Thursday, December 27, 2007

A tale of three devices

Well back home after a break !! Interestingly online on three different devices running different operating systems. Running

  • Windows XP
  • Mac OS running Leopard
  • Linux
well the XP experience on my reliable workhorse PC was reliable if a little slow. The Mac OS usual interesting experience. what was really intesting the ASUS EEPC running a version of linux.

Ive been using it for a while keyboards a little small but usable the flash driver boot upis lightening fast the screen is bright and integration of igoogle,google docs and firefox is as refreshing change . Is it thee device well nearly for some users !!But as I shout its not about the device stupid!!!

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Rethinking the digital divide - the themes for the the 2008 ALT Conference

This looks like shaping up to being a cracking event so go on submit a proposal.

Rethinking the digital divide - the themes for the the 2008 ALT Conference, and the call for proposals

The paper submissions system for the 2008 Association for Learning Technology Conference opened on 14 December 2007, and will remain so until 29 February 2008. Meanwhile ALT has announced the 7 (well 8) dimensions of the conference. Proposals for inclusion should address up to 3 of these:

* global or local;
* institutional or individual;
* pedagogy or technology;
* access or exclusion;
* open or proprietary;
* private or public;
* for the learner or by the learner;
* or other aspects of the digital divide.

read more here

http://www.alt.ac.uk/altc2008/


Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Anyone for scrapbook?

Collecting or capturing web pages to reduce the stress of using web content in presentations is something I have got more confident with doing without . But to be honest it is sometimes really useful. I have used snag it which is a product you pay for and works across nearly all PC applications but lately I have discovered scrapbook an Add on for firefox that alows you to capture web pages as well as linked pages and media files considering its free its a robust product have a look at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/427

Powered by ScribeFire.

Microsoft buys Multimap "The next Utility

Microsoft buys Multimap
Consolidation among digital map providers continues as Microsoft joins the charge started by TomTom and Nokia by buying an established map maker.Microsoft have bought multimap


Thanks to ITpro for this lead read story here

this is interesting on lots of levels
1)Computer mapping or proto GIS I have often talked about the next Utility in terms of desktop PC applications on and offline.
2) The rise of mobile devices being able to locate/orientate users using GPS or geographical tag photo's sound recordings whatever has made integration mapping utilities much more possible for companies individuals . this is much more interesting . Now multi map came before Google maps but it does strike an interesting acquisition by Microsoft

Powered by ScribeFire.

Monday, December 17, 2007

This revolution will be text-messaged

This article from zdnet http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1035_22-6222963.html
has made me reflect I have been thinking of gill Scot herons famous track the revolution will not be televised over last few weeks. In a slightly different context of the gathering TSUNAMI of the mobile internet . The coup rightly or wrongly didn't succeed due to public apathy or commitment . But it shows how text messaging is now seen as part of the armoury in terms of propaganda popular uprising.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Sunday, December 16, 2007

Ipods in education

If your one of my readers with an Apple and Ipod interest in the mobile learning sphere this is well worth a look . Any FE colleagues involved in Molenet projects might find it useful. the videos cover a range of techniques approaches go on have a look. Thanks to Bob Harrison for the link

http://mlearningworld.blogspot.com/2007/12/ipod-in-education-video-overview.html


Friday, December 14, 2007

BETT preview on teachers TV

Its that time of year see Ray Barker of Besa and others on teachers TV previewing what's on offer at BETT.

http://www.teachers.tv/video/23906

Division occurring the small format UMPC market

Its seems to me with appearance of flash memory only device like asuseepcc and so called rich media devices with conventional micro hard drives . Is making a distiction into:

1)Flash memory smaller capacity and slower processor UMPC often running non windows software like linux. with a low price tag.
2) Rich media more powerful devices runing windows based software with huge conventional micro drives and more powerful processors .

Toshiba one of the major suppliers of micro format hard drives (Toshiba) who interestingly don't make a UMPC have just announced huge micro format hard drives http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/14/toshiba-intros-five-capacious-new-1-8-inch-hard-drives/
which will add to the division buy which type meets your need but remember the future is mobile !!!


Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Educational software for eepc from sums on line

Asus eepc Its hardly been out a month or so and good old sums online http://www.eeeeducation.com have started producing their content to run on it. As usual not a recommendation but interesting they've got content out so quick .

Thursday, December 06, 2007

Teachmeet08 the 5th edition 11th January



I dont need to say anything but if you want to see whats great and happening in innovative teaching be there !!!
http://edu.blogs.com/edublogs/2007/11/teachmeet08---m.html

the event is coming south from its long standing cult status at the Scottish Learning festival .

Thanks to Ewan for being one of driving forces behind teachmeet



Monday, December 03, 2007

OLPC orders kick of and Buy one Gift one Free (BOGOF) is reaping benefits

This from engadget. All steam ahead for the OLPC Foundation, which recently received an order from Peru for 260,000 of the little XO laptops. Also news is that Mexican billionaire and Negroponte's chum Carlos Slim has purchased 50,000 for his country. That's against a background of $2 million sales a day on the Give One, Get One program. Clearly, the OLPC Foundation is the most successful program out there for getting laptops into the hands of schoolchildren.

now my own thoughts the BOGOF campaign is a rweally interesting model why dont we add a premium for other health orientated projects say $5.00 or more as well as the kit.

The OLPC may not be in everybody's view the right model but at least they are giving it a go.

Saturday, December 01, 2007

Office 2007 gets official mobile compatibility

Now this is interesting and a upgrade to make windows mobile compatible with Office 2007 format using controversial Office Open XML (OOXML) specification. read it here strictly no comment on this but for your info only http://news.zdnet.com/2110-9590_22-6220976.html

'SatLav' text service finds nearest loo

Excuse the topic but interesting all the same ?

Lovely one here on finding a toilet using SMS


Westminster City Council has launched an SMS service to inform users of the nearest public toilet.

Users text 'toilet' to 80097 and the service determines their location and automatically finds the nearest public toilet. The 'SatLav' system charges 25p for each text.

Locations include the council's 40 public toilets, plus those of the Greater London Authority, London Underground and some major department stores.

Westminster City Council said that the location service is designed to cut down on the amount of "street urination".

http://www.computing.co.uk/vnunet/news/2204758/satlav-scheme-finds-toilets



eee PC getting to look at one soon.

Will have one of these by Wednesday of next week. Now they aren't a rich media PC I know but they run

  • word processor
  • spreadsheet
  • presentation tool
  • video player

they support video out wireless and USB for under £220 . Will let you know how I get on and you make your own mind up.

You can read someone elses review here

I am not vouching for validity but giving you a chance to read about it !

Cell Phone College Class Opens in Japan

Japanese already use cell phones to shop, read novels, exchange e-mail, search for restaurants and take video clips. Now, they can take a university course. Now Cyber university are offering course my mobile phone .
No not mixed delivery method stuff but pure by mobile or so it seems http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5itnQWd2FxcYdcTJubgGheoq49MvwD8T6K42G0

My mobile feed the famous Mike Short Bless Him sent me this !!

Even I a few months ago would have scoffed but my own prediction of the year being the year the mobile goes mainstream is becoming fact.

Cyber interesting or cyber rubbish ?? You decide ?

Thursday, November 29, 2007

Blogger add flickr Photbucket Picasa slideshow option

just in case you missed it see result in my slide bar I still prefer slidr for posting within the blog postings themselves but its still a nice extra bit of functionality/integration

http://buzz.blogger.com/2007/11/show-off-your-photos-with-new-slideshow.html

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Near field Communication Pilot mentioned on Steve Wrights in the afternoon radio show.

O2 today announced the launch of the UK's first large scale pilot of NFC (Near Field Communications) technology on mobile phones. The trial of the O2 Wallet® paves the way for the mass market use of mobile phones to pay for purchases, access events or even be used as Oyster cards for travel around London, simply by touching the phone to a reader.

http://www.nokia.com/A4136001?newsid=1171383


An interesting event but more interesting the powerhouse and almost ubiquitous spokesman for things Mobile. Mike Short of O2 and chair of the mobile data association was on Steve Wrights show on radio two talking about it !!
Terri Wogan it is widely recognised helped launch the email revolution is Steve Wright going to help push the mbile wave or should we say ride it. Well done Mike good piece !!!

