Twitter,Facebook and SMS on TED

While news from Iran streams to the world, Clay Shirky shows how Facebook, Twitter and TXTs help citizens in repressive regimes to report on real news, bypassing censors (however briefly). The end of top-down control of news is changing the nature of politics.

it makes me think how new media like twitter,facebook and not so new txt (AKA SMS) is a powerful tool . As I face my up and coming challenge http://momlejog.blogspot.com/ http://www.justgiving.com/andyblack1 and look at ways of keeping friends,supporters family informed while highly mobile on a bike . This is a flippant example but the parrallels between complex political situation and my own personal challenge are to me very marked .

Whays interesting even on election day which network was turned off interupted first the sms network interesting eh !!

following COSN conference in Austin Texas via twitter

Well I know Vanessa Pittard presented our web 2.00 work commissioned in UK schools by Becta at the Consortium fro School Networking Schools conference in the USA but other presentations are there as well .

http://www.k12schoolnetworking.org/2009/index.cfm they are also running a twitter feed http://twitter.com/CoSN

Worth following you can find conference programme here
Full conference programme can be downloaded here

some UK flavoured ones


Stephen Lucey of Becta presented on
TH501: UK Leadership: Home Connection and
Innovation Strategies


Another UK prsentation by
W306: Integrating SMS for education – the
European experience
MR412
Steve Sidaway, Sales & Marketing Director, txttools.co.uk,
Leeds, UK
Mobile phones are now universally available and accepted.
They are transforming how students interact and with each
other, with organizations and with ideas, and this is only the
beginning. The technology is there but each university, college
and school must explore and experiment with what it can do
for them and their students. This presentation will draw case
examples from one of the largest education message
communities in Europe.

Long way away but whats distance with technology anyhow.

Children’s Use of Mobile Phones – An International Comparison

worth a read

Children’s Use of Mobile Phones – An International Comparison
To gain a better understanding of how children use their mobile phones across the world, the GSMA has collaborated with NTT DoCoMo on research comparing children’s use of mobile phones. The report “Children’s Use of Mobile Phones – An International Comparison” was published in February 2009 with NTT DoCoMo’s Mobile Society Research Institute (MSRI), with support from KT Freetel (KTF). It compares mobile phone use by children in five countries - Japan, Korea, China, India and Mexico.
Over 6,000 children between the ages of 9 and 18 and their parents were surveyed on a range of questions on their use, attitudes and feelings towards mobile phones.

Whilst the main factor affecting children’s mobile phone ownership is their age (for each additional year in age, an additional 4% of children own a mobile phone), the network effect of friends starting to use mobile phones was also found to be a key trigger for take up of phones by children across all the countries surveyed.

Gender, parental age, parental income and ownership of video games and computers were also found to have an effect on ownership of phones across all the surveyed countries.
Gender - 4% more girls owned a mobile phone than boys, and 9% more girls who did not own a mobile phone wanted to.

• Parental age - the older the parents, the older the children are when they first start to own mobile phones.
• Computers and video games - children owning personal computers and video games are more likely to own mobile phones and start using them at an earlier age.
• Parental Income – the higher their parents’ income, the more likely children are to own a mobile phone.
• Contrary to theories that mobile phones can be an unwelcome distraction for children, the study found no effective correlation between children’s ownership and usage of mobile phones and the time they spent on other activities.

The study also examined children’s attitudes to mobile phones and the ways in which mobiles may influence them. It found that girls, more than boys, view their phones as essential tools in their lives and that children who use mobile e-mail/SMS more frequently tend to show higher levels of trust in new media such as the Internet and slightly reduced trust in traditional media including TV and newspapers.

The full report can be downloaded from the GSMA website at http://www.gsmworld.com/documents/Final_report.pdf

Learning Lab free TXT in education event

other technologies products are available ;-) Now I myself am on jury service but a chance to see Mike Short of O2 do a keynotes got to be worth a shot and its free.

Learning Lab and Edutxt are pleased to announce its one day conference at Priorslee Hall, Telford at the Shropshire Campus of the University of Wolverhampton.

