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Handheld Reflections Day One

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I do enjoy Handheld Learning and 2009 was no exception. Three days of mobile learning stuff, presentations, discussions, networking and people.

Day one, Monday, is the free day. Anyone can go and they don’t need to pay any conference fee. This is a great idea if you’re interested in going to Handheld Learning and want to try it without spending lots on a conference fee, hotel accommodation etc…

I arrived with only a little time to spare before the HHECKL session started. The session was a variation on the Top Gear Cool Wall, but using gadgets and phones rather than cars.

coolwall01

With four of us presenting, we did initially outnumber the audience. After a slow start once we got going the process did start to work and the discussion was fast and furious.

I was surprised that some delegates weren’t willing to make a judgement on a device they hadn’t used. It wasn’t as though we were asking whether the devices were good for learing, whether they were cool or uncool. We did cover learning, but the focus was the device and the technology – which makes a change.

At the end we had split devices between those we and the audience considered cool and those we considered uncool. We allowed some selected members of the audience to move a device; the most amusing part was when a rather young member of the audience was asked to move a device, moved the Sony VAIO P Series from the Cool to the Uncool section. Asked why, he replied “because James owns it”.

After HHECKL it was time for lunch. As day one is the free day, there is no free lunch. With very few places to actually sit down in the venue, we decided that we would give the sandwiches a miss and pop out for something to eat. Were we in for a lucky time, up Whitecross Street (a few minutes from the Brewery venue) there was a bundle of street vendors selling all kinds of different types of food, a real multi-cultural treat for everyone. With the local pub allowing us to bring in food, we had somewhere to sit, eat (and grab a beer).

One thing that many conferences, and Handheld Learning is not alone in this, is providing social spaces for conference delegates. Though I guess a lot of delegates love attending a packed programme, many who attend want  to talk and discuss issues relating to them and their institutions. Providing a place (with coffee obviously) would allow for more networking and discussion. It’s not that I don’t think the programme is not useful or relevant, sometimes you gain by discussion and talking. Actually that is something that presenters may want to think about when running their presentations and workshops. Bizarrely enough the few tables and chairs available were more often then not taken up with people working and checking e-mail!!! It’s a conference, watch the presentations, network, chat, but if you need to work, go back to work!

The afternoon saw the Pecha Kucha. Simply put you show twenty slides with only twenty seconds for each slide. Sounds simple, but surprising how some people don’t understand this simple concept or don’t know how to use Powerpoint transitions.

One of the good things about the Pecha Kucha is that if one of the presenters is really boring or on a subject you don’t like you only need to wait six minutes for the next one. Though it’s surprising how six minutes can appear like thirty! I hope I didn’t bore the audience with my two Pecha Kuchas, my first was on the Future of Learning, whilst my second (and the last one of the day) was on Twenty Web 2.0 Apps for Learning.
I really enjoyed Tony Vincent’s presentation, his style of presentation and slides are superb. Alas I was going to miss his session the following day as I was presenting at the same time. If you have never done a Pecha Kucha before I would suggest that next year if it is on you give it a try. Choose something you are passionate about. Don’t worry too much about the slides, sometimes pictures work better than words.

Reflecting on both HHECKL and the Pecha Kucha has given me an idea for next year’s conference with a Britain has Handheld Talent type session. Start talking about your project, concept, ideas and see if you can last before you get the big X from one of a panel of judges.

Being involved in both HHECKL and Pecha Kucha was really enjoyable and one of the many highlights for me of the Handheld Learning Conference.

That night after an (okay) meal at a local Italian restaurant it was the Awards Evening. I was up for two awards and alas I was going to go away with nothing… ah well maybe next year! Thanks to everyone who voted for me.

A lot has been written about the awards party my view is that I believe that the awards event is an important event, yes I was up for two awards this year which was a real honour and recognition from the community about the work I do. I also went to last year’s awards ceremony and supported colleagues (even if I wasn’t up for anything last year). I also supported this year’s awards by “buying” a table. There aren’t many awards for mobile learning and it is important to the community that we recognise the innovative work that they are doing. As a result it’s important that we also support these awards.  I agree with Graham Brown Martin, it is sad that we lose this focus when we discuss coffee and the price of drinks.

