All posts by James Clay

mobile

Better late than never…

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Well Bill Thompson has finally joined the 3G mobile internet generation as he talks about in his column on the BBC News site.Better late than never

Regular columnist Bill Thompson is enjoying the new freedom offered by his laptop and 3G connection working together.

For example in the article he says

And it can’t be long before someone realises that the external dongle isn’t really needed, and offers a laptop with a built-in 3G modem and a slot for a SIM card.

Oh those have been available for a year or two now! They might even make PC Card, oh they already do. Oh I know how about use a bluetooth connection to a 3G mobile phone instead and use that as a modem, oh that’s old news as that can be done already.

For someone who is so tech savvy I am surprised that he hadn’t joined the party when 3G when it was first released about four years ago. I double checked the date on the article and it is January 21st 2008 as I thought it might just be an old article.

What’s next?

Bill Thompson finds a quaint way to buy and sell stuff through a site called eBay.

Bill Thompson discovers that you no longer need to visit a bookstore to buy books, a web based retailer called Amazon is able to send you books that you order online.

Bill Thompson finds that he is no longer tied to his house to make phone calls, with what is called a mobile phone he can not only make but also receive calls while outside and on the move.

Bill enjoy your new freedom with 3G, for having had a 3G connection for a long time, it is vital to the way I use the net and work, oh and apologies for my sarcastic rant.

news

“internet plagiarism is a serious problem” says 58% of teachers

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According to a survey by the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, 58% of sixth form teachers believe that “internet plagiarism is a serious problem”.

The BBC reports that:

More than half of teachers believe internet plagiarism is a serious problem among sixth-form students, a teaching union survey suggests.

The 58% of 278 teachers who identified it as a problem said they thought 25% of work returned by pupils included material copied from internet sites.

If as reported by the BBC:

One teacher said a piece of work they saw still contained website adverts.

You have to ask who is at fault here?

Did the learner understand what was required of them?

Did they know they were plagiarising, or did the learner think that it was “okay”?

What internet research skills (if any) had the institution taught the students?

If an institution has a problem with internet plagiarism what policies and tools do they have and use in order to not just detect plagiarism, but also prevent it from happening in the first place.

It’s not as though you can use the excuse I don’t have the time, not when there are such excellent resources such as Intute’s Virtual Training Suite (VTS) available.

People talk of digial natives , but as was borne out in a recent JISC survey, though we may have learners who are digital natives, they may not have the research skills to use the internet effectively to support their learning.

Plagiarism is of course not a new thing, I was told about plagarism when I was at sixth form (and University) and that was a fair few years ago now.

I remember when I was teaching (in the pre-internet days) and a student submitted an assignment which in the main consisted of pages photocopied from a book.

Yes I know you might laugh, but the reality was that the student had no concept of how to research and analyse a topic – they had missed that study skills lesson.

The moral of this whole sorry story of plagarism from the internet, is that use tools such as the VTS to allow learners how to learn to use the internet effectively to support their learning and use tools such as Turnitin to detect plagiarism.

google, ipod touch

iPod touch, new features…

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The new upgrades to the iPod touch do make it much more useful to learners who want to use it to “learn while mobile”.

It’s the best email you’ve ever seen on a handheld device. View rich HTML email with graphics and photos displayed inline, as well as PDF and Microsoft Word and Excel attachments.

Whether it’s the best is down to personal opinion…

However now that it can receive and send e-mail (outside webmail) and view Word and Excel attachments (no mention of PowerPoint) and PDFs (okay save that presentation as a PDF) means that it is now possible to read more stuff on the iPod touch then you could before.

I quite like the idea of the Maps feature, whether it will actually work in practice is a different story.

As you can e-mail notes this means that learners will be able to send their tutors answers to questions, etc…

iPod touch, new features...

Currently downloading and installing the 165MB software update and then I might buy and install the new apps.

apple, iphone, ipod touch

New Apple products announced

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Those who know me will know that I am a bit of a fan of Apple products, not exclusively, but I do like good design and stylish kit.

Yesterday in San Francisco at MacWorld Expo, Apple announced some new products and upgrades for the iPod touch and iPhone.

Key new product announced at the keynote was the MacBook Air, a small light MacBook.

New Apple products announced

I do like small computers, great fan of the 10″ Sony VAIO laptops, however this is slightly bigger than I would like, and I can’t see how that would survive travelling by air or train.

Don’t get me wrong I think it’s very stylish, well designed, but doesn’t meet my needs for a small portable computer for use at conferences, on the train and in coffee shops.

No rumoured touchscreen, nor a Blu-ray drive either (actually no optical drive, though cleverly you can use your other Mac’s drive wirelessly, which is a very clever piece of software and something I would like to use with Windows UMPCs).

