Going to Banff the original in Scotland

Well this time its holday so will be blogging free for a week but sure to get loads of ideas. bye for now.

Missed me blogs second birthday

Well this was my first post on the 18th may 2005

http://andysblackhole.blogspot.com/2005/05/professor-david-morrison-at-bath.html

This is my latest
http://andysblackhole.blogspot.com/2007/05/mesh-technology-to-geeky-for-some-but.html

Theres been 338 posts in total when I've got some more time I will do a more fitting analysis of my blogging behaviour

Mesh technology to geeky for some but watch the technology

I have been following mesh technology for providing coverage connectivity for a while. The one laptop per child project has pushed it a long way with the help of the gods of mesh at MIT view this highly technical pdf poster on one of there trials http://web.media.mit.edu/~ypod/DL_May07.pdf

Plus the link to to the orielly site on emerging telephony http://www.oreillynet.com/etel/blog/2007/05/mits_olpc_pushes_bounds_of_mes.html

Better stop pretending I am not a geek .

Evironmental scan of e-learning in New zealand

Came across this another one for stumble upon. Its by Core-Ed formerly known as Future Lab New Zealand great presentation and worth a look shame quality on slide share wasn't better . Where ever you are worth contrasting with your own countries approach to e-learning . It is 6 months old but worth a look.

Another call for Papers on Mobile learning

already blogged the call for papers fro section on Emerging Mobile Learning Environments for Industries and Pedagogies read at http://andysblackhole.blogspot.com/search?q=International+Journal+

The call for papers is on two subject areas full details and links below.

"Information and Service Personalization for Mobile Learning"
"Mobile Learning and Knowledge Management: Issues in Intellectual Proximity"

see below:

But they've added another call papers on http://www.inderscience.com/browse/callpaper.php?callID=616

details
"Information and Service Personalization for Mobile Learning"

Guest Editors: Assoc. Prof. Fuhua (Oscar) Lin and Prof. Kinshuk and Prof. Rory McGreal, Athabasca University, Canada

Aims and Objectives

Mobile learning, or m-learning, has seen exponential growth in recent years, and increasing availability of high bandwidth network infrastructures, advances in wireless technologies and popularity of handheld devices have opened up new accessibility opportunities for education.

While the opportunities that m-learning presents us with are new, the challenges have been around for quite some time - smaller screen sizes, limited processing power, and reduced input capabilities are just few of the issues that still hinder the effective learning process. These challenges mean that adapting existing e-learning services and content to m-learning is not a trivial task.

This special issue deals with the techniques and pedagogies for personalized, adaptive and intelligent m-learning, and aims to include issues that cross the boundaries of software engineering, artificial intelligence, and information systems to bring solutions in m-learning context. This collection will serve as a forum for researchers and practitioners to discuss the state-of-the-art, present their contributions and set future directions in information and service personalization for mobile learning.

Subject Coverage

Information and service personalization research has potential to find solutions to various problems in effective m-learning, and it is timely to ask questions which include but are not limited to:

• What is the status of information and service personalization in m-learning?
• What are the requirements for such m-learning personalization?
• What are the unique issues that are specific to principles and technologies for modeling learners, building infrastructure/environments, designing learning content, and changing organizations for m-learning?
• How to deal with context awareness and adaptation in m-learning?

Notes for Intending Authors

Submitted papers should not have been previously published nor be currently under consideration for publication elsewhere

All papers are refereed through a peer review process. A guide for authors, sample copies and other relevant information for submitting papers are available on the Author Guidelines page

Important Dates

Full paper deadline: 5 June, 2007

Notification of acceptance and review results : 20 July, 2007

Revised submission deadline: 1 September, 2007

Feedback on revised submissions: 25 September, 2007

Camera-ready version deadline: 30 October, 2007

"Mobile Learning and Knowledge Management: Issues in Intellectual Proximity"
http://www.inderscience.com/browse/callpaper.php?callID=651

Guest Editors: Prof. Mounir Kehal, Prof. Maxime Crener, Prof. David Ansiau, International University of Monaco, Principality of Monaco

Aims and Objectives

Enterprises have turned to explicit - and even conceptualising on tacit - knowledge management to elaborate a systematic approach to develop and sustain the intellectual capital needed to succeed, the knowledge normally attributed to knowledge workers. This is complemented by structural capital, i.e. the structures, technologies, practices put in place by an organisation as an attempt to manage their specialist knowledge. Mobile learning would equally come under such an umbrella, enticing knowledge workers and managers within organisations to conduct work in a mobile manner.