Monday, November 26, 2007

vote for Sustrans Connect 2 in the peoples lottery £50 million pound give away

Regular readers know I am a mega keen cyclist well this has come to my attention . Even if you don't vote for this vote to say how £50 million yes £50 million will go in a one payment only to a charity.

In case you didn't know, Sustrans has the opportunity to win £50m of lottery money to support 79 local projects around the UK. It's a public vote, so the more of us that vote the better! See below for more information from Richard Sanders of Sustrans.

I'm writing to ask you to help sustainable transport charity Sustrans win £50 million from the Big Lottery Fund to invest in 79 communities UK-wide.

In this winner-takes-all contest Sustrans' Connect2 project is up against 3 other organisations - the Eden Project: The Edge, Black Country Urban Park, and Sherwood: The Living Legend, with the winner to be decided by public vote over the coming weeks.

We’re supporting Sustrans' Connect2 because it will transform local travel in towns, cities and villages throughout the UK. By building new bridges and crossings over busy roads, railways and rivers, and linking these into networks of paths, Connect2 will make it much easier for people to get where they want to go under their own steam. So whether children are going to school, people to work and the shops, or friends and family to visit each other, they'll be able to walk or cycle for many more journeys.

As many as 6 million people live within a mile of a proposed Connect2 scheme, and 1 million children go to school within a mile of a scheme. It is calculated that over 60 million active, low carbon journeys will be made each year on the Connect2 routes, potentially saving 79,000 tonnes of carbon - the equivalent of emissions from 79,000 people's annual car use.

If you'd like to know more about Connect2 before making up your mind take a look at www.sustransconnect2.org.uk

To make Connect2 happen we now really need your support and just a few moments of your time could make all the difference. We need your vote and the votes of as many people as you know.

There are three opportunities to vote - online, from a landline and by mobile.

Online voting began at 9am on Monday 26th November at www.thepeoples50million.org.uk with phone voting starting at 9am on Friday 7th December. All voting concludes at 12 noon on Monday 10th December.

If you want to be sent a reminder to vote please register at www.sustransconnect2.org.uk or text 'Connect2' to 80010.

If you do vote for Sustrans' Connect2 (and I really hope you do!), many thanks and please do forward to your own contacts and urge them to vote too

Thursday, November 22, 2007

TalkingVTE a great resource

Great stiff from the other side of the world .

Thanks to Mick Mullane all power to his podcasting for this link .
Talking VTE is a podcast of educational conversations and audio
recordings made at conferences, seminars and workshops throughout the
Australian Vocational and Technical Education (VET) sector.

http://talkingvte.blogspot.com/

Mick has add his great efforts from Mlearn where regular readers will know he presented you can see the blog posting and related podcast at

http://talkingvte.blogspot.com/2007/11/mlearn07-from-podcast-to-vle-to-phone.html

there are a wealth of resources around Mlean2007 on the site use this link to find them
http://talkingvte.blogspot.com/search/label/mlearn07

good one you Mick!!!

Monday, November 19, 2007

Facebook fifty

As a late arrival to Facebook party I have just realised I have hit the magic fifty of Facebook friends . As a billy no mates of the face to face world I have using facebook quite a lot .
What have I gained :-

  • better network
  • more regular contact with friends
  • Insight into my friends activities both in the area of their work but also in wider their activity
  • Interesting invites to invite via invitation function within Facebook (got to give Steve Moore of policy unplugged a huge heads up for his work in this area)
  • exposure to interesting applications

What it caused is blurring between personal ilfe online and working life online.

you might be intersted on this article on how to use facebook proffessionally.

http://webworkerdaily.com/2007/07/24/12-ways-to-use-facebook-professionally/

By the way who was my fiftieth facebook friend amazinlgy the prolific blogger Ewan McIntosh

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Google Android developer challenge

Want to win a share of $10million US dollars Google have launched a competition

Cool apps that surprise and delight mobile users, built by developers like you, will be a huge part of the Android vision. To support you in your efforts, Google has launched the Android Developer Challenge, which will provide $10 million in awards -- no strings attached -- for great mobile apps built on the Android platform.

http://code.google.com/android/adc.html


picked this up at Future mobile event today including a cool live demo of Android and developing mobile apps in 8 minutes .

WC3 mobileOK Basic ready for implementation

W3C have launched this today its going to be huge. On the W3C site

W3C MobileOK To Help Make Web Sites Mobile Friendly

2007-11-13: Today, W3C provides new means for people to create and find mobile friendly content. W3C invites Web authors to run the alpha release of the W3C mobileOK checker and make their content work on a broad range of mobile devices. The checker runs the tests defined in the W3C mobileOK Basic Tests 1.0 Candidate Recommendation. Read the press release and testimonials, and come see W3C at Mobile Internet World in Boston, Massachusetts (USA).
http://www.w3.org/News/2007#item244
teams blog at

http://www.w3.org/2005/MWI/BPWG/

Future Mobile a whole new community

Hi all regular readers

this is blogging live so wont be pretty !!

At Future Mobile event having my mind expanded by a new community . Hard core developers and those looking to enter the mobile space. Interesting the guys from Wildkey are here and Richard Gunson of Learning Everywhere and Josie Fraser but I know hardly any one else of 400 plus delgates.

The morning was around themes of designing and making sites work on mobile device and role of context awareness and how to make payments work etc.

The afteroon really kicked off Daniel Applequist of Vodafone watch this space for more.

In 5 years time the majority of web useage be from mobile devices quote from Daniel Applequist from Vodafone

Two reflections on Mobile Learning from different parts of the world

Two articles looking back at how far mobile learning has progressed since the first MLearn conference in Birmingham in 2002 to Mlearn2007 in Melbourne .

The first by Bob Harrison from the United Kingdom well known and well published Mlearning evangelists his article reflecting on Handheld Learning 2007 held in London and linking to Mlearn2007 in Melbourne the article widely published in this case can be read on futurelab blog flux link here

The second article by Caryl Oliver from Australia who was chair of Mlearn2007 the article can be found at the is link

Knowing both of them interesting to note they have a real passion for Vocational Education and interest in emerging pedagogy around Mobile Learners.

Interestingly in my interpretation both pieces talk of the growth of mobile learning and how its focus is changing but both highlight either outright or in the tone the role of pedagogy. The role that technology with the right pedagogy can enhance the learning experience.

Also don't forget Mlearn2008 http://www.mlearn2008.org Titled the Bridge from text to Context










Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Future of Mobile event 14th November

Only discovered this by chance earlier in the week attending this tomorrow

Future of Mobile event http://www.future-of-mobile.com/
Not come across the event or this group before looking forward to sussing out and reporting back.

Monday, November 12, 2007

EYE Fi wireless sd card for Digital cameras

Now is this as good as it sounds a SD card that you fit in your camera that not stores photo's but publishes them to the web via wifi to flickr facebook etc . Is this just me getting excited or is this another slot in the ubiquitous computing emerging story !! Check it out a http://www.eye.fi/

no special camera etc etc.

Saturday, November 10, 2007

Google to talk openhandset alliance at Future of Mobile event in London

Google has changed its talk from Gmail for Mobile to cover the recent
Open Handset Alliance announcement (made on November 5th). http://www.openhandsetalliance.com for detail .
This presentation at Future of Mobile is the first European event
at which to give a public presentation on the topic.
For future of mobile programme go to this link

www.future-of-mobile.com

Google are going further into that mobile arena just as the iconic Iphone launches in the UK .

Interesting times ahead !!

Watch the video explainig android the open platform for development



This is the Gphone or so the say !