After a good night out at the awards it was back to the hotel and bed…

More later…

conference, m-learning

Mobile learning in a military context

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Yesterday I was in that for me was in some ways a very alien environment and in other ways a familiar environment.
I delivered a session on mobile learning to a group of military personnel down in Torpoint in Cornwall. With Navy, Army and Airforce the day was looking at advanced learning and how the military can draw ideas from how learning is changing from a series of presentations from a group of experts.

I gave a presentation on mobile learning in which covered (if you have seen me present before) familiar ground. I talked about the use of mobile technologies, the use of mobile web technologies, learning while mobile and the mobility of the learner.

I did focus on how we use mobile learning at Gloucestershire College more to enhance and enrich the learning experience at this time, over replacing traditional learning modes. Eventually I know we will be able to take advantage of what mobile learning has to offer and enable our learners to access learning at a time and place to suit the learner.

Despite radical differences between the focus and operation of the armed forces and a typical FE College; we both do train and teach learners. In some cases we deliver very similar subjects, vehicle maintenance, catering, plumbing; and in some very different subjects, handling a 20mm light cannon, disassembling a GMPG.

We both face similar challenges, we both have our Innovation Prevention Departments™, we have traditions that were laid down that are believed can never be changed, a changing society, fast moving changes in technology.

We also have our differences, the security issues faced by the armed forces are different to the ones faced in an FE College. The turnover of instructors, in the armed forces often instructors will only do a two year tour before moving back on ship, back to their regiment, etc…

We have our differences, we have our similarities, in the end we can learn from each other and this can only benefit both of our groups of learners.

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What are you going to pack?

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There are always some things I now take with me when I attend ALT-C which I find useful.

6 way gang – instead of fighting people for the power sockets, you can immediately make five friends! Also useful when you are back in your hotel room (halls) and need to charge the laptop, the phone, the iPod, use the hairdryer, etc… Make sure it has been PAT tested!

Coffee – I can’t stand instant coffee, so I take some of those Coffee Bags you can buy or Rombout Coffee filters. Of course if you drink that tea stuff then you can bring your own bags of what you like and are use to. I always pop out and buy fresh milk too!

sothecoffeeisbetter

Chargers – don’t forget your chargers, easy to forget and a nightmare when your phone or laptop runs out of juice. Or you can’t use it for the week.

Velcro fixings – For your poster and bring enough because someone you know will have forgotten to bring theirs.

Camera – to take the odd photo or two, I use mine to take photographs of really good posters so I can review them later at my leisure. Amazing how much detail a 7.2MP image can capture of a poster. I also use it to capture slides in presentations (ie URLS and e-mail addresses), I even use it to photograph flyers so I can carry less.

MiFi or 3G Stick – I am sure that the WiFi at the conference venue will be fine, however whatabout at the hotel, the dinner, the train… I will be bringing my new MiFi which allows me to connect to the internet over 3G, wirelessly through a wifi connection. The MiFi acts as a wireless access point for up to five clients – will probably make four new friends as a result of bringing it to the conference.

Business Cards – always useful to swap, play cards with, pass ones you have received to others who you don’t want to contact you…

Ethernet Cable – I find in Halls that though they may not have wireless they do have ethernet, having an ethernet cable in your bag is useful in this instance.

USB Cables – you never know when you are going to need one.

Spare batteries – for your MP3 recorder, etc…

Spare SD card – in case you lose yours.

Spare USB Stick – for moving files around.

What are you going to pack?

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Likewise

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Bill Thompson in his BBC column covers a couple of issues I have discussed before on this blog, lack of 3G and conference wifi.

Firstly Bill has been on holiday and has been “suffering” from a lack of connectivity.

I have just endured a week of limited connectivity and it has given me a salutary lesson in what life is like for the digitally dispossessed here in the UK and around the world.

I have been driven to searching for open wireless access points so that I can download my e-mail, sometimes wandering the beach looking for elusive 3G signals just to get my Facebook status updated.

He was on the Norfolk coast and it reminded me of my holiday last November on the Suffolk coast which I blogged about.

