I ran a workshop at ALT-C yesterday afternoon on mobile learning though didn’t have time to blog about it yesterday.
Session seemed to go well though I did have about sixty people in a long narrow room.
The feedback from the session can be found here:
http://altcworkshop.blogspot.com/
Please feel free to add comments to people’s blog posts.
Recorded Gabcast podcasts from my sessions at #altc2008 today. They are online now at http://tinyurl.com/hood2feedback
I am running two workshops at ALT-C 2008 next week, one on mobile learning and the other on Web 2.0.
The mobility of learning: using mobile learning to rethink the digital divide
Mobile technologies and mobile learning have the potential to change the way in which learners can engage and interact with learning.
Gloucestershire College has been using mobile learning to enhance and enrich the learning process, for a range of learners, across the curriculum. They have developed a range of learning scenarios and activities that are integrated into the learning process and support a diverse range of learners.
Mobile technologies will be used by the participants within the workshop to examine how they can be used for learning and will also be used to feed back the outcomes from the workshop.
In this workshop, small groups of participants will examine the potential of mobile technologies and mobile learning to rethink the digital divide, including addressing the tensions between formal and informal learning, enabling access and removing exclusion, and empowering learners to take responsibility for their own learning.
The workshop introduction will provide an exploration of mobile learning and mobile technologies. Participants will discuss and debate mobile learning scenarios, and cover how they could be utilised within their own institutions, examining the potential conflict between formal learning and informal learning that mobile learning offers. They will also debate the idea and concept that mobile learning is accessible and inclusive for all learners. The small group discussion will also address how mobile learning can empower learners to take responsibility for their own learning. The groups will then feedback through a blog entry, an audio podcast or a video presentation. This feedback will be made available online to allow comment and further discussion beyond the workshop and with other conference delegates.
After the workshop, participants will have a greater understanding of the role of mobile learning in addressing the digital divide. Mobile technologies will have been used within the workshop by the participants to understand the learning scenarios, and the participants will have presented the workshop outcomes through a variety of learning technologies.
Ofcom have published a report, according to a BBC article, on the use of communication in the UK.
Britons are spending more time using communications services but paying less for them, says an Ofcom report.
Every day in 2007, the average consumer spent 7 hours and 9 minutes watching TV, on the phone, using the internet or using other services, it says.
Since 2002, mobile use has doubled and PC and laptop use has grown fourfold, says the watchdog’s annual review.
Though with falling costs of internet and mobile phones, though the UK is using more comms stuff, it is in fact spending less…
But the average UK household spend on communications in 2007 was £93.63 a month – a fall of £1.53 on 2006.
This certainly reiterates that our learners are well versed in the use of digital communication tools and therefore would probably be quite at home using them for learning.
Photo source.
It would appear Toshiba (the originator of the classic Libretto small form factor laptop) is looking at the mini-book market.
From PC Authority:
The notebook giant is planning an ultra low-cost portable to join the ranks of the Eee PC and MSI Wind (though not necessarily a direct competitor, they say).
Officials won’t reveal details, yet, but they are showing a prototype of a device they’ve created to spur development ideas. The tiny handheld (shown in the main pic below) reminded us more of a UMPC than a notebook, with the keyboard ditched in favour of a touchscreen keyboard.
Looks interesting, more like the Nokia N810
For me Windows Vista is not really the best operating system for these internet devices, a bit too much power and as a result poor battery life and lots of heat!
BBC reports on research carried out on behalf of Intel says that we will see a huge increase in the use of mobile internet devices.
The world of mobile internet devices is set to explode in the next four years says chip maker Intel.
Research carried out for the company suggests portable net-enabled devices will grow to 1.2 billion by 2012 as the need to be connected increases.
Intel’s predictions were unveiled as it launched a series of chips designed for portable web-browsing gadgets.
I certainly find I am using the internet on mobile devices more then ever.
I expect that learners will also be doing the same as devices get cheaper and smaller; and (importantly) internet access gets cheaper too.
I like Jaiku.
I also think you need to “do” Jaiku for a fair amount of time (and commitment) to get some real value from it.
There is value from incidental chat, what is incidental for me, may be new and innovative for you and vice versa.
Here’s an example of how useful Jaiku is to me.
http://xlearn.jaiku.com/presence/3775764…
Lils mentioned Bluetooth which reminded me I had not got the link to some Bluetooth software that she had mentioned before in a (live) training session, so I asked her.
