All posts by James Clay

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Mobile users at risk of ID theft

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BBC reports on a survey about the possible identity theft issues from mobile phones.

A survey of London commuters suggests that 4.2m Britons store data on their mobiles that could be used in identity theft in the event they are stolen.

Only six in 10 use a password to limit entry into the phones, according to the survey by security firm Credant.

The survey found that 99% of people use their phones for business in some way, despite 26% of them being told not to.

Of course from an educational perspective, if an institution is giving mobile devices to students, they do need to be informed about what data the students put on that device and what to do if the device is stolen?

iphone, mobile, nokia

Increase in mobile internet

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The Guardian reports on the surge in mobile internet use:

Google UK today revealed that mobile internet use was surging thanks to the Apple iPhone.

The head of Google UK, Matt Brittin, said iPhone owners search online 30 times more than those who use rival smartphones.

Increase in mobile internet

With the imminent release of the Palm Pre and the Nokia N97 I think we can expect a further increase in mobile internet use.

Just under a year ago I blogged about the increase in the use of 3G because of the increase in the number of 3G dongles. More and more of these dongles were been bought and used, partly I would suspect to availability but also falling costs of 3G.

If you take that increase and combine it with the increase in mobile internet use (over 3G), add in 3G prices falling, you do wonder if the 3G network can cope with all this traffic?

Spread over a city and a town, probably will be okay, however what happens if you concentrate the use of 3G in one space (such as a college or a conference).

Well the SXSW Conference in American suffered 3G failure due to the sheer number of iPhone users at the conference. As Wired reports

AT&T’s 3G coverage map for Austin may look rock solid, but turns out there wasn’t enough connectivity goodness to sate the hordes of iPhone-wielding geeks who descended on this artsy Texas town for the South by Southwest conference this weekend. Was the Verizon and Sprint crowd, usually consigned to the kid’s table at these hip mob scenes, having the last laugh?

Attendees with their beloved iPhone 3G handsets hoping to hook up with friends, find the next party or access Twitter to announce their location are encountering dropped calls, unavailable service or molasses-slow web access from the mobile service provider.

If every student in your college is using a 3G device, an iPhone, another smartphone or a 3G dongle, will the 3G network be able to cope? If the 3G is spread across the different networks, then this may not be a problem. However what happens if all those 3G phone are provided by the college (or only one network works on the college site) suddenly you could find that the 3G network can not cope with the traffic.

We already know wifi can be problematic it’s now looking like that 3G network coverage may also be less than perfect. Something to think about when planning the use of mobile devices and mobile internet in a college or university environment.

google

Google Street View now in the UK

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Today Google launched their infamous Street View here in the UK, covering 25 UK cities including Bristol (but not Gloucester or Cheltenham).

Google Street View now in the UK

Google today announced the launch of Street View for 25 cities in the UK, allowing users to view and navigate 360 degree street-level imagery for places including Belfast, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Leeds, London, Manchester, Oxford and many more (full list below).

Street View was first launched in May 2007 and is hugely popular worldwide with imagery available in the United States, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, France, Spain, Italy and from today the UK and Netherlands. It is also available in Google Earth and on Google Maps for Mobile.

In areas where Street View is available, you can access street-level imagery by zooming into the lowest level on Google Maps, or by dragging the orange “Pegman” icon on the left-hand side of the map onto a blue highlighted street. You can check out a restaurant before arriving, make travel plans, arrange meeting points, get a helping hand with geography homework, or just explore and get to know your town better.

So if you are ever going to a conference or an event, Google Street View allows you to see what the place looks like from the street (hence street view).

Still thinking about the possible learning activites which could use this function of Google. If you have any ideas, please post a comment (or two).

mobile, presentation

Mobile Presentations

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I have liked Slideshare as a place to put my presentations and store them online and show them online.

One problem was that they used Flash which of course did not work on mobile devices such as the iPod touch or the iPhone.

Today Slideshare announced a mobile version of their website.