One of the challenges for future mobile organisations will deal with how they can enhance communication channels and collaborate within and between their employees, customers and stakeholders. According to Liebowitz (Liebowitz, 2006), one technique that can help address this issue is social network analysis. Mobile organisations also need to develop new knowledge and learning strategies possibly under the umbrella of a knowledge exchange or sharing system, and especially as related to recognition and reward systems. Uden (Uden, 2006) suggests that activity theory, as a social and cultural psychological theory, can be used to design a mobile learning environment.

Existing theoretical work has paid limited attention to the role of intellectual proximity in facilitating knowledge exchange within clusters of organisations that operate within the same domain of knowledge.

A consensus suggests that users build a mental model from their interactions with artificial systems. Design of mobile devices needs tp to take into consideration the existence of a gap between the user’s viewpoint [interaction-oriented] and the designer’s viewpoint [development-oriented]. Enhancing mobile learning effectiveness requires narrowing this gap between execution and conception. Implementing new solutions for improving the effective use of mobile systems needs new methodological tools and a better understanding of the complexity of user’s mental construction, in line with their containment of the domain knowledge.

The purpose of this special issue is to expose writers and the eventual readership to topics aiming at the facilitation of mobile learning for knowledge workers, from differing and multidisciplinary perspectives.

Subject Coverage

This special issue aims at presenting a selection of papers addressing the topics indicated below, but is not limited to them:

• Knowledge management and mobile learning
• Knowledge flow and mobile learning
• Dissemination of practice and mobile learning
• Currently implemented applications for mobile learning
• Technologies that directly support mobile learning systems (devices, networks, tools etc.)
• Studies of mobile learning in practice
• Reviews of the application of mobile learning in multiple contexts
• Uses of mobile learning in professional learning environments, e.g., mobile health, mobile commerce
• Constraints in the delivery of mobile learning, e.g., human-computer interaction issues in mobile learning environments
• Mobile games for learning
• The role of Wikis, blogs, podcasts, messaging, other on-line tools and Web 2.0 components in mobile learning systems and as mechanisms to exchange/distribute knowledge
• Support for learner interaction and mobile collaborative learning
• Privacy and security issues in mobile learning
• Knowledge expropriation or hoarding issues in mobile learning
• The role of location based services in learning and sharing knowledge
• Organisational structures and mobile learning
• Management issues from mobile learning
• Design of user-friendly mobile devices
• Mental models emerging from interactions with mobile systems
• User's characteristics (age, gender, culture, expertise, etc.) and mobile learning
• Graphic user interface (GUI) design and mobile learning
• Mobile learning interactions and cognitive modeling

Notes for Intending Authors

Submitted papers should not have been previously published nor be currently under consideration for publication elsewhere

All papers are refereed through a peer review process. A guide for authors, sample copies and other relevant information for submitting papers are available on the Author Guidelines page

Important Dates

Full paper deadline: 1 September, 2007

Notification of acceptance and review results: 1 November, 2007

Camera-ready version deadline: 6 January, 2008

Major piece of research into Mobile learning in the European Union

So if youve got a project friends at Ericsson would like to hear about details contact desmond.keeganatericsson.com spot deliberate mistake to slow those dreaded sp*mmers.
They are doing a report on mobile learning across all EU members cool eh !!

the Irack

Sorry but this made me laugh BTW coming close to buying a Mac !!!

