Handheld learning 2009

Well back home after packed 3 days ! completely interacted out an intense round of meeting mates old and new and the most intense twitter streamof any event ive been to. Forget gentle stream think ranging torrect . Whats interesting after a mention of the P word "Prensky" now I thiking maybe digital natives was a good model when the book Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants published in 2001 but it doesnt work for me now.

It seems ageist and almost one size fits all young people. They are not uniform but are a diverse and wide ranging landscape of skills and attiutude. I do believe adults can teach very young children to fear technology . The phrase stop playing with X you will break it springs to mind. Mick Waters used the idea that young people have gadgetgumption and we breed it out of them over the early years of school .
The idea I most like at the moment and would like your help to build on is one of  Residents V Visitors in the Digital world . Dave White Oxford University presented around this concept at ALTC2009 and his influential blog http://tallblog.conted.ox.ac.uk/index.php/2008/07/23/not-natives-immigrants-but-visitors-residents/

Great work which I fully credit and with Daves permission I aim to build on it . I believe this works well but needs refining .because you can be resident or visitor using different tools .
Second life I am hardly a visitor , Youtube I am visitor in terms of creating content I am a resident in terms of consuming content. Twitter I am fully resident and at time confuse twitter conversation with email or even voice conversation . Facebook I  was resident on but my visa( my need to use) has started to expire .
I think we need to create a model / table of the tools then tagging if resident or visitor based on a range of criterai time spent on activity frequency etc.  Anyone got a view and helping me build the model.  I will blog about the great experience at HHL09 but this idea has got inside my head and needs developing..

Tinker.it

saw Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino speaker at handheld learning today she is part of
http://tinker.it/

projects they are involved with are like

Arduino is an open-source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to-use hardware and software. It's intended for artists, designers, hobbyists, and anyone interested in creating interactive objects or environment.

http://www.arduino.cc/

Personalising Learning with the iPod Touch

Had pleasure of seeing Loiuse Duncan present at #hhl09 on great project on using ipod touches in education she has a really useful site at http://louiseduncan.globalteacher.org.au/

Worth looking at on a regular basis. I would be interested in any other projects using Ipod Touches in Education as well as other mobile devices . so go on leave a comment with a link !!

ICT access and usage in Africa

ICT access and usage in Africa. interesting stuff in report mobile is they in a lot of areas.
Some great stats
for example the percentage of disposable income spent by average Rwandan on mobile access - 65% or about 17% of total income for bottom 75% of earners

http://www.researchictafrica.net/new/images/uploads/ria-policy-paper_ict-access-and-usage-2008.pdf

Drop.io

Thanks to Richard Scullin for reminding me to blog this

Simple real-time sharing, collaboration, and presentation.

Use drop.io to privately share your files and collaborate in real time by web, email, phone, mobile, and more. Create each drop in two clicks and share what you want, how you want, with whom you want. interesting cross platform cross media

http://drop.io/

Library Finder

Searches libraries in US using zipcode (postcode) for e-books for
loan. Interesting idea view link here.

http://sonysearch.overdrive.com/

The Epic E-learning debate at the Oxford Union

Now what a evening even allowing for either a sloppily worded motion or indeed a very clever one it was a strong arguement what is was was a a superb airing of views . The no's won it but both sides argued from a e learning 1.0 stance think predominantly if not ecxclusivelly a desktop/laptop experience and completely missed the mobile thing.

but still a great night and nice to see stuff about the event up quicklynice photo me kicking off discussion from the floor

follows the debate online at http://www.epic.co.uk/elearningdebate/

Catch the wave or is it waves

Google does small roll out of 100,00 users of google wave see the post from the BBC for some background

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8282687.stm

dont need to say anymore one to watch

Fuss about Cell Phone

I had the pleasure of chairing Laura Czerniewicz prsent a paper at ALTC in 2008 in Leeds http://repository.alt.ac.uk/433/
About student access to Technology in SA. Great session and she wont best research paper for it.

She this year has published work on whats the fuss about cell phones post can be found here    Lauras great blog can be found at http://blogs.uct.ac.za/blog/laura-cet

In a country were for the majority of the population THE ONLY ACCESS for voice or data is mobile .

Changes by Lewes New School

Now some people give Youtube a bit of stick ( I may or may not be one of them) in educational context. But watch these musicians and look at there work on YouTube on lewesnewschool on YouTube . When I looked 15,364 views and growing
Nice bit of work well done to all involved.

Changes by Lewes New School

One screen or two and take your tablet.

Now Ive been a tablet PC user for a while a Ipod touch fan as well so this touch sensitive screen I reckon is an interesting thing.

Now the OLPC XO is going to have two screen one working as a virtual keyboard
 keyboard

 The Nitendo DS has two as well


The talked of Apple tablet didnt arrived in Septmber now Microsoft has this interesting device in development supposedly called the Microsoft Courier  . Now it looks very nice it also looks like a book tablet meet e book reader interesting development.

 see details on gizmo such as they are http://gizmodo.com/5365299/courier-first-details-of-microsofts-secret-tablet

embedding documents on mobile pages

Couple of tools to mention Zoho Viewer and a recently launched functionality from google  embeddable document viewer link here