We’re quite excited to announce the new SlideShare Mobile website today. Visit http://m.slideshare.com on your mobile phone and you can view any presentation, search through presentations, login to save favorites and even download to your mobile phone!

Impress that client you bump into somewhere by running a quick pitch off your phone! Or review the latest conference presentations you missed while travelling!

As a result it is now easier to put presentations on mobile devices.

learning

Handbook of Emerging Technologies for Learning

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New technologies emerge all the time, feeling confused by it all then this is the handbook for you.

Over the last decade, in seminars, conferences, and workshops, Peter Tittenberger and I have had the opportunity to explore the role of technology in transforming learning.

From conversations during these engagements, a set of concerns has emerged:

Educators express interest in improving their teaching and learning practices, particularly emphasizing the need to improve engagement of learners (online or in-class).

While concerned about improving teaching and learning, educators generally resist:

  • Advanced pedagogical discussions that are not readily transferable to the online or face-to-face classroom
  • Technology-heavy hype and suggestions that the social element of learning can somehow be replaced.

This Handbook of Emerging Technologies for Learning (HETL) has been designed as a resource for educators planning to incorporate technologies in their teaching and learning activities.

It is written by the well respected George Siemens and Peter Tittenberger.

Via Andy Black’s blog.

alt, m-learning

It was mobile and was glossy

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On the 5th February I presented a workshop at the LSIS eCPD launch event. I did blog about this before I gave my workshop and we also discussed it on our snow podcast.

Though it was a workshop, I did have a short presentation that went alongside it.

<<For some reason Slideshare have removed the presentation>>

You can read about the workshop and the background in the “Old Stuff” part of the blog.

podcast

e-Learning Stuff Podcast #017: Pedagogically Sound

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James and David Sugden talk about pedagogy, e-learning, learning technologies and stuff.

This is the seventeenth e-Learning Stuff Podcast, Pedagogically Sound.

Download the podcast in mp3 format: Pedagogically Sound

Subscribe to the podcast in iTunes.

James is joined by David Sugden.

e-Learning Stuff Podcast #017: Pedagogically Sound

Shownotes

  • James’ blog post on the Nintendo DS.
  • Research from the University of Rennes has concluded that using the Nintendo DS Brain Training game “does no such thing” as reported in The Telegraph. The BBC reports on the Which article about Brain Training.
  • The use of Brain Training on the Nintendo DS in Scotland had better results.
  • Charles Dickens’ literary style.
  • The telephone.

Photo source.

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Transforming the World

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A quarter of the world use the internet and half the world now has a mobile phone.

The Guardian has an interesting article on an UN report.

The speed and scale of the world’s love affair with mobile phones was revealed yesterday in a UN report that showed more than half the global population now pay to use one.

The survey, by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), an agency of the UN, also found that nearly a quarter of the world’s 6.7 billion people use the internet.

I assume that if you are reading this that you more than likely have access to the internet (unless some kind soul prints out my blog articles for you to read) and if you do have access to the internet then more than equally likely you have a mobile phone.

The world is changing and the world is changing fast.

Transforming the World

We can’t as a sector afford to stand still, nor is it merely a matter of moving from one state to another. Society and our learners are changing and we need to ensure that not only we keep up with the technological changes, but that we also support our learners to keep up too.

The problem with ILT and e-Learning is that it will never be a place we can get to, it is much more a moving target and we need to keep moving to keep up.

For example new services come and go.

I use to demonstrate Gabcast which was a fantastic free podcasting tool, now it is no longer free. Should you stop using it, well no, it might cost money, but it might be money well spent. College systems may need to change in order to make it simpler for them to pay for services such as Gabcast, but the issue is less money (colleges spend money on lots of things) and more about processes and procedures.

This doesn’t mean that you should never use Web 2.0 and other free services.At the end of the day, things change, things close down.

My view is that institutions and individuals need to be more flexible, responsive and robust in how they use services and resources so that when things do change, break, close, or whatever, it has a minimal impact on the end user, the learner.