Analysis traffic on blogs

Regular readers will know I have been using clustrmaps to track number of visitors a day and where they are from. You can see clustrmaps graphic in my sidebar. I also want to tell readers that for the last week or so I have started using google analytics to track visits in a more detailed way.
Well after a false start a month ago ( poor insertion of code on my part) I got it working earlier this week and its great. Just yesterday the upgraded http://analytics.blogspot.com/
so if your interested in checking traffic , type of devices etc check it out.

life imitating art or is Google imitatting Skype video calls on google talk

Well I use both Skype and Google talk they are both good ;-).
If this article is to believed google are lining up google talk to have video added to it just like Skype has had for 18 months ( I think its that long!).
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,131048-c,webtelephonyconferencing/article.html
Interesting times

Google get personal and inclusive becomes closer to A9

With the recent launch of I-google a brand new name for the personalised search pages and todays overhaul of the famously spartan functional and clean google search allowing searching across video blogs the web etc. The big news is that these choices are via a DROP DOWN
amazing. The interesting bit is the comparison with Amazons A9 search personalisation technology.

The googlezon prediction of the epic video in earlier post http://andysblackhole.blogspot.com/2007/03/epic-2014-now-2015-is-out-compare.html

MLearn 2007 early bird deadline for submissions approaching.

Got thank my fellow M learning protagonist Elizabeth.Hartnell-young Of Nottingham University for making me aware of this. I prsented at Mlearn2006 in Banff Alberta and it was great Melbourne should be even better. I cant go unless one of you blog readers fancies giving me a free flight ;-))

We are rapidly approaching the early bird deadline for this year's mLearn conference in Melbourne 16-19 October. www.mlearn2007.org Please pass on to your networks!

Interoperability of ICT in Education event promoted by European Education Partnership

One for your diary

Wednesday 13th June, 2007,10.00am-4.00pm.

Interoperability of ICT in Education -

- Will it serve the needs of National Initiatives?

Never before has there been such a strong need for ICT systems in education to inter-operate. A number of very significant national initiatives in the UK depend critically on interoperability. The conference will discuss whether development of interoperability is on track to make these initiatives a success or whether further action is needed. The initiatives potentially at risk include:

- Implementation of learning platforms.

- The Building Schools for the Future programme.

- Personalisation of learning.

- The 14-19 Diplomas.

To reserve a place at the meeting and for full details, please go to www.eep-edu.org or email Sarah Ewing, E.E.P. Administrator, Sarah@eep-edu.org.

The E.E.P. is assembling a range of speakers drawn from industry, education and national/regional agencies, to provide a view of the current state of play with regard to development of interoperability. This will be followed by open discussion to identify where action is satisfactory and where it needs to speed up or be started.

The topics to be covered are:

- Work on UK SIF (Schools Interoperability Framework) and MIAP (Moving Information Across Partners) and how these will impact on interoperability of school/college MIS and VLE (learning platform) systems, and the MLE systems envisaged for BSF.

- Interoperability of content with school/college learning platforms and end-user devices, including issues relating to the use of handheld devices, interactive whiteboards, social networking sites and new devices that are being developed.

- Developments to enable single-sign-on to federated systems and diverse sources of content, such as Shibboleth, and inter-operation of the networks that will be required to enable the 14-19 Diplomas to be offered nationwide with equality of provision.

- Best practice standards for management of school/college networks to achieve a balance between child safety and network security, while permitting access to the range of content, software and social networking sites that educators need in order to be able to help young people learn effectively and develop safe online practices.

Booking linkand detail can be found at http://www.eep-edu.org/about_start4.htm

Learning Indian Language on your mobile Phone

Having a great fondness to India and speaking a little bit of Hindi but no literacy in reading it this was of interest from http://www.thinkdigit.com/thinkdigit_2007/index.php?action=article&prodid=656

Certainly not a niche market India being one of the largest and fastest growing economies in the world.

