I recently had the opportunity to attend a mobile learning seminar hosted by CSTD here in Toronto. The key note speaker was Dr. Mohammad Alley from Athabasca University. Dr. Alley is recognized as a world visionary when it comes to Mobile Learning. He talked about what is going on around the world with regards to mobile learning. He did go to great lengths to point out that the US and Canada are very behind the rest of the world when it comes to mLearning. He spent a great deal of time discussing his speaking engagements around the world and what boards he sits on. I was a bit disappointed more time was not spent on the state of the technology and the development tools. Theory is great but at some point the rubber has to hit the road. I am glad to see that our CellCast technology solution is light years ahead of what is being used in the industry both in Canada and around the world. Dr. Alley was not familiar with our solution his grad students from George Brown College were very interested in learning more about real solutions. Dr. Alley did share the following YouTube video showing the potential of mobile technology. This was a speech that was delivered at TED during their annual symposium on the sixth sense. I hope that you will be as excited about this as I am.

The first deadline for the Customer Service Standard is coming up rather quickly. That’s right, public sector organizations have 5 months left! Are your policies ready? Is your training plan in place? I’ve been following this act and standard for some time now and I recently came across some interesting information. In contrast to the human rights code, where you have to file a complaint before an audit takes place, the Ministry of Community and Social Services is forming and audit committee to proactively seek out any violations.

How do you feel about this approach? The government has received push back from members of the community saying it could not truly reach accessibility for all Ontarians by 2025 with the current act and accompanying standards. Is this a step towards ensuring accessibility?