Friday, November 09, 2007

Google Docs as a revision aid

I really like the collaboration that the web allows and it now seems from Googles own blog that teachers are one of the quickest groups to adopt these tools. Well I tell a lie I think personally learners use them even quicker.

This article suggests the idea of peer review hints at my favourite the rapid prototyping of ideas any way its worth a read .

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/11/with-little-help-from-your-friends.html

Interesting that again I am using word 2007 to blog with !! So I am still a person with a foot in both camps long may it continue.


 


 

Thursday, November 08, 2007

Google are hiring London a hot bed of mobile development

As regular readers know I was lucky enough to chat with Peter Norvig at the ALTC 2007 conference dinner back in September. Over a wide ranging conversation Peter dropped in that most of Google mobile development work is taking place in London. I couldn't hep noticing the advert that came up in my Gmail web clips feed. So any one know guess what the Google mobile offer is likely to be.

Tuesday, November 06, 2007

Doing the Double !!

Some of my regular readers will know that I am a bit of a cyclist well I love my bike!!!! So excuse non technology post

For the last few years I have done the infamous Dunwich Dynamo see info here a mere 193 kilometres from London to Dunwich through the night in 2006 a similar event was formed the Exmouth Exodus link here it's a little shorter than the Dynamo but its much hillier. Guess what next year I plan to do both !!

So the key facts
Dates
Exmouth Exodus 2008 14th 15th June

Dunwich Dynamo 2008 19th 20th July

Distance
E&E 100 miles
D&D 120 miles

The FAQs of E&E make interesting reading

Yes and no. It's inspired by the DD, and there are plenty of obvious similarities, like the riding through the night to the seaside part. But it's different too. For a start, it's smaller - a lot smaller. We had 60 riders for 2007, as opposed to the Dynamo's 700. It's hillier - a lot hillier - too, so it's a bit harder, even though it's a little shorter.

The route profile shows the hills



So guess what I intend to do both!! With a six week gap between them no worries!!
The quote best describes the feelings

Words from the 24 hours of Moab dirt bike race in the USA describe whats its like ....

"Somewhere during the night you will hear a voice say, "Why am I doing this? I am never doing this again!" Look forward to this voice. Welcome it. Laugh at it. Embrace it. Look forward to hearing it again next year. Just know that it will come and that you will ride past it and be stronger when it fades into the shadows."

-- Chris Tirpak, 4x Sufferer of Canaan and Moab

I've heard those voices and learnt to laugh oh so loud at them for the joy of being alive!!


By the way Exmouth Exodus is looking for some small scale cash help any sponsdors out there maybe a mobile company some great stuff and publicty to be done with geotagged images from thosde mobile phones etc

A bright future for mobiles in schools Yes

Australian Jonathan W. Nalder has got down to writing his own paper on mobile learning on his blog in fact Jonathan your going to make into my side bar of interesting blogs !!!. Now I am not as always expressing opinion but it does add to the debate.


He explains his reason for writing the paper


" Rather than just reporting on what others have been saying about this new frontier in mLearning - that being kids using their own mobile phones for learning - I've written my own paper dealing with policy responses from schools and Education departments. Mostly these have only touched on safety issues - but I also include in the paper plenty of examples of their positive use in education. I even talk about why they should be used and make recommendations that hopefully future policy makers can use to get the balance right. Enjoy!"


The abstract is below

Abstract
Policy before practice: Reactions, Revisions & Recommendations for the educational use of mobile phones.

Although ICT integration is growing across all sectors of Education, the one device

that most symbolises the current stage of the Digital Revolution, the mobile phone,

has not been welcomed into classrooms. Many policies have been written to deal

with the negative social and disruptive consequences of the use of digital mobile

devices in Education; however less effort has been made to balance such policies

against the educational needs of students dealing with the ongoing impact of the

Digital Revolution. This paper aims to examine the reactions of current policy to the

presence of mobile phones in education and then detail emerging examples of their

use to enhance learning. The paper concludes with a summary of recommendations

drawn from these examples that may form the basis for more learner-centered

policy to be developed in the future.


Read the blog posting linked to this and look at the paper in draft http://mlearningworld.blogspot.com/2007/11/bright-future-for-mobiles-in-schools.html


Thanks to Jonathan for an interesting piece of work.


Monday, November 05, 2007

Britons sending a billion text’s a week !!


 

Well as I always thought this texting lark isn't that popular .

Britons are now sending 1.2 billion text messages every week, the latest figures reveal.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/1/hi/technology/7075005.stm

Sunday, November 04, 2007

Anyone for Mobile Monday ???

Mobile Mondays heard about this group at Handheld Learning talking of the Finnish chapter. These are groups of people concerned around area of mobile developments in Business education etc and seem to have some pretty heavy weight developer members even I need a translator ;--)))) Global site http://www.mobilemonday.net and the UK group I have discovered Mobile Monday London (are there more ?) http://mobilemonday.org.uk . So if your mobile Monday type go on join up . Thanks to Mike Short for pointing me in there direction !

Friday, November 02, 2007

Google and Myspace get open Social

MySpace joins other sites including Bebo, LinkedIn and Orkut in signing up to OpenSocial. Google platform for developing applications that will work on any website !!

BBC NEWS | Business | MySpace in Google software deal

One to watch me thinks !!

Thursday, November 01, 2007

Blog Off presentation at Futurelab Conference

Future Lab presentation reflections on my session

A mixed post here . First I am blogging directly from Microsoft Word2007 which allows you to publish straight to your blog !!

Over the two days of the thought provoking Future Lab conference "Why don't you !!!" delivered a 90 minutes workshop twice title "Blog Off , these web 2.0 tools will never make it into the learner experience " I thought they went ok and the participants were great and really had a lot to offer me and each other . The second session was filmed by two separate cameras one for future labs use and one streamed live by Leon Cynch


I used a variety of approaches including Google presenter with remote viewers adding in comments via chat Google presenter supports. Presentation can be seen at http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dc7bzghg_51cgn6xn


I started using my video clip epic2015 a interesting view of the future of the internet ??

http://epic.makingithappen.co.uk/new-master1.html


It mentions the wane of the fourth estate and by sheer chance Seb Schmollers fortnightly mailing picked up on this work of Bill Dutton (thanks Seb BTW link to Seb's mailing sign up is in my sidebar)

Seb says

A political scientist's perspective on the Internet. Bill Dutton argues that just as printing led to the creation of an independent (?) institution that has become known as the 'Fourth Estate', the Internet, and the network of networks it supports, is leading to the 'Fifth Estate', which could be more important to the 21st century than the Fourth Estate has been since the 18th.

http://fm.schmoller.net/2007/10/bill-dutton---a.html



Reflections interesting session making me think I am a bit web 1.5 rather than web 2.0 and not convinced web2.00 is really a helpful meaningful handle describing for current developments

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Leonards Lows interesting reflection on Marc Prenskys presentation at Handheld2007

Now Marc Prensky's phrase describing digital natives is well known. Derek Robertson that well known researcher into gaming in education and passionate about teaching saw Marc and made some reflections on his blog

http://andysblackhole.blogspot.com/2007/10/derek-robertsons-blog.html


Now Leonard Low in the southern hemisphere (does cyberspace have hemispheres!) . HE has an interesting take on Marc's session have a look and of course watch the video

http://mlearning.edublogs.org/2007/10/29/handheld-learning-2007-keeping-up-with-change-marc-prensky/

its worth noting other keynotes including Minister Jim Knight, Stephen Crown CEO of Becta can be found at

http://handheldlearning.blip.tv

Sunday, October 28, 2007

Gmail does IMAP is this a wow !!

Is this another pop at exchange by Google . It does seem a major advance.
As some of you know, IMAP is the best way to access your email from
multiple devices (e.g. phone or desktop). It keeps the same information
synced across all devices so that whatever you do in one place shows up
everywhere else you might access your email.

For example, I can:
  • read an email in Gmail, then
  • move it to the "Starred" folder on my iPhone, then
  • archive it by moving it to "All Mail" in Thunderbird, then
  • see all of those changes on my Blackberry (or any of the above devices for that matter).