The hipster PDA

Why have a PDA why not a hipster pda a bunch of cards held together with a bulldog clip impressive eh !!! Even fits on your keyring



This even made the free paper the metro



the definitive description at http://wiki.43folders.com/index.php/Hipster_PDA



Trouble organising your hipster PDA tips here

http://www.43folders.com/2005/01/08/organizing-your-hipster-pda

















Now thats what I call a gadget !!!

test

Its not about the device

Harking back to a killer remark made by Geoff Stead of CTAD Tribal of being device agnostic I have been reflecting on this. While on a run from Battersea in London to St Pauls along the Thames late last night gave me time to think. Passing tourists taking photo's with Phones small large cameras, runners listening to Ipods and other MP3 and people talking texting on mobiles I thought why should education be any different.
The Lord of the rings type quest for "one device to rule them all" of some mobile learning protaganists I personally feel is misplaced. If you are looking a mobile its got to be on premise that Mike Sharples of Nottingham University puts forward idea of Mobile learners not Mobile Learning

So its a combination of devices that will emerge phones,tablets smart phones MP3/MP4 players and even content on conventional PC's and importantly portable storage devices.

Its strikes me connectivity and remote and local hosting of content and technologies such as good old SMS and RSS will all have a role to play devices are a issue but if you wait for the killer device we will keep waiting and waiting and waiting !!!
seee

wearable computing or is it just an excuse to sell you ****

Is this kind of stuff useful I run and bike and can sort of see the appeal. I think the old style 1990's frontpage might be making me feel all nostalgic

http://www.htl-wireless.com/

M-learning content, practices and emerging standards

Definitely an Antipodean flavour to postings this evening great posting from the online teacher network
http://onlineteachernetwork.edublogs.org/2007/05/11/m-learning-content-practices-and-emerging-standards/

following the link through the supporting website
http://e-standards.flexiblelearning.net.au/background/mlearn_bckgrnd.htm
The standards make an interesting read.
http://e-standards.flexiblelearning.net.au/docs/m-standards-guide-v1-0.pdf

what are we doing in northern hemisphere the m-internet (truly mobile internet) is coming if not all ready here !!

NewZealands first mobile learning conference

Huge heads up to Selena and her great blog http://mportfolios.blogspot.com/
for helping me spot past this event which had 30 people attend dont snigger. When handheld learning 2005 was put together in the UK Graham Brown Martin of www.handheldlearning.co.uk planned a event for 30 odd people and got two hundred for handheld learning a year later he got 600 plus .

So it will grow and great presentations archive can be viewed http://molta.massey.ac.nz/massey/depart/sciences/conferences/molta/molta-presentations.cfm

and Selena's blog posting of event here

so good luck to them for further conference maybe podcasting the prsentations etc next time.

Moving Learning 2007

Based in Utrecht in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom

see teaser preview of Elliot Massie keynote

http://www.youmoveme.com/speakers/elliottmasie.asp

main conference website
http://www.youmoveme.com/

1st International Workshop on Pen-based Learning Technologies

Now what an interesting name for a conference one for all you tablet and PDA handheld device fans

subtitled
Enabling advanced graphical, multimodal, and mobile learning interactions

Handheld technology and pen-based input devices (e.g.,Tablet PC, PDA, Origami-UMPC, digital pen and paper, graphic tablets, pen-mouse) provide novel opportunities to develop:

1) more natural interaction and collaboration

2) multimodal, multi-party feedback and communication

3) mobile learning.

conference site link at http://plt2007.ing.unict.it/HTML/pag00.htm

E government bulletin piece on how Local Authorites are mobilising

More M becoming mainstream Are we mobile Mavericks becoming mobile mainstream !!!

Councils Mobilise For Future Challenges
by Derek Parkinson.

For the first time, a comprehensive study has been made of the growing use of mobile technologies in local authorities across the UK, looking at the types of product in use, the service areas where they are deployed, and how they help to deliver policy objectives. It is based on responses from more than 1,200 staff from 392 local authorities in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, 83.8 per cent of the total.

register for regular bulletin to get more detail at http://www.headstar.com/egb/

PEW internet & american life project

A Typology of Information and Communication Technology Users
Interesting report on mobility and technology headlines US figures of course !