Every student and 98% of parents have a mobile phone capable of sending and receiving SMS text messages. It is undeniably socially and digitally inclusive. Desktop SMS is now being used in hundreds of Universities, Colleges and Schools. This is your opportunity to find out from peers why.

This one day FREE* event is designed to give you an insight into how colleges and universities are utilising this simple technology to dramatically improve the way they communicate with their students and peers.

Learn from people who have been using this technology every day for years Experience practical case examples delivered by users
Understand how you will improve your service to students

Keynote by Mike Short, Vice President of Research and Development O2 register for your FREE* place now at:

Web: http://www.learninglab.org.uk

alternatve link and details here

Internet Overtakes Newspapers as News Source Item from Pew research

Item from Pew research no surprise here but another sign of changing times. my only question is how do you define television any more


link at http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1066/internet-overtakes-newspapers-as-news-source

some key graphs below.



this great table from Pew shows for the young the internet outstrips TV

US SMS growth suggest wider growth of mobile globally

Thanks to Liam Lowe for this

Portio Research have a new research report out which states: link here


 The mobile messaging market is expected rake in $130 billion in revenues by the end of the year, and is on pace to climb to $224 billion by 2013.
At that level, mobile messaging will make up 60 percent of all non-voice service revenues.

At least some of those increased revenues might be due to the higher price of a text message and operators' push to encourage more bundled services at the point of sale.

Interestingly enough, although the U.S. is considered late to the SMS party, Americans now send double the number of messages that Europeans average each month.

Now its seems this data is quite robust and interestingly other data suggests qwerty keyboards on mobiles are more common in the US.

Has the American consumer between the network confusion (caused  US telecoms) and got the mobile bug .

From studying google alerts for mobile over 18 months its seems from UK and European domination the most often picked up mobile learning leads are the US and India.

Predictions for 2009 the world is mobile not. The UN report earlier this year suggesting the next billion internet users will be mobile internet users back this up.

Teddies in space make the international and national media

Greetings from Berlin at Online Educa. Geoff Stead sent me this and its great because the learners are the hero's and there bears.

I am using the story to open my presentation on next generation learning very apt in the home of the teddy bear "the stieff bear"  .

Looks at Geoffs posting this is so cool and hopefully my audience will love it

http://moblearn.blogspot.com/2008/12/teddies-and-telephones-in-space.html

Unsung hero of mobile learning gets recognition from his peers

One of the podcasting and sms guru of the FE (tertiary or Community College sector for non UK readers) recieve recognition form his peers at recent Mlearn conference.

Mick Mullane the man that made go and get a Mac and then a Ipod touch but also rages about about projects not workng with learners own devices has finally got some reward.

http://www.scarborougheveningnews.co.uk/news/Award-for-college39selearning-pioneer.4651473.jp

Mick is a great presenter that mixes technolgy with a healthy dose of pragmatism to showcase his work at his college combining SMS and pod and vodcasting . He is one of the rare few to mix classroom teaching and learning examples of mobile learning but importantly the use of the technology in day to day running of a college as a business.

Well done Mick well deserved.

Thomas Cochrane views on Mlearn

Not the same as mine but still valid he like the SMS stuff well done Steve !!!!

http://thomcochrane.wordpress.com/2008/10/15/mlearn-2008/

100 facebook friends

Well Ewan Micintosh was my 50th facebook friend and interestingly he has a link to my 100th Carole Fetcher of intutitive media . Carole Ewan and Marc Prensky and Stphen Heppel and Keri Facer of MMU were on a panel at handheld Learning 2008 . I asked a question of them about the elephant in the room holding up progressing the education system via the Txttools sms system used very effectivelly at the conference . I will post there responese later . Whats really scary I looked up Carole earler on facebook today and nearly did a friends request but was halted by dodgy connectivity so Carole you got there first .


All in all top event handheld learning top event and meal out last night was great !!