Not only did I get the link, but an affirmation from (Gary at) Weston College on how they were using it successfully.
Personally I think of it as a more informal Champions mailing list with the added benefit of RSS feeds.
So you lower the price of 3G data plans and what happens, the number of 3G users doubles!
Duh!
BBC reports on a survey which has found this out.
Price cuts and the popularity of 3G are prompting Europeans to use mobile data like never before, says a survey.
The GSM Association survey shows that European data roaming traffic grew by 75% between April 2007 and 2008.
Over the same period the numbers of 3G users doubled and the average price of data roaming services fell by 25%.
Read more.
When I first used 3G in June 2004, I was paying £100 per month for 1GB of data per month, this went down to £75 pretty quickly. A year later it was just £45 per month and by 2006 it was just £25 per month.
Now you can get 3G for just £10 per month with as much as a 3GB fair usage limit, and as part of a phone plan it can be as little as £5 per month!
Also we are seeing an explosion in speed (just don’t tell O2 who are still stuck on 128Kbps), back in 2004, I was lucky to get 384Kbps, today with my Vodafone 3G dongle I can achieve 7.2Mbps (well I can in London, less so in Gloucester).
These fast speeds and low prices start to make 3G a viable option for many people and as a result we are seeing an increase in demand and users.
As mentioned earlier on this blog 3G usage is increasing really fast.
Now for all the economists out there, does this mean that the demand for 3G is elastic or inelastic in demand?
Photo source.
The BBC reports that
Adobe has announced a plan to try to get its Flash player installed on more mobile devices and set-top boxes.
Dubbed Open Screen the initiative lifts restrictions on how its multimedia handling software can be used.
Adobe will stop charging licencing fees for mobile versions of Flash and plans to publish information about the inner workings of the code.
In taking this step Adobe hopes to repeat on mobiles the success its Flash technology has enjoyed on the web.
This is excellent news for mobile learning as so much e-learning content out there is in a flash format including a lot of video and audio.
The Chair of Mozilla, Mitchell Baker, has made a plea to developers to harness the creativity of the internet and apply it on mobile phones.
BBC reports from the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco:
Developers are being asked to devise applications for mobile devices so users can “access it, mix it up, save it, and store it”.
The plea to harness the creativity of the internet and apply it on mobile phones was made by Mitchell Baker the chair of Firefox developer Mozilla.
All of this functionality “should be the same if I am on a laptop or phone, at home or on a train,” says Ms Baker.
“The breadth of the new ideas floating around and the different ways that people are thinking about information and using the web further away from browsing into more personalised information is exciting,” said Ms Baker.
This is an interesting report on how we could be using mobile devices and of course a lot of these ideas are transferable to mobile learning.
The fact that phones know where they are (even without GPS they have a rough idea) adds a dimension to mobile learning that the traditional (dumb) PDA could never have. Having said that we will see more devices with GPS chips as they get smaller, cheaper and use less power.
Well worth a read.
If you are like me you depend on your mobile phone.
Actually if you are like you depend on your mobile phone and 3G dongle for data.
I actually rarely use my mobile phone for actual phone calls, for me mobile data is what I use all the time.
I use it to allow my laptop to connect to the web, for all those kind of laptop based activities, browsing, e-mail, etc…
I use mobile data to Shozu my photographs from my phone to Flickr.
I use mobile data to update my Jaiku feed and use SMS to update Twitter.
I (now and again) browse the internet on the web browser on my phone – usually t find out if my train is delayed or cancelled or for traffic reports.
I use mobile data to allow me to stream live video from my phone via Qik.com to other locations.
If you are like me you depend on your mobile phone for mobile data, or you might just use the phone for phone calls!
Anyhow I was interested to read on the BBC website about a new technology which will make it easier to get a better signal.
The signal strengths of laptops and mobile phones are set to be radically improved if new technology developed by Oxford scientists comes to fruition.
Engineers at Isis, a technology transfer spin-out company of the University of Oxford, have found a way of creating antennas which can work in three “planes” but that are small enough to fit in hand-held devices.
Now if you are making a phone call and the signal strength drops, what you notice is a reduction in the quality of the call.
However with mobile data, if the signal strength drops, you find that internet access crawls and often you are faced with timeouts. You can replicate this by using 3G in a moving vehicle such as a train or a car.
If the signal strength can be increased this means that you can have greater reliability in using mobile data then you can now, which means you would be able to rely on it working rather than hoping it would work.