• 8% of Americans are deep users of the participatory Web and mobile applications

• Another 23% are heavy, pragmatic tech adopters – they use gadgets to keep up with social networks or be productive at work
  

• 10% rely on mobile devices for voice, texting, or entertainment

• 10% use information gadgets, but find it a hassle

• 49% of Americans only occasionally use modern gadgetry

and many others bristle at electronic connectivity

full report here

As interesting is the questionnaire and returned data which can be found here

On to mine for killer mobile behaviour facts

Take their quiz tio see what kind of technology user your are link here

BBC Radio 4 in Business Generation next

In Business hears about Generation Next, the new consumers with ideas of their own. They know what they want and companies are paying attention … all round the world. Peter Day hears about the new tastemakers. Worth a listen visit the webiste here where you can read background listen again download or set up download as regular podcast feed. What pleased me was the non europe centric reporting well done BBC.

Going native at going wild at in the wild

In the wild at channel 4 today with what seems like a who's who of interesting people in the social networking world in the UK !!Event doesnt start till 9.30 but already picked up interesting stuff from the related virtual conference looking forward to it. Promise to blog !!!

see the excellent programme here

I give up just reads Ewan Mcintosh's blog posting out blogged by Scotland best blogger !!! read ewans blog here

Book Not Ready for Print? You Can Whip Up an Audiobook for a Podcast for Now

Great article from New York Times talking of role podcasting in marketing paper books an interesting read.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/07/technology/07audio.html?_r=1&ref=technology&oref=slogin

Local Gov TV: Expert Panel Advice for Successful Adoption of Mobile Working

Yet another sign mobility is major issue in public service deployment.



In this major programme, experts from across the public services -
local and central government, acute and primary care - contribute their
hands-on experience in a variety of mobile and flexible working
projects to help you consider and introduce mobile working to support
your organisation's improvement needs.



Expert Panel Topics:



The impact of mobility on public service delivery and targets

Case examples and applications

Strategic challenges and approaches to mobile deployment

Staff engagement and change management

Technology solutions and selection



These
topics aim to assist your organisation's understanding of the benefits
and opportunities of mobile working to meet your own and Government's
performance targets and to provide guidance on the key areas of
business planning, staff change and technology decisions to aid the
successful deployment of mobile working.



Participating in the panel are:

• Professor Gary Smith, Consultant in Critical Care at Portsmouth Hospitals, NHS Trust
• Iain Carpenter, Professor for Human Ageing, Centre for Health Service Studies, University of Kent
• Ian Laughton, Director of Nomad
• Steve Reynolds, Deputy Chair, Mobile Data Association
• Chris Chant, Chief Information Technology Officer, DEFRA
• Jacky Scobell, ICT Strategy Manager, Kent CountyCouncil

watch the programme at

http://www.egovtv.tv/content.asp?programmedetail=1326

RIP Cassette tape a salient moment

The news today that Curry's are stopping selling blank audio tapes struck a chord with me . In recent presentations I have contrasted my life and what I have seen with my eldest son Linden a name derived for the lime Tree not Linden Labs in second life. In doing some research using wikipedia I discovered that the notable invention of the year of my birth (1962) was the compact cassette invented by Phillips who didnt take any royalties from it .



http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/05/07/ntapes07.xml

 

The parallel with the IPOD first sold in 2001 are marked how long the ipod as we know it last . The figure recently reached on 100 million iPODS sold



I also contrast he is now seven and I was seven in 1969 the year man landed on the moon .

but don't worry 88million tapes were sold in Turkey and 80 million in India . The Taliban also tried to ban them in Afghanistan

sleek well loaded Toshiba Satellite A205-S4617

A pure technology review and very positive as a a "road warrior" highly mobile worker I want a machine with high functionality and this could be it. weight is an issue but my major concern is reliability and good design.

UK price anyone



http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/26/technology/26laptop.html?ex=1178683200&en=6012b9d402c8fc75&ei=5070

Article from New York times "Seeing No Progress, Some Schools Drop Laptops"

Interesting article about how one institution is dropping laptops for pupils what ever your view worth a read. Interesting comments on infrastructure freezing with mass morning log on. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/04/education/04laptop.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5070&en=3275c135580cc703&ex=1179201600&emc=eta1

10th- 12th October Handheld 2007

The headliners include.