For the past few years, we've offered POP access, which is similar to
IMAP but lacks one critical feature: your changes made on other devices
aren't seen in Gmail when you log back in. Instead you are presented
with a list of unread mail, and you must re-read and re-sort
everything. For this reason, as soon as I started at Google, IMAP was
one of the first things I asked about. Since then, I've seen countless
blog posts, requests, chats, and just about everything else asking,
"Are you guys ever going to do IMAP?" Well now I can say: Yes. Yes, we are doing IMAP. In fact, we are doing it for you for free on all devices and platforms.

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TV is Dead Channel 4

One can see from earlier posts I attended debate TV is dead at Channel 4. It used the programme TV is dead as a discussion point you can now see part of the programme on Youtube. The idea of brand or channel idents is one worth thinking about !

Mlearn2008 get the date in your diary

Hi Just back after a week off in the lakes and what a lovely post to set me off blogging again.

"2007 was the year mobile wentr mainstream with Handheld learning and Mlearn2008 both in the uK this is the year its goes "MASSIVE"!!

Please see note from John Traxler about Mlearn2008 .


Johns message reads

I'm extremely pleased that I can now announce publicly that mLearn, the world's flagship mobile learning conference, will take place in the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Ironbridge in Shropshire, England, the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution in October 2008. The conference started in Birmingham and has since taken place in London, Rome, Cape Town, Banff and Melbourne.

The aims of the conference are to bring together the world's leading mobile learning researchers, developers and activists in a environment that will stimulate dramatically increased deployment of mobile learning and catalyse dramatically enhanced innovation. The key notes will include Prof Yrjö Engerstrom and Prof Diana Laurillard

The themes are

  • mobile learning, mobile knowledge, mobile societies: covering discourse, identity, knowledge and learning with pervasive, ubiquitous, mobile technologies; social, individual and cultural aspects of mobile learning
  • devices, systems, technology and standards: convergence, diversity, frontiers, trends
  • mobile learning landscape: work-based, informal, subject-specific, context-aware, social
  • mobile learning for all: inclusion, assistivity, scalability, embedding, participation, evaluation, evidence, assessment

and for the full paper submissions, we're assembling a world-class panel including Dr Inmaculada Arnedillo-Sánchez, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland; Dr Marcelo Milrad, Växjö University, Sweden; Dr Agnes Kukulska-Hulme, Open University; Professor Roy Pea, Stanford University, USA; Professor Chee-Kit Looi, National Institute of Education, Singapore; Professor Tak-Wai Chan, National Central University of Taiwan; Professor Earl Woodruff, University of Toronto, Canada and Professor Angela McFarlane, University of Bristol, UK for double blind-reviewing. We anticipate linking with a respected journal for a special edition

The dates are: Tues 7th October for pre-conference workshops, then Wednesday 8th to Friday 10th October for the main conference. We're collaborating with Handheld Learning, Barbican Brewery, London - Monday 13th to Wednesday 15th October, giving the intervening weekend to choose London or Shropshire for sight-seeing!

As part of our registration pack, delegates will be given an ‘active’ ID badge and asked to choose one or both of the broadcast technologies available in order to allow automatic detection of the delegates throughout the conference. A benefit of this will be to record the sessions that they have attended and to automatically generate a blog as well as transmit relevant information to delegate devices. The blog can then be accessed post conference to review the individual experiences of the delegate. This technology will be carried over to the evening sessions, with the full cooperation of all venues involved.

We'll be offering the opportunity for everyone chance attend the conferences back-to-back. This has been designed by the conference committees from the outset, and a single ticket for both events will be available. The technology will allow the 'handover' of all delegates' blogs and will use similar technology at both conferences.

The conference will be endorsed and attended by all the major national e-learning bodies. The Call For Papers will go out shortly. Please get in touch if you need any extra information

Web-sites are www.mlearn2008.org and www.mlearn2008.mobi

Think about attending and presenting. Look forward to seeing everyone

Regards

John Traxler

Reader in Mobile Technology for e-Learning
Director, Learning Lab
Conference Chair, mLearn2008
School of Computing and IT
University of Wolverhampton

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Micks Vod/podcasting down under at Mlearn as easy as cracking eggs !!

Mick Mullane session at Mlearn my spies tell me went down well!

you can see why the eggs pun at :

http://podcast.ycoastco.ac.uk//blojsom_resources/meta/mlearn/megansegg.mp4

And see all of Micks and Steves Podcasting efforts from mlearn at at

http://podcast.ycoastco.ac.uk/weblog/mlearn/

I wouldn't get him to make a omelette but as for a vodcast !! My spies tell me the table for dinner at the aquarium was wild !! If you were there leave a comment !!

More from Mick when he writes up the OE (Overseas Experience) !!!

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Islay presentation "Drop the pilot" online

Ian Stuarts has made a comment to my posting on his Excellent presentation from Handheld called drop the pilot and done a really nice copy of his presentation with sound . Sorry to give you another heads up but dont want it staying hidden in my comments. Watch learn and reflect the photo's made me think of my honeymoon nearly ten years ago on Shetland . But there is nothing romantic about his pragmatic approach of doing the best for learners and the community using ICT . Keep it up Graham and keep me posted .

Its rumoured Ian's view to implementing technology in enhancing learning is "just do it "and if it isn't Ian tell me about it . http://www.stuartislay.plus.com/HHL-Presentation/index.htm

Ian has done a great posting on his blog to. His blog will be soon in my sidebar link very soon.
http://islayian.blogspot.com/2007/10/just-do-it.html

Mick Mullane of Yorkshire Coast College Podcasts from Mlearn2007 in Melbourne

Mick is presenting at Mlearn and bless him he is podcasting about the conference in general.

subscribe to the podcast at feed://podcast.ycoastco.ac.uk/weblog/mlearn/?flavor=rss2

alternative
http://podcast.ycoastco.ac.uk/weblog/admin

great interviews although a dodgy one by me to kick it off.

Good on you Mick. Got any photo's Mick !!

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

10 by 10 a different take on the news

10x10™ ('ten by ten') is an interactive exploration of the words and pictures that define the time. The result is an often moving, sometimes shocking, occasionally frivolous, but always fitting snapshot of our world. Every hour, 10x10 collects the 100 words and pictures that matter most on a global scale, and presents them as a single image, taken to encapsulate that moment in time. Over the course of days, months, and years, 10x10 leaves a trail of these hourly statements which, stitched together side by side, form a continuous patchwork tapestry of human life.

whats amazing no human intervention its like google news constructed by algorithm
http://www.tenbyten.org/about.html

see this hours results at http://www.tenbyten.org/now.html

Sunday, October 14, 2007

Mlearn2007 Australia with its own UK FE star "Mick Mullane!

16th-19th October Melbourne Australia

http://www.mlearn2007.org/

well this year I am not there but good friends are Mick Mullane of Yorkshire Coast college showing casing his work on Pod and vodcasting supported by SMS in a session called "From Podcast to VLE to Phoneto mLearning Device"
Author: Mr Steve Sidaway, Mick
Mullane ,.

The guru of things mobile Mike Sharples will be doing a keynote presenting a paper and being on a panel .

If you fancy putting up with time difference some of the keynotes are being streamed by illuminate live (a system that worked well at ALTC) I am going to give it a go . session details here

And full conference programme here

Derek Robertsons Blog

Hi all

Ive been following Derek and his colleagues work at the consolarium http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/ictineducation/gamesbasedlearning/index.asp
for a while i also recommend the blog site http://ltsblogs.org.uk/consolarium/

I met up with derek at Handheld Learning and he had some issues as I did with Marc Prensky's presentation a seeming pathological hatred of teachers ( well a dislike) and their role in future learning.