There was also upgrades for the iPhone and iPod touch announced which provide additional applications, annoyingly free on the iPhone and a £12.99 upgrade for the iPod touch.

Huh!

Probably worth it for the e-mail and notes applications which make the iPod touch a more interactive device.

Also announced was a new Airport Extreme base station which comes with a 500GB or 1TB drive for Time Machine backups.

On the Americans get the opportunity to rent films, here in the UK we don’t.

google, twitter

Android will make Jaiku win over Twitter

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Excellent blog article on though Twitter is winning the battle in the numbers game, Jaiku will win the war once Android starts shipping.

What if Google where to build Jaiku into Android as the standard phone Address Book? As soon as Android devices started to ship, Jaiku (whatever form it takes in the future) would gain hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of users rapidly.

Read the full blog entry, makes for interesting reading.

Personally I much prefer Jaiku over Twitter, the RSS and the comments allow for me a much deeper richer experience, more importantly as well it allows for interactivity much more easily than Twitter. This for me is why Jaiku has more potential for e-learning than Twitter.

However, ever since Google bought Jaiku, sign-ups have been restricted, let me know if you want an invite, and there have been quite a few 504 errors with Jaiku slow and unresponsive at times.

Hopefully with a day off tomorrow for Jaiku (what am I going to do) Jaiku will get even better and more reliable.

Follow me on Jaiku, though as you might expect I am also on Twitter.

In case you were wondering, android is an open source mobile phone platform.

Android will make Jaiku win over Twitter

news

Blu-ray players “may not be upgradeable”

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Most of the current crop of HD Blu-ray players are not able to be upgraded to access the new features that are coming on stream in the near future reports the BBC.

Owners of Blu-ray DVD players may find themselves frozen out of future developments in the technology because their machines are not upgradeable.

The Blu-ray camp has recently rolled out new features for players, which include picture in picture options.

But the majority of Blu-ray players sold to date do not have the necessary hardware to offer the features.

Read more.Blu-ray players “may not be upgradeable”

jisc, m-learning, podcast

JISC Podcast on Mobile Learning

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I’ve not actually had the chance to listen to this yet, but it’s on mobile learning, it’s John Traxler, so I am guessing it will be quite good.

The ‘Mobiles Enhancing Learning and Support2’ e-Learning project has been being run from The University of Wolverhampton by John Traxler, who recently spoke about the potential and possibilities of mobile learning at the recent Online Educa conference in Berlin. Robert Haymon-Collins from JISC managed to speak to John after his presentation and to hear his, and the project’s, plans and projections for 2008.

Podcast: Mobile education is the way of the future…

JISC Podcast on Mobile Learning

Photo source

stuff

“you feel that all digital resources must be universally accessible to everyone”

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Do you have staff in your institution who feel that

“all digital resources must be universally accessible to everyone”

or are they a little more enlightened?

A podcast is perfectly accessible to a visually impaired learner and completely pointless for a hearing impaired learner.

Accessibility only exists at the point of delivery. There can not be a universal accessibly digital resource, can there?

Digital resources by their very nature are often more accessible than a non-digital resource. An e-book can be read out to a visually impaired learner, whilst a real book can also be read out, but this for most books requires a real person to do it, which at 2am can often be difficult for some learners to find when they have an essay deadline!

Brian Kelly on his excellent UK Web Focus Blog has a great post on how one disabled learner is using Second Life and how it is improving access for her.

Well worth a read. “you feel that all digital resources must be universally accessible to everyone”

m-learning

Nice Mobile Learning Presentation from BETT

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Nice Mobile Learning Presentation from BETT

Unfortunately I couldn’t get to BETT this year, issues with my leg meant that travelling by train, tube and walking around a huge show like BETT was an impossibility.

Of course with the wonders of technology it is possible to see what others thought was worth photographing and though I couldn’t attend the presentations, some people considered those of us who couldn’t make the event, or came on the “wrong” day, and have put there presentations online.

One such presentation that I have gone through was this interesting one on mobile learning, called Disruptive Mobile Learning. Mike Sharples the presenter has used Slideshare and uploaded the presentation, so you can view it online.

Have a look through and see if it resonates.

Photo source.

e-book, kindle

Kindling

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Amazon’s Kindle is proving quite popular.

Due to heavy customer demand, Kindle is temporarily sold out. We are working hard to manufacture Kindles as quickly as possible and are prioritizing orders on a first come, first served basis. Please ORDER KINDLE NOW to reserve your place in line. We will keep you informed by email as we get more precise delivery dates. Note that Kindles cannot currently be sold or shipped to customers living outside of the U.S.

Some are going for silly money on eBay, but I guess it won’t be long before they are available once more.

Of course they aren’t available in the UK at all, I wonder if we will ever see a UK version of the Kindle?