Stephen Crowne of Becta doing the Keynote followed by visionary and digital native ? Marc Prensky
details at
http://www.handheldlearning2007.com/pages/home.php

If your serious about M-learning you've got to be there.

Flyer can be downloaded at http://www.handheldlearning2007.com/docs/hhl2007.pdf

MLearning papers and periodicals coming thick and fast

This time in the Special Issue of Educational Technology Magazine on Mobile Computing

http://ubiquitousthoughts.wordpress.com/2007/05/03/special-issue-of-educational-technology-magazine-on-mobile-computing/

Thanks to Mark van 't Hooft of RCET at Kent state University . Looking around to find someone who taking the journal abstract looks good though. The contents list is enough to wet your appetite,.

Educational Technology Magazine, vol. 47, no. 3
CONTENTS
Special Issue on Highly Mobile Computing

Introduction to Special Issue
Mark van ‘t Hooft and Philip Vahey (link to article)

Educational Technology for the Mainstream: A call for Designing for Simplicity and Reliability
Cathleen Norris, Namsoo Shin, & Elliot Soloway

Highly Mobile Devices, Pedagogical Possibilities, and How Teaching Needs to Be Reconceptualized to Realize Them
Karen Swan, Annette Kratcoski, & Mark van ‘t Hooft (link to article)

Using Handhelds to Link Private Cognition and Public Interaction
Philip Vahey, Jeremy Roschelle, & Deborah Tatar

Teacher Uses of Highly Mobile Technologies: Probes and Podcasts
Robert Tinker, Paul Horwitz, Stephen Bannasch, Carolyn Staudt, & Tony Vincent
Classroom Connectivity: Increasing Participation and Understanding Inside the Classroom
Stephen Hegedus

What Happens to “Writing Across the Curriculum” with Handheld Devices?
Louise Yarnall, Sara Carriere, Tina Stanford, Carmen Manning, & Bob Melton

Can Handhelds Make a Difference? Lessons Learned from Large and Small Scale Implementations
Christine Tomasino, Kellie Doubek, &Meg Ormiston

Learning Bridges: A Role for Mobile Technologies in Education
Giasemi Vavoula, Mike Sharples, Peter Lonsdale, Paul Rudman, & Julia Meek

In and Beyond the Classroom: Making Informal Learning Truly Ubiquitous with Highly Mobile Devices
Yimei Lin

Handheld Computers in Education: An Industry Perspective
Mark van ’t Hooft and Philip Vahey (link to article)

Blurring Lines with Mobile Learning Games
Eric Klopfer

Creating a Powerful Learning Environment with Networked Mobile Learning Devices
Valerie M. Crawford

Education’s Intertwingled Future
Judy Breck

The industry perspective is worth a read http://www.rcet.org/research/publications/ET_May-June_2007_industry.pdf

Notice Graham Brown Martin of handheld learning gets his views in as a industry luminarie good on Graham.

Keep your eye on the ball I missed charting being added to google spreadsheets

After raving about RSS feeds and watching them via bloglines,google and google alerts I've missed something massive. Andy repeat after me you will register for the google system blogs feed. Because I missed launch of charting from google docs. Ok its not as exciting as when they finally come out with google presenter (or whatever they call it) but it still pretty cool .http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2007/04/google-spreadsheets-charts.html



also interesting article on the same blog why comparing google docs,google mail to Microsoft office isnt a similar comparison according to google but the cynics amongst you would say well they would say that wouldnt they. . http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2007/02/google-docs-spreadsheets-vs-microsoft.html

High Mobility and Pedagogy article

Highly Mobile Devices, Pedagogical Possibilities, and How Teaching Needs to Be Reconceptualized to Realize Them

by Research Center for Educational Technology Kent State University

Thanks to fellow Mlearning protagonist Bob Harrison of Support for Education and Training http://www.setuk.co.uk or this. Interesting tack I have to agree with new styles of supporting and delivering teaching and learning need to be examined and evaluated.

pdf link here http://www.rcet.org/research/publications/ET_May-June_2007_swan.pdf

The research centre for educational technology is where articles from and a group to book mark watch. link to there home page here

The UMPC dies. And no one notices. not sure on this one ??