SMS Burma Donations by SMS

Thanks Mike for pointing this one out !! from 160 characters.org UK mobile operators have have set up a SMS donation shortcode for the
Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) to support the Burma / Myanmar
disaster appeal. Text D0NATE to 83696 to make a £1.50 donation.


http://www.160characters.org/news.php?action=view&nid=2583

Well done uk mobile industry

from Sky


Stephen Fry on the BBC for Dec

So go on get your cash going somewhere it can make a difference victims dont choose the regime they live under !!!

Article by Ken Banks looking at Reaching out with Mobile technology with the humble SMS

Interesting article by Ken Banks at a range of uses of mobile technology in a range of countries and situations. read pdf of article at
http://www.kiwanja.net/miscellaneous/Didactics_kiwanja.pdf



What I find interesting is the range of uses his discussion on high end and low end devices .Great to see Flora and Fauna international getting a plug I have had the pleasure of working with both Martin Hollands and Mike Appleton in the past who were bothwent onto work for FFI . The link to this Wildlive project detail is here
http://www.kiwanja.net/wildlive!.htm

Ken Banks website also looks well worth a look.

http://www.kiwanja.net/

Andy in print in publication education business

The article I wrote on "Mobile Learners ,not Mobile Learning" on behalf of Becta has been publshed Ok its not a thesis but it has come out ok especially pleased to get sms refrences and environmental angle in there.
Nice to see a publcation that publishes whole articles on the web. Read article at http://www.educationbusinessuk.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=336&Itemid=10

'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

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

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.

Mobile Education article in the Guardian

Major piece by guardian on mobile learning . Amazingly my quote is viewed as a dissenting voice.

But of course there are one or two dissenting voices. Andy Black, mobile technologies adviser for the government ICT in education agency, Becta, warns: "We are seeing a divide between schools and further and higher education in the use of mobile technology. Schools follow the Stevens report for the Department of Health in 2005 - Mobile Phones and Health - that recommends use of mobiles for children should be minimised." But he says FE and HE take a more pragmatic view: "They realise the penetration of mobiles among young people is enormous. There is an emerging body of evidence that mobile learning technology is highly motivational."

Regular readers will know my passion for the use of mobile technology with learners. Really interesting read available online but I am off to buy a hard copy. Huge plug for Hand Held Learning conference.

http://education.guardian.co.uk/link/story/0,,2170987,00.html

Mlearn melbourne 2007 ;Making the connection

OK I cant go but youve got to follow this sign up for the newsletter updates at least http://www.mlearn2007.org/newsletter.php#mobile_learning

I wish Caryl Oliver conference chair and colleagues a good one !! Caryl has done some great stuff with FE type learners. Great also to see a UK company doing the sms
side of the conference.

I love Five Quick Strategies to ease into using mobiles for learning

• Think of mobiles as mini-computers: call them by a new name!
• Think of mobiles as tools to share, not just for individuals
• Think of learning, as well as social applications
• Focus on creation, rather than consumption
• Develop etiquette for mobiles with students

so go one register for the newsletter better still get there. Sell the Mac, the pet or whatever but get there !

The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning outnow

The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning is recently published with some interesting stuff from old Mlearning crew and those up and coming new faces great stuff.Can be viewed downloaded at http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/issue/view/29

TXT 4 HELP WITH UR KIDS Government launches new plan to help parents by text messages and social networks

you may not like this but further evidence of mobile world impacting on everyday life a worthwhile development Goverment announce innitiative press release found at http://www.dfes.gov.uk/pns/DisplayPN.cgi?pn_id=2007_0124

TXT 4 HELP WITH UR KIDS Government launches new plan to help parents by text messages and social networks

Parents will be able to receive text and instant messages to help them with their children, thanks to a £34m new initiative launched today by Children’s and Families Minister Kevin Brennan.

Using phone helplines and the internet, ‘Parent Know-How’ will signpost parents to information and support services. It will be targeted at people who may struggle to find the help they need – such as the parents of disabled children, fathers and those from disadvantaged communities. Kevin Brennan, Children’s and Families Minister said: “We want to support those parents who seek help with bringing up their children. By improving phone line support and setting up text messages, instant messages and social networks, we will provide help for parents when it suits them best.”

Interesting approach or waste of time leave decision up to you