Derek did a posting
http://hotmilkydrink.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/10/do-digital-nati.html

and an excellent debate started on his blog also you might like to look at the work of Marten Owen ex director of futurelab is his article the myth of digital natives http://www.futurelab.org.uk/resources/publications_reports_articles/web_articles/Web_Article561

Friday, October 12, 2007

One lap top per child I picked up the mesh network from a OLPC bought along by Rose Luckins colleagues to Handheld

This is a screen captutre showing my laptop picking up the mesh networking signal from a One Laptop Per Child machine bought to handheld learning by a colleague of Rose Luckins from London Knowledge lab. Cool eh !!





MLearn2007

Mlearn 2007 16-19th October

Sadly I wont be there but Mick Mullance of Yorkshire Coast College will be and Steve Sidaway of txtools is also going they are prsenting on Micks work usuing sms integration in a Learning Platform (moodle) to inform students onf podcasts,vodcasts and general updates . Have a good one boys . Those of you not going check out Mlearn website http://www.mlearn2007.org and the video introduction on youtube
/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmEjLLJr0n8

Islay blog by Ian

Ian Presented at handheld today and with a little search I have found his blog which is really great.

http://islayian.blogspot.com/

Ians beyond pilots presentation was great looking forward to it going up online. go on have a look at Ians blog .

Molenet Larger winners announced


This isnt pretty but its the quickest way a flickr slide show of Jill Attewells announcement slides there not in order but uploading 10mb pictures on flaky wireless network isnt easy .


Lead colleges are listed on slide below. This project was administered by Learning and Skills Network . project website is http://www.molenet.org.uk/



Flickr show of all the slides this will not display on mobile browsers sorry !!!

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

update on Primary Capitalisation Programme

Update on the government initiatives for building in primary sector

http://www.dfes.gov.uk/pns/DisplayPN.cgi?pn_id=2007_0185

TEN project Exemplar network to boost technology for learning

if you are interested in FE and technology this is worth a read

Exemplar network to boost technology for learning

A £3.9 million initiative to accelerate learner-focused use of technology in further education was unveiled today (11 October) by Bill Rammell MP, Minister for Lifelong Learning, Further and Higher Education.

The Technology Exemplar Network programme, jointly led by government technology partner Becta and the Learning and Skills Council (LSC), is a key element of the two organisations' complementary strategies for encouraging further integration of technology for learning into the FE and skills sector.

The programme will lead to the development of a national support network by encouraging providers with a track record of successfully embedding technology into their learning and teaching to create a forum to share best practice with other providers.

To help establish the network, support and funding will be made available. Participating providers will also be eligible to receive funding to develop their use of technology for learning and to revise and implement strategies resulting from engaging with the network.

Welcoming the announcement, Bill Rammell, said, "Technology has the power to change lives. We rely on our education system to help us master it. Just as it is changing how we live, so it is changing how we learn. Many of our schools, colleges and universities already teach technology effectively and apply it innovatively in other subjects, but we want to see all leaders, teachers and trainers making full use of the potential for students and business. The work of Becta and LSC setting up the Technology Exemplar Network will enable colleges and providers to learn from each other how best to use technology to the benefit of all."

The driving force behind the establishment of the Technology Exemplar Network has been the recognition that, for colleges and training providers to plan the implementation of sustainable technologies, they need evidence of what has worked to date.

By reviewing real examples of good practice taking place elsewhere, and sharing experience, learning providers can further develop their plans for future investment and implementation of technology for learning.

Stephen Crowne, Becta's Chief Executive, said, "This new network will help the sector raise its game still further by getting the best out of technology. Becta believes that improvement comes from the front line and this development will enable us to build a systematic approach to fostering good practice and spreading it throughout the system.

"We know that there has been significant investment in technology for learning and there are tremendous examples of where it has made a huge difference. This network will ensure that these examples are made available across the country."

Mark Haysom, LSC Chief Executive, said: "Raising the sector's performance to world class standards is a headline priority for the LSC. The Technology Exemplar Network programme will empower the sector to make the best of use of technology and accelerate the pace of positive change in delivering their provision. The ability to successfully exploit technology is key to maximising the skills and productivity of the nation."

Notes for Editors:

  • Further Education colleges, work-based learning providers and adult and community learning providers will be eligible to participate in the programme.
  • Outputs and results, including case-studies of participating providers, will be made available via the QIA Excellence Gateway.
  • Providers will be invited to participate via a bidding process, which will be advertised widely from November 2007. A full launch of the network will take place in January 2008.
  • The first phase of the programme will run during the current academic year. A robust, independent, evaluation of its success in this first phase will inform the programme’s future development.
  • £3.9 million is being made available to support the first phase in 2007-08.


Learning and Skills Council:

The LSC exists to make England better skilled and more competitive. We are responsible for ensuring the availability of high-quality education and training for everyone. We have a single goal: to improve the skills of England's young people and adults to world class standards. Our vision is that young people and adults in England have knowledge and skills matching the best in the world and are part of a truly competitive workforce. We work nationally, regionally and locally to deliver this ambition on behalf of learners and employers.

Becta:

Becta leads the national drive to improve learning through technology. We do this by working with industry to ensure we have the right technology for education in place. We also support the education sector to make the best use of technology so that every learner in the UK is able to benefit from its advantages and achieves the best they can.

Breaking News !!! Molenet winnners announced at Hand Held Learning this afternoon

Just received this breaking news via a SMS message from TXTtools who are providing the SMS solution to Handheld Learning 2007 . Great to get this sort of news by text

News from HHL2007: The MoLeNet Award winners will be announced today
in the Great Hall at 14.00.


This is not all the bid winners but those recieving larger sums in excess of £100,ooo.

The molenet is a £6million funding initiative for Mobile Learning in FE .

Mainstream mobile yet again

Handheld Learning Day 3

Moderating the sesion on “Science, Maths & Mobile” this morning looking forward to it !!!

Dovi Bruker, CEO, Fourier Systems

showcased some interesting work with umpc type device with ability to plug various data probes .

The device is interesting as is the software bundled with it . the device also is instant on!!

David Crellin

Thursday, October 11, 2007

EPIC Thinking October 2007

Loads of relevant articles download read it and get on the mailing list
http://www.epic.co.uk/content/news/oct_07/index.htm


some of the articles in it ?? really worth a read !

Web 2.0 - Where are we now?

by Ishmael Burdeau


Web 3.0 - A matter of semantics?

by John Helmer


LMS = Learning Mario-Style?

by Dominic Mason

Think about the phrase, 'Mobile learning'. Straight away, most people consider learning on their mobile phone - and its limitations. Whilst squinting at a text message isn't exactly what is being proposed - consider the capabilities of Windows Mobile 6.0; bigger and brighter screens, and mobile Instant Messaging - it's probably what most people immediately think of as the mobile experience.

some great articles blogging while at Handheld Learning

Afternoon day two Handheld learning Emerging pedagogy's

really great session

Kevin Walker London Knowledge lab
Hilary Smith Sussex University

looking at model of mixed device and mixed methods of contacts online on-phone at distance. Looking at ecologicial model of pedagogy
work on e-science and usability with a range of devices

refection on pedagogy
ecology of resources spread around in time and space and intelligent (distributed) systems
focus on activities and structures
works on a basis on how you structure the activities not the technology .

  • idea of trails scripts role and context and construction(ism)
  • technology as a mediator
Methodologies
  • activites not outcomes
  • special attention language and conversation
  • technology can help
    • caputure products of learning
    • caputring contextual information
Jocelyn Wishart
"C"s (seize) the moment engaging with theory and pedagogy of m-learning

Looking at this from learners perspective. Mobile devices

Control
nobody is threatened by small device
mobile devices allow learners to be in control of what there goals

Constructivisms
enthused power of package sketchy as animation tool to help learning.
teachers use jotting feature in PDA's

Conversational learning

device as communicational channel discussion around recorded collected stored information . outlined work of the CTL at London Met (john cook and team)


Challenge,Curisoity and Complexity
B
runers work on teh will to learn consists of:
  • curiosity and
  • the drive to achieve competence
talked of experience of engaging software with learners using wild key,sumsonline and sketchy .