Lovely place, however connectivity was seriously lacking. The place we were staying at had no internet which generally isn’t an issue for me as I have a 3G USB stick (or I use my phone as a tethered modem or using JoikuSpot as a wireless hotspot).

However despite the area being very trendy and popular could I get a mobile phone signal? No I could not! No signal from T-Mobile or Vodafone…

As a result I had no connectivity apart from when we travelled to an area with a mobile phone signal or at a place with wifi.

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My similar experiences to Bill should remind us that we should never take connectivity for granted and that though 3G is great it still does not cover all of the UK. We when designing websites and e-learning content need to remember that not all our learners will have fast broadband speeds or good 3G connections.Using video and audio is great (you can even now have HD video on the web as seen in this video I put up recently).

As I summarised in my blog post:

It did make me think about those learners who don’t have easy access to the internet, and despite falling costs of both broadband and 3G it can still be sometimes impossible to get online as the area itself does not have broadband or 3G coverage. Rural and coastal areas are often places with minimal 3G coverage and broadband access. Using 3G at 7.2Mbps in the centre of London streaming video and browsing really fast makes you sometimes forget that in some areas this is an impossibility.

As well as having issues with 3G in Norfolk, Bill also had problems with wifi at a conference he was at.

We had wifi access inside the theatre as the conference included tutorials on social networks and online engagement, and the audience were encouraged to contribute questions online so they could be displayed on the screen behind the speakers.

Unfortunately the wifi stopped working about half-way through the first session of the day, and those of us with smartphones and laptop dongles were forced to resort to slower 3G connections.

The reason given was:

It appeared that we had overwhelmed the capacity of the wireless network that the venue had set up for us..I talked to the IT support engineer and he asked me how many of us were trying to connect, and I told him I estimated that thirty to forty people were using laptops and probably the same number had wifi-enabled smartphones. After he had recovered from the shock he explained that the wifi router they had installed could only support twenty simultaneous connections and had crashed when we all tried to log on.

This is now happening too often at events I go to; I blogged about this back in October last year.

One thing I have noticed attending a few events recently is that the wireless networks have been unable to cope with the large number of delegates wanting to use it.

A few years (or even just a year ago) if you attended an event with free wireless, there were probably just a few of you who used it with their laptops. Today if you attend an event, you may find that everyone (virtualy everyone) has a laptop and if not a laptop then a PDA or a phone or an entertainment device with wifi capability.

As a result the wireless networks can not cope… Generally this happens because most wireless routers can only deal with a limited number of wireless clients.

With many more people with laptops, netbooks, wifi enabled phones conference venues need to have a much better infrastructure to cope with the wireless. Likewise if we are to be encouraged to amplify the conference through social media and social networking then we need decent connectivity. If we are also going to live stream video and audio from the conference then we need more than decent connectivity we need excellent connectivity.

I recall an Apple Keynote at WWDC in 2007 when video iChat was demonstrated I believe that due to issues with the entire audience using the 802.11g network, they used 802.11a to ensure that the demo worked.

Sometimes it can work. At the MoleNET Conference at the Emirates stadium which was awash with mobile wireless kit and the LSN had ensured that a robust infrastructure was in place and it worked really well.

Of course it is not just wifi, if everyone has an iPhone at the conference, then there will be issues with 3G connectivity as happened at SXSW in Texas this year. 3G does not work as well inside as it does outside which is one factor, but as happened at SXSW too many people using 3G devices means that there is insufficient bandwidth for everyone. The solution at SXSW was bringing in extra capacity to meet the demand.

Demand is another issue with ADSL and contention ratios. Despite the hype and advertising, for some (me included) it is impossible to get more than 1Mb download speed on ADSL due to not only distance from the exchange but also the contention ratio as more and more consumers sign up for broadband.

What Bill’s column and my blog articles show is that we can’t take (at this time) connectivity for granted, for some it will be restricted because of geography and for others because of excess demand, we need to remember that.

conference, jisc, keynote

Down the road…

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Over the next two days I am attending the JISC Regional Support Centre South West Summer Conference 2009 which is just down the road for me in Rookery Manor in Somerset, just South of Weston-super-Mare.