From TG Daily

We just started to like the concept of the UMPC. But the truth of the matter is that the UMPC, at least in the shape we saw these little computers over the past year, will join the Tablet PC in a niche, far away from the eyes of the mass market. The UMPC will disappear from our radar as quickly as it surfaced.

http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/31899/113/

Dont know about some of these comments tablets I think still will happen the UMPC isn't quite there yet but does it have a place or is it to big to be ultra mobile or to small to be useful . Be interesting to see what happens see slide show from intels key analyst spring forum here

swimming and technology

Excuse the poor image. Got up really early this morning and down the local pool for 40 minutes while churning out the lengths alternating crawl and breaststroke had a really nice social experience with technological angle. A blind swimmer was swimming with his sighted friend. what I was really impressed by was this waterproof tally counter that the sighted swimmer was pressing to record every time they did two laps . Wonderful and simple technology for all those that lose count of the number of length while swimming. Is it a Mobile tool me thinks it is !! Yoursd £11.00 on ebay

Google alerts,bloglines or technorati watch lists

Well with finally joining technorati and setting up a watch list I know have all three. I am intrigued over next few months to see what the three methods of following RSS feeds ( I think thats what they do") turn up will keep you posted. Using mlearning and mobile learning in google alerts and technorati . Ewan Mcintosh raved about watch lists on Tuesday in London

more info technorati watch lists at link

Google alerts sign up here

Poetry resources for mobile learners

A post especially for Jo Colley of Tribal CTAD who along with being a fellow Mlearning advocate is a keen poet. Jo and I presented at Mlearn2006 in Canada and after I returned home Jo on a trip in the rockie shot some stunning video footage with her mobile phone of a bear outside the car in the snow. This she tells me inspired her to write poetry about the incident.


This post on free poetry resources for handheld device. Three other things caught my attention:

1. Mobipocket my eye was reference to mobipocket resources I have been using mobipocket to download and carry BBC news website content around in my PDA and read offline
2. Multiple platform picking up on both Mike Sharples of Nottingham University's catch phrase of mobile learners not mobile learning and Geoff Stead of Tribal CTAD device agnosticism.
   
3. Scavenger hunt involving what I call active learning
   

worth checking out http://www.k12handhelds.com/curriculum.php

Legend in his own breakfast time. Ewan McIntosh "Talk Tuesday"

A very early morning to you. Yesterday quickly enroute to work went to a Talk Tuesday event organised by Redhouse Lane by Ewan Mcintosh of Learning and Teaching Scotland only for 1 hour but great all the same. Ewans influential education blog is in my side links. The link to his posting form the days event is here
Great stuff Ewan for lots of things refocussing my thinking in the following respects:

The main heavyweight ones are:

1. Capability of young people making me rethink what young people are doing and what there capable of:
2. How much the world and education has changed and is changing.
3. How simplistic my blog is (embarrassed of the blogosphere)
4. How slow conventional companies and adults are to appreciate the changes happening around them

The lighter weight but on reflection as important :

1. Importance of social bookmarking I use bloglines for feeds but don't post and share the link although they are public. http://www.bloglines.com/public/ajb1962 I don't use delicious and I should?
2. I should sort out an online file store for useful documents my existing google docs is the obvious one.

Now I think I got very different things out of Ewans presentation than others at the event. The main thing were :

1. meeting Ewan in person for the first time
2. Reference having your own blog quoted by Ewan from in his presentation thanks Ewan !
   
3. Astute observation in a seemingly throwaway remark on first meeting . "Andy you can spot a blogger by the way they saunter". Can you surely not ?? or maybe you ca.

Great stuff Ewan and final point for now you realise someone is on the edge or is it in the thick of the new world when talk of taking a photo of their impressive breakfast that morning !!