Confidence
PDA's evoke more confidence than large monolithic static devices.
talked of work with older nurses and young learners

Context
Mobile devices power in collecting field data . placing learning in the context it was learnt

Collaboration
either via device or the device is small enough not to interfere with debate

CONCLUSIONS
- building concepts into software activities
- answer not clear cut developed by researchers from different backgrounds a web network great diagram

questions

does Jocelyns model need a
  • r "reflection"
  • p "predicting"
Karin Andersson of Malmo University and Dale Hinch of Edexcel
Augmenting pen and paper to support creative collaboration in education

looking at digital pens and papers and novel display techniques

case studeis

musseums activty sheets
Augmented text book by pearson

also involved with goldsmiths e-scape project
escape use of paper activity and rapid prototyping in design and technolgy .
making it possible to
  • genrate ideas
  • develop ideas
  • prove ideas
approach used in two phases
  • during project exam
  • during build up work.
Paper works
looked at using digital pen instead of the pda doodling drawing planning on a paper but results being stored and date stamped electronically

John Traxler society education technology and learning heading towards 2012
talk of convergence and divergence of device / most successful devices PSP ipod are specialsed.
Miniaturisation leading to very small specialized devices
embedding ie internet fridges

talked of flashmobs

technology maybe important and moving but changes in society are impacting on teaching and learning as well as mobile device .

talked of citizen journlistss around july 7th bombing

also talked of sociability of mobile device and how it is changing communication . talked of literature perpetual content (google this) .

Context awareness tracking children by sms and mobile phone serive
RFID tagging locating pets or prisoners.

Conservation and dialogue changing due to mobile technologies

Changes to knowledge
  • easy and convenient
    • chunked structured differently
    • consumed differently
  • Anywhere/anytime
  • justin time/just for me
finished with tom browns work ex pretoria university looked at e-learning versus m-learning

Mark Van Hooft
Ubiquitous computing in education, creating 21st Century Learners


looking at the conflicts and tensions with rise of mobile device and hows they conflict with current educational practice
  • collaboration
  • learning in context
  • mobile technologies also on the person
mentioned skill of learners to focus impact of using technolgy
learning in an upredicable contexts

finally "do or do not,there is no try." the impact of small projects rather than large scale bigger pcture.
how education can change in systematic ways to help equip learners for the future.

google reference by henry jenkins


Bob Harrison

did his excellent non navel gazing approach the role of mobile technologies in delivering the personalisation agenda .

the balanced look at the challenges that policy makers must address issues that the technology advances bring into everyday life and every school and every home.


Patt Gibbs Marie Jourbet Gibbs brsitol university the graduate school of education
seeing the the detail a up close view of learning using personal dvices.

look at how the impact on learners of mobile projects in Wolverhampton and Bristol .

  • What happened to teachers learners when devices entered there lives
  • making sense complex story
  • are we seeing a pedagogic shift
looking a school visit using wildkey software on a Bristol school field trip to forest of dean . Really interesting video clips with researcher teasing out what learners are doing while identifying mini beast . interesting reflection on how teachers can help learners scaffold the learning with materials or collected evidence on the device.

Second video telling or retelling a story using PDA using sketchy and pocket word in Wolverhampton school . role of teacher highlighted,differing approaches

Third video secondary in science how learners tries unsuccesfully to use a pda to sketch a graph using pocket excel . shows frustration of learner struggling to do a task not suitable for PDA .
  • Learner didn't understand sketch graph
  • poor understanding of software
  • role of small screen not visable to teachers
  • learner autonomy on small device difficult for teacher intervention.
Fourth video on speaking and listening or several lessons . using video of pupils peer preformance
brought out
  • purpose for using device
  • mobility
  • 1:1
  • tapping into the potential of the device
conclusion

  • context constraints
  • exploiting device potential
  • shoehorning learning into technlogy maybe not the correct approach
  • what is technology adding
  • implications forCPD for teachers
practitioner talked about
  • multi modality of approaches device support
  • changing role of teacher
  • role of CPD

Handheld learning day two the keynotes

In the keynote Doug Brown did and excellent opening and Jim Knight Schools minister gave a overview of the exciting times for education and ICT . He made the killer comment about its not about the device. Question does tech savvy Jim read my blog. Great showcase of video of handhelds in the wild in Wolverhampton. Also great ot see Jim responding to questions from the audience by txt. This service was supplied by txttools

Handheld 2007 3 Day two

Up very early getting ready for the day . The first day of Handheld 2007 proper a morning of key notes and an afternoon in which I am moderating a great session on emerging pedagogy .

Some great presenters in this session

Bob Harrison
Joceyyn Wisehart
John Traxler
Mark Van Hooft

really looking forward to the debate. Bring it on !!!!

Handheld 2007 2

Attended the Kaleidoscope special intrest group some great work mentioned by presenters in the update section including a plug for Molenet . The one I want to look up is project bluetooth from colleagues at Wolverhampton university . I've asked for the slides and will update you via a later blog posting
http://mlearning.noe-kaleidoscope.org/news/last-0-read730-display

Interesting discussion on the future of the sig which I suggest you engage with .

Orange free sim cards

interesting offer especially those of you tipping your toe in the mobile learning torrent .

see offer at http://shop.orange.co.uk/shop/freesimcard?WT.mc_id=ConFreGeAdd_0978


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Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Handheld Learning 2007 the Photostream

You maybe at the event or maybe not now see the pictures excuse the quality just put up so you get a feel for the event . I will add to this throughout the event unusually I am using my Canon EOS 400 10Megapixel camera so wild be uploading to flickr via WiFi rather than hammering my 3 g card

Handheld Learning is go

Well its here and the bad news is the seminar on the Molenet project has been withdrawn by LSN team at short notice .

The great news is by serendipity is that I have been asked to chair the pre conference session on Mobile Applications because sponsor jujitsu Siemens haven't turned :

Maths Amigo by Kate Hudson of Valiant Technology
Great approach that according to Kate and the american government is making a real difference with learners.

Wildkey using handheld GPS for data collection and field trips.

first time I've seen this approach demonstrated and frankly I was impressed !! Back to my green environment routes. The integration of gps,User Collected Content (a new phrase ?)and teacher designed activity. The idea of using the authoring tool to design content in other areas outside education maybe training sector was new to me and I am going to investigate further.

Sums Online by Dave Mcall designing handheld games that motivate learners and satisfy teachers.
Seems to be a really learner orientated product that learners love and teachers understand and can work with is great !!

Hebron Mc Neish demonstrating Red Halo

First time I have see Red Halo demostrated and Hebron showed the product well and I loved the way he showed how you can access the product using a range of devices, Devices such as a Nintendo DS, UMPC and Nintendo DS and a Wii

Dewe Llyods showing the tool synchronise.
First time I have seen a live demo . Again a very brave and successful presentation with a vast range of devices in the audience six at my counting. The ability for learners to interact with teachers and each other via synchronise and their device.

.

TV is Dead channel 4

Alice Taylor commisionig new media chaneel 4
Stuart Prebble managing director liberty bell
Andrew Chitty managing director Illumina digital
simon Sadhu president co founder imperial entrepreneurs


Channel 4 hosting the idea that DV is dead . working on the principal that the rise of new media is challenging TV. Current TV is allowing user to generate there own content and getting viewers online the chance to rate the quality of clips the most popular clips get bought and shown on sky and virgin . in 12 million homes.

Also looking at concept of aggregator sites with targeted advertising narrow step is an agregator

also mentioned the idea of TV and computers merging google tv is it coming . The lean back which is watching on tv rather than lean forward watching on computer .



choice may be a killer so trusted brands maybe act as a filter to cut the Cr^p,

The idea is total number of viewers will remin the same but but will shift in time and be an overall community but one seperatated by time and space

world war craft famlies dropped from 27 hours to 7 hours and people play 21hours on world of warcraft .