I am presenting (with David Sugden) a keynote tomorrow morning and running a workshop later on in the day.

This afternoon I am on an expert panel which will be interesting as I have no idea about what we will be asked!

Today’s keynote is from Derek Law who is going to be running the JISC Services Management company which goes live in August.

Was quite interesting, now onto the workshops.

conference, jisc, keynote, podcast, twitter, vle

e-Learning Stuff Podcast #021: Goldilocks, what’s that all about then?

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So what do you understand by inclusion? Can we use learning technologies to improve inclusivity?

We discuss the ILT Champions Conference at Gloucestershire College, including the unconference format used and the learning spaces seen at the college. Do we need big names at conferences? Do we need keynotes? How do we make conferences financially viable?

We move onto planning. Do you plan your lessons a week, a month or a year in advance? Is planning a good thing or does it hinder creativity?

This is the twenty-first e-Learning Stuff Podcast, Goldilocks, what’s that all about then?

Download the podcast in mp3 format: Goldilocks, what’s that all about then?

Subscribe to the podcast in iTunes.

James is joined by Dave Foord, David Sugden and Nick Jeans.

Shownotes

ewan

conference

Informal Unconference

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This week was the ILT Champions Conference at Gloucestershire College a national event that had ILT Champions from across the UK descending on the college to share what they do.

Unlike other conferences which have a strict agenda with keynotes, presentations and the odd workshop. We decided (well more I decided) to do something different, to run an unconference.

With this kind of event it is the delegates (the audience) decide the agenda and what will be presented.

I did consider that this may have one downside in that what we want to see and discuss might not always correlate with what we need to see and discuss. This is not so much about dictating what the audience should see, but ensure that they are informed about issues and subjects which they may have not considered fully or dismissed as not relevant (though it might be).

This is something I may consider for future events, combine free flowing sessions with some more formal presentations. This still brings up the question is how and who decides the content for the formal presentations.

conference, iphone, nokia, sony, video

Packing

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Well I have started packing for the Plymouth e-Learning Conference. Well less packing and more charging. I seem to take more and more equipment to conferences these days. Some of it will be used in my workshops, some I will use to blog and twitter, and some I will bring because I think I might use it, but generally don’t.

Apart from the workshop equipment I usually like to have the following on me at conferences (and a jacket with big pockets to carry it all).

Laptop – though I have a selection of micro-laptops or UMPCs I generally always fall back on my reliable MacBook Pro. In the main as it has a decent keyboard, partly as I have a spare battery for it and it has a built in camera.

Phones – normally two, this year three. Not for making phone calls mind you. I have my work Nokia which is what people at work will be able to call and SMS me on. I have my home T-Mobile Nokia N95 which I use for internet, either on the device or configured as a wireless router, a digital camera, a video camera and a broadcast camera using QIK. This year I will also be bringing an iPhone!

Digital Camera – despite having the 5MP Nokia N95 I do like to have a proper digital camera with a proper lense. I would love to bring my Canon DSLR, but it’s too heavy, so I have a little Sony pocket camera which does the job.

Video Camera – I have found my little Panasonic HD camera a great tool for conferences, at the ALT Conference I used it to create a little video that I then edited on my MacBook Pro (another reason to carry that around). Quick and easy to use, and records to SD cards so video clips can be easily transferred to the computer.

MP3 Recorder – I always carry this, thinking I should record some podcasts when I am at the conference and never seem to get round to it… this conference I hope will be different.

Chargers – as batteries never seem to last as long as the conference.

So what do you bring to a conference?

conference, jisc

JISC Conference Ramblings

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So here I am at the JISC Conference 2009 up in Edinburgh in Scotland.

So far we’ve only had the keynotes, well two introductions and a keynote really.

Though we are not in Telford, the wifi is not perfect, and I am getting intermittent dropped connections and slow loading times, but to be honest I was expecting that.

Lizbeth Goodman’s keynote is interesting and demonstrates a range of technologies being used in a vastly different areas and groups.

jisc0901

Covering more than just HE and FE, covering a lot of work being done in schools across the world.

More later….