A lot of MoLeNET projects seem to be looking at the Eee-PC, a small linux based UMPC which though full of features such as wifi, SD card slot and camera, is relatively cheap at around £200.
Interestingly for a flash based device it is possible to run Windows XP on it and the manufacturer has released the Eee-PC in Japan running Windows XP.
Read more at Engadget.
Well Bill Thompson has finally joined the 3G mobile internet generation as he talks about in his column on the BBC News site.
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.
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…
Currently downloading and installing the 165MB software update and then I might buy and install the new apps.
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.
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…
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.
One of the new features of the 2000 series of the PSP is that you can now purchase an AV cable which allows you to watch video or view photographs through your TV (or through a projector if it has composite video inputs).
I recently got hold of a cable, it is available through Amazon
At £12.99 it’s not expensive, but it’s not cheap either, but it does work very well.
Initially I tried the cable with one of those small portable Toshiba LED projectors and though I couldn’t get any audio it worked much better than I thought it was going to.
Then into a classroom with a projector, all our rooms at Gloucestershire College which have Activboards (which is virtualy all of them) as well as a computer also have an amp and speakers allowing you to play audio very easily in the classroom, so quickly connected to the AV cable to the video input and the amp and there was video form the PSP playing through the big screen.
Also tried PowerPoint slides saved as images which worked well, and a Keynote presentation saved as a movie file complete with audio track which worked even better.
One concern I did have was that there was a warning on the packaging that the PSP could only output in NTSC format only and of course here in the UK we use PAL, so when I got home I connected it to my TV, which is an older Sony CRT model and it worked really really well.
Overall I was impressed with the cable and the quality of the output. It certainly is one option for presenting audio and visual content through a projector or a TV and therefore useful not just for teaching staff in presenting learning resources, but also for learners with accessibility issues in accessing PSP content on a small screen.
An interesting product was voted best of show at CES this week, a wireless SD card for your digital camera.
The card allows you to upload photographs direct from your camera to a photo sharing site on the interent via your wireless network (or a wi-fi hotspot).
I have been using a similar function (via shozu) with my cameraphone, but Eye-Fi allows you to use any camera which uses a SD card slot.
Very clever, though not yet available in the UK or so I believe.
This spring will see the release of the GPS unit for the PSP according to PSP Fanboy.
GPS receiver and UMD (including maps of the relevant country): RRP €119 (approx £89)
GPS receiver, UMD (including maps), Car Adaptor and Car Mount: RRP €149 (approx £111)
PSP, GPS receiver, UMD (including maps), Car Adaptor and Car Mount: RRP €299 (approx £223)
Interestingly you will be able to see landmarks in 3D.
When you travel on foot, you’ll be able to see cities in full 3D. You can select a destination, and watch landmarks and other POIs appear on the screen.
It’s looking like there will be an official keyboard for the PSP, you may have read my earlier posting on mobile device text entry in particular I was quite scathing about text entry on the PSP.
Text entry on the PSP is to be brutally honest only something you want to do only on the rare occasion. I find the mobile phone type entry somewhat comple, more so if you need to enter numbers at all.
A keyboard will certainly make it easier for users to enter text and urls, so is to be welcomed.
Obviously this will be too late for the current MoLeNET projects, but if you have bought a bunch of PSPs then you may want to consider getting these when they become available.