Andrew Chitty talked loads of sense as usual . suggesting that young people arent neccesarily the biggest users of broadband . older people are more people online. He expounded the of pubic publishers rather than public broadcasting ..

In the Q & A one of the young people talked about online and TV combining to give a 360 experience




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Monday, October 08, 2007

Four places in one day

No its not the latest single by crowded house.

its my schedule tomorrow.
Location 1 Immrasat Centre reviewing Molenet bids
Location 2 Central Halls Westminster Your Voice Counts: Ministry of Justice Youth Conference with the excellent Tim Ritches of Radio Waves
Location 3 New Hollands publishers Edgeware Road picking up review copy of taking pictures with your camera Phone
Location 4 Channel 4 Horseferry Road for TV is dead event . Hosted by the facebook Maestro of Steve Moore of Policy Unplugged on behalf of channel 4

Looking forward to the day and its the day before that Mobi fest of the year Handheld learning .

Great week Bring It On!!!

Saturday, October 06, 2007

British Sign Language on the IPOD Touch

Excuse the awful picture video quality . This post shows how I have taken two or three BSL sign off the QIA site http://www.slcresources4ict.net/index.php

I have downloaded them as quicktime clips loaded them into i-tunes converted them in I-tunes for the ipod video format and synched them with the ipod touch
Image one shows three signs on the device . Image shows two shows of signs mid display

and the movie shows whole operation




excuse the quality but respect the concept. The signs are free to download so how about we get permission to do an i-tunes store it migh look something like this !!

Would you like WiFi with your Big Mac

The Guardian has a great "M" story that Mc Donalds is going to offer free WiFi at its outlets. The plan is hotspots that are FREE at most of its 1200 restaurants .

http://wwPublish Postw.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/oct/06/internet?gusrc=rss&feed=11

This is another addition to the current of mobile becoming mainstream. Will you be using the service ??

Friday, October 05, 2007

Why Dont YOU !! The Cubie !!!

Why Dont You !!
As some of you know I am gigging at Futurelabs forthcoming conference "Why Dont You!" 30-31 October at immarasat Conference centre in London http://www.futurelab.org.uk/events/listing/why_dont_you

Doing a workshop called

BLOG OFF: these Web 2.0 tools will never make it into the learner
experience


Much has been made of learners being
so deeply embroiled in technology that they see it as commonplace, neutral and
invisible. We call it ‘Web 2.0’, they use it without thinking. Teachers are
failing to keep pace with awareness of this technology, never mind incorporating
it into their practice. This workshop involves a rapid tour of some Web 2.0
tools that are already used by learners, and examines issues such as the
barriers to teaching staff deploying these tools to support learning. The
session also gives participants a chance to create artefacts.

But what's really cool as part of the marketing they have sent out a assemble yourself cube with the programme on it

Well my children loved it see the flickr slideshow below or the link to the splashr one below it




Splashr


BTW isnt splashr cool find out more at www.splashr.com

I when in the office saw at least four cube around the office . Whats really cool is Dan Sutch "Crusader of the creative side" of Futurelab is going to run a competition getting people to email in photos of where they put their cubes.
Could this be the rubics cube of 2007 who knows but watch out for the competition.

Thursday, October 04, 2007

TerraNet - a mesh network based on mobile phones

Seb Schmollers influential fortnightly mailing turned up another gem on my favourite connectivity topic that of mesh connectivity or piggy back wireless how I often describe it to "Normal" people!!!

http://fm.schmoller.net/2007/09/terranet-ab-all.html

signs up to Sebs mailing using the link in the side bar If you havent done so already ( if not why not !!)

Redundant gadgets - tech & gadgets

A fun look at gadgets that have been and gone. Thanks to Peter Wain for this

Redundant gadgets - tech & gadgets

Saturday, September 29, 2007

PC world UMPC under £200


http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/product/seo/356181?source_id=aw&camp_id=HotUKDeals


Now its not the greatest machine in the world and battery doesn't last forever but it is half the price it was initially sold at !!! Thanks to Rob for pointing this out !!!!!

Friday, September 28, 2007

3G modem plus connectivity £10.00 a month at 3


Sign shot with my camera phone says it all. Connectvity on the move is getting cheaper !! £10 a month !GB download limit but at that price thats a lot of data!!

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

cyberbullying programme on radio 4

Please have a listen sadly on listen again and not a podcast come on BBC.. http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/bullyingcom/

a topic we should all take note of we should also remeber bullying has been going on for a long time !! Doesn't make it right stop it report it intervene !!

Media conversion

Thanks to James clay for this I will add James excellent blog www.elearningstuff.wordpress.com to my blog side bar links. He suggested this online media conversion site I use super on a tablet offline . Worth a look .


http://media-convert.com/convert

Molenet Launch

Back from Molenet launch event at the Oval www.molenet.org great event. Met loadfs of great new people and some really good old friends.

Highspots

Dan Sutch raving about media scape . Dans on life like me !!
Mick Mullane podcasting vodcasting and doing good stuff look out Mlearn in Melbourne he is coming your way !!!
Geoff Stead and Jo Colley of Tribal
The guys from Wildkey handheld stuff back to my green environment roots.
meeting up with mike Short of O2
The texting in of questions wonder where they got that idea from !!!!!

Down sides the apalling wifi get it together at the Oval !!
Not enough coffee !!

see the flickr photo stream excuse the dodgy shots but no time to edit !!

Absaloutely exhausted only one day and handhelds going to be three if you havent booked for handheld why the heck not . Be there or be a complete munchkin !!



Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

what to post for 232 post of the Year !! Watch the Burmese regime !!

WATCH THE BURMESE GOVERNMENT.

I havent done any political posts in my blogging career . I have posted about Alan Johnstons release in the past. This time I am posting about things much more serious. Just watch what happens in Burma over the next few days weeks. Excuse the post away from e-learning !!!

I am mindful of my favourite quote "for evil to triumph all it takes is for good men to do nothing !" I may corrupt it to support the situation in Burma "all its takes for evil to triumph is the world to look away"

Watch Burma comment and let your elected representatives know your are concerned and what are they doing about it !!!

Molenet Launch

at the Oval at the Molenet launch meeting loads of fellow crusader in the field of M-learning.

  • Dan Sutch
  • David Sugden
  • John Whalley
  • James Clay
  • Geoff Stead
  • Bob Harrison

the list could go on for ever . Putting photo's on flickr and blogging about the event !! Interestingly colleges and commercial sector partners here at the Oval.
  • Handheld learning showing Red Halo
  • Cy-Napp or Txttools
  • Toshiba
  • expsanys

Monday, September 24, 2007

wireless power holly grail gets nearer

This sounds very very hopeful good old engadget keeing usd bang up to date !!
http://www.engadget.com/2007/09/24/wipower-touts-breakthrough-in-wireless-power/

Will I do 3 posts tomorrow 232 is a magic number !!

last year I did 116 posts the year before 69. its nowhere near year and I am 3 posts away from doubling last years number of posts

Google docs helped me chart it !!

PDF to editable format using gmail

now this is neat and I am not advocating it !!! A way of using Google mail to email copy of locked PDF to your self and use Gmail's document handling capabilities to convert to html not perfect but still cool

http://labnol.blogspot.com/2005/12/convert-doc-xls-ppt-rtf-pdf-to-html.html

GOOGLE Presentation great resource

Thanks to Danno pointing this out after my post on Google blogs next week the presentation is great haven't been easily able to find the group its linked to . Danno can you help find the blog ?? it stemmed from . But view the presentation its great !!

http://docs.google.com/TeamPresent?fs=true&docid=ah4zsdj46b66_578cv4x7&pli=1



Its a technology that I think will change the way we work again !!
Made me think about how I use resources online to support presentations !! Off to lie down in a darkened room!!

Saturday, September 22, 2007

Handheld 2007 Mark Van Hooft presenting twice !!

