to solve that persistent problem on it own - but we do aim to show how interactive media research in Europe can help us in that direction.
Alexandra Okada's participation in GlobalArgument.net
GlobalArgument.net
GlobalArgument.net
Computer-Supported Argumentation
A pilot to explore the potential of argument analysis experiments on the net. Our objectives are to: (i) investigate how complex debates of topical interest can be more effectively communicated, navigated and analysed when mapped in software tools; (ii) advance the state of the art in practical argumentation support tools; (iii) evaluate the software tools analytically and empirically
Players participate in Argumentation Experiments, working to an agreed schedule and from common sources. Through systematic comparison of the strengths and weaknesses of approaches, we aim to clarify how approaches can be improved.
Alexandra Okada's participation in Open Sensemaking Communities
Open Sensemaking Communities
Open Sensemaking Communities
2006-04-01
Helping e-learners construct interpretations of open content courseware
The Open Content movement is concerned with enabling students and educators to access material, in order to then learn from it, and reuse it either in one?s studies or one's own courses. The core efforts to date has focused on enabling access, e.g. building the organizational/political will to release and license content, and in developing open infrastructures for educators to then publish and reassemble it. The key challenge in the next phase of the open content movement is to improve the support for prospective students to engage with and learn from the material, and with each other though peer learning support, in the absence of formally imposed study timetables and assessment deadlines. KMi is now engaged in developing the next generation of tools for e-learning and collaborative sensemaking for open content learning support.
Alexandra Okada's participation in Hypermedia Discourse
Hypermedia Discourse
Hypermedia Discourse
Conceptual foundations and practical tools at the nexus of Deliberation, Argumentation and Software
Our focus is on what we are finding to be a powerful and intruiging intersection: the meeting of Hypermedia and Discourse theory and technology. Our interests are both conceptual, and intensely practical: the co-evolution of digital tools and associated work practices for sensemaking.
Alexandra Okada's participation in Cohere
Cohere
Cohere
2007-10-01
A Web 2.0 application for weaving connections between ideas
We experience the information ocean as streams of media fragments, flowing past us in every modality... To make sense of these, learners, researchers and analysts must organise them into coherent patterns... Cohere is an idea management tool for you to weave meaningful connections between ideas, for personal, team or social use...
Cohere is part of an emerging vision of sensemaking infrastructure for crafting, sharing and disputing ideas. We hope it wil contribute to effective online deliberation and debate in fields such as open, participatory learning, e-democracy, scholarly research and knowledge management.
Alexandra Okada's participation in Engage
Engage
Engage
2014-01-01
2016-12-31
Equipping the Next Generation for Active Engagement in Science
The ENGAGE project is part of the EU Science in society agenda to promote more Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI).
ENGAGE is about equipping the next generation to participate in scientific issues to change how science is taught. Traditionally students gain an image of science as a body of content, whereas RRI deals with uncertain areas of knowledge, where values and argument matter as much as facts. This shift is hugely challenging.
ENGAGE focuses on a more inquiry-based methodology, which gives students opportunity for self-expression and responsibility for coming to informed decisions.
Alexandra Okada's participation in OpenLearn
OpenLearn
OpenLearn
Open Content Initiative
OpenLearn is the University's Open Content initiative, making educational resources freely available on the Internet, with state of the art learning support and collaboration tools to connect learners and educators.
<strong>How OpenLearn started</strong>
The OpenLearn story started in 2005 with a grant from The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation (http://www.hewlett.org/). Sharing our aim to open access to education for all, they agreed to help us set up the OpenLearn website.
Since 1969, The Open University has been a pioneer in making learning materials freely available through its successful partnership with the BBC. Many of our television and radio programmes are already supported by free internet activities and print materials. We wanted to use our knowledge of the latest technologies in education to extend our mission to be open to people, places, methods and ideas. The vision was free online education.
Website development began in May 2006 and the site was launched in October 2006, with an aim to regularly add new content and features. OpenLearn now offers a full range of Open University subject areas from access to postgraduate level and has seen over 3 million visitors since launch. In April 2008 OpenLearn reached its target to have 5,400 learning hours of content in the LearningSpace (http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/) and 8100 hours in the LabSpace (http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/). It continues to grow representing The Open University's commitment to opening access to education.
Alexandra Okada's participation in iCoper
iCoper
iCoper
2008-09-01
2011-02-28
Adopting Standards for European Educational Content
This work is part of the <a href='http://icoper.org/' target='_blank' class='project'>http://icoper.org/</a> project. iCoper is an eContentPlus action of the EU focused around standards for interoperability for sharing learning materials.
There are many standards in the field of learning: around objects, around syndication and search, and even to help define the key features of portfolios and assessment. iCoper is building a reference model to help to bring these standards together and capture the best practice of our diverse community in the use of these standards - to make better learning! Sadly, there are few standards which help learning institutions (and now learners themselves, perhaps) to create content that is then more easily reused by others, or in different learning context. The work discussed here is focused on capturing the best practices of our community to support Content Development and Reuse (CDfR).
Alexandra Okada's participation in OpenScout
OpenScout
OpenScout
2009-09-01
2012-08-31
Skill based scouting of open user-generated and community-improved content for management education and training
OpenScout stands for "Skill based scouting of open user-generated and community-improved content for management education and training" and is a project co-funded by the European Commission within the eContentplus Programme. The project started in September 2009 and has a duration of three years.
OpenScout aims at providing an education service in the internet that enables users to easily find, access, use and exchange open content for management education and training.
The management education market is largely diversified, training topics range from general management and leadership to very specific issues like managing risks in banking industry. Despite the resulting growing need for management education and content the potential of already existing open learning materials is hardly exploited, neither in the business sector nor in SMEs where the need for lifelong learning is even greater.
To reduce the usage barriers OpenScout plans to offer easy-to-use skill-based federated search and retrieval web services, provide an openly accessible tool library for improvement and re-publishing of open contents and establish an open user community that opens up their content and adopts OpenScout web services in real contexts of use.
OpenScout will be used by learners directly but also by training and education institutions that search for learning content to be integrated into their learning offerings.
Alexandra Okada's participation in WESPOT
WESPOT
WESPOT
2012-10-01
2015-09-30
Working Environment with Social, Personal and Open Technologies for Inquiry Based Learning
The weSPOT project, supported by the European Commission, aims to propagate scientific inquiry as the approach for science learning and teaching in combination with today's curricula and teaching practices.
weSPOT will create a Working Environment with Social, Personal and Open Technologies that supports users (from 12 to 25) to develop their inquiry based learning skills by means of:
(i) a European reference model for inquiry skills and inquiry workflows,
(ii) a diagnostic instrument for measuring inquiry skills,
(iii) smart support tools for orchestrating inquiry workflows including mobile apps, learning analytics support, and social collaboration on scientific inquiry,
(iv) social media integration and viral marketing of scientific inquiry linked to school legacy systems and an open badge system.
In inquiry-based learning co-learners take the role of explorers and scientists and are motivated by their personal curiosity, guided by self-reflection, and develop knowledge personal and collaborative sense-making and reasoning.
weSPOT will work on a meta-inquiry level in that it will:
1. define a reference model for inquiry-based learning skills,
2. create a diagnostic instrument for measuring inquiry skills, and
3. implement a working environment that allows the easy linking of inquiry activities with school curricula and legacy systems.