Just back from Mobile and wirless'ing Glasgow and picked up through my feeds Mark Van Hoot is coming to Handheld. Mark is a really well respected member of the e-learning communitiy and he has view on things. Marks blog is worth a read you may not like what he says all the time but you should read it. Another great hit for Handheld2007 getting more excited !!!! How sad is that !!! 10,11,12th October 2007. BTW Mark mentions two sites were discount codes can be found .

http://ubiquitousthoughts.wordpress.com/2007/09/21/preparing-to-attend-handheld-learning-2007-or-the-wild-wacky-wireless-and-wonderful-world-of-mobile-learning
/

Friday, September 21, 2007

What google blog says about Google presentations

Googles own blog say some interesting things
Not wanting anyone to feel left out, we've made the presentation feature available in 25 languages; Google Apps customers can also access it as part of Google Docs.

The new presentations feature of Google Docs helps you to easily
organize, share, present, and collaborate on presentations, using only
a web browser.

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/09/our-feature-presentation.html

Whats also interesting that theyve done a video and interesting its on youtube and embedded in youtube player in the google blog. Interesting they didnt use googles own google video !! Look at the blog watch the video !!!

Blogging on a bus on the way back from Stansted !!


GOOGLE Presentation

Excuse the shouting I published a dodgy powerpoint of bad shots of Apple touch etc and Apple store in Glasgow on Google docs this morning I was surprised that I could. I then mention the to my fellow e enthusiast Rob Englebright and discovered they only launched it today been back a realise you can also create presentations in google docs and export them as zipped html to play locally !!! WOW WOW!!

Dont get me wrong its far from fully functioing powerpoint but with integration with google docs still quite cool!!!! Excuse the dodgy first attempt !!!

http://docs.google.com/Present?docid=dc7bzghg_49ds2w8h&fs=true

shots of Apples Products in Glasgow

The pictures of Apple Iphone and Apple touch and photos of touch on sale now in Glasgow Apple stir more deliveries today!!

view my dodgy photos of the devices on a powerpoint on google docs at http://docs.google.com/Present?docid=dc7bzghg_413xdc74&fs=true

EPICT conference future trends in learning

Mobile Learning and Online Communication

ajb1962@gmail.com

The normal caveat my view of what’s happening and its probably wrong. This is many way showcases excellent work that others are going to talk about

Plus if you want to keep up to date watch technology blogs my blog is www.andysblackhole.blogspot.com

Also subscribe to

Becta Technews
Becta Content developers news subscribe to both at
http://industry.becta.org.uk/display.cfm?page=1672
RSS feeds of BCC technology pages


1Power

1.1 Switch IT off

1.1.1http://www.pcpro.co.uk/html/switch_it_off/

PC pro ran a campaign this year investigating the amountof cash wasted through PC's being left on overnight.

It was quite suprising,

if you leave a pc on overnight it will quickly consume 1kWh of energy, meaning you are needlessly spending more than £35 per year. And do not think that putting it into standby will help: we found one PC that consumed 78W in this mode, only reducing the wastage to about £25.

If your college has 100 pc's that's possibly £3500/year



AS well as saving cash, the scheme is approved by the carbon trust, as helping to reduce CO2 emmisions.

1.2Batteries

1.2.1 Battery powered printer

Flexibility in delivery and assessment.

The advent of online testing for keyskills, and various other assessments can make a difference. The city and guilds online testing facility allows the test to be downloaded and put on a laptop and carried out to the workplace taking the test to the user. A portable printer powered by Lion battery pack means provisional results can be given instantly.

1.2.2 Battery projection device

you don't believe me ???

1.2.3 Fuel Cells

Forget the miniature vodka shots you will be carrying alcohol to top up your laptop. Fuel cells are going to be appearring very soon . The much vaunted $100 laptop using wind up technology will have spin offs elsewhere .Intel are also talking of parrallel product educational $100 device



2Devices

2.1 Tablets

New software that is ink enabled turning up all the time Reg Microsoft one note, Agile Go binder, Blackboard backpack. see Becta tablet PC evaluation http://www.becta.org.uk/research/research.cfm?section=1&id=3357

Power toys from Microsoft for tablet:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/tabletpc.mspx

Trend

1) slate

2) laptop plus keyboard . The days of tablet being less powerful than laptop are long gone

2.2UMPC

UltraMobile PC 's heres two I made earlier



http://technology.guardian.co.uk/weekly/story/0,,1856508,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=20



Q1 by samsung with added USB Keyboard (theyre tablets to)

UMPC 650 by Remtech

2.3Handheld device

As with UMPC couple of places to stay in touch if you know the future let me know



Is it Portable Digital Assistnat PDA or Education Digital assistant EDA

or is it an phoneww.handheldlearning.co.uk

Join PDA in education jiscmail list

PDA-EDU@JISCMAIL.AC.UK



I have seen the future and its Apple !!



2.4Memory Sticks

wireless usb memory is coming

2.5Games machines

2.5.1PSP

2 million devices in the UK by Christmas 5 million by Easter !!



with WiFI ability to run flash and browser capability



2.5.2Nintendo DS

2.5.3WII







2.6MP3 Players

IPOD released 2001 by September 2007 110 million world wide !!



stuff seen Glasgow yesterday link here

2.7Wireless projectors

3Connectivity

3.1Wi FI

8011b

8011g

8011n



Spanish firm Fon could change the model very Wi Fi 2.0

3.23 G

It isn't cheap but neither is paying for one off wireless hotspots. In major centre works well and most provincial towns have coverage

3.3Wi Max

WiMax will cover most of the UK witih two to three year . Intel trialling with University. Several city wide trials of wimax and mesh wireless technology being talked off

3.4GSM Edge

See document: happy-birthday-gsm-network.html

3.5Bluetooth

Bluetooth 1 10Metres

Bluetooth 2 100metres

4social software

4.1Blogs

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blogs



http://edublogs.org

blogger

http://www.blogger.com

4.2Wiki

A shared resource of web page allowing multiple users to edit

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki

PBwiki

http://pbwiki.com

Wiki spaces

http://www.wikispaces.com

4.3Subtopic

4.4RSS

RSS = Really Simple Syndication

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS_(file_format) (20th May 2006)



Web feeds

a push technology linked with stuff like

you can read feeds in live book marks in Firefox, www.bloglines.com , RSS reader in Google.



my bloglines are public www.blogslines.com/public/ajb1962

4.5Podcasting

Downloads of MP3 was definitely the emerging technology in education of 2004/2005 Podcasting was the emerging technology of 2005/2006

4.5.1 St Johns Podcast

Downloads of MP3 was definitely the emerging technology in education of 2005 Podcasting is the emerging technology of 2006 . Saint Johns Ambulance have even done simple First Aid advice as podcasts http://www.sja.org.uk/firstaid/info/default.asp . Look out for More and The Ferl website at becta is going to be doing a trial podcast in the new year

4.6Photosharing

Flickr

http://www.flickr.com



my photo's

http://www.flickr.com/photos/andysblackhole/



Picasa

http://picasa.google.co.uk

http://picasaweb.google.com/home

4.7Face book

www.facebook.com



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook



the UK now has 5.2m Facebook users

4.8MySpace

http://www.myspace.com



MySpace has cracked the 10 million user mark in the UK, meaning more people have put a profile up than drink bitter, according to the social networking website.

http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,,2122397,00.html

4.9Youtube/teachertube

See document: get_video.flv

5SMS phenomena

UK 4.5 billion text messages sent in March !!!

The majority of the now 2.5+ billion mobile subscribers are located in developing countries. This is a stunning new kind of event for our planet: the dominance of leading edge technology is emerging from marginalises places. That has not happened before, particularly on the enormous scale of the mobiles.



Pupils at a school in Buckinghamshire have been getting extra help with GCSE revision by texting their teachers. Far from banning mobile phones, Cottesloe School in Wing has decided to turn modern technology to its advantage in an attempt to improve results. Since Easter, Year 11 pupils have been able to message teachers from home with revision queries and get a text answer. The school said “text mentoring” had also seen teachers messaging pupils with revision prompts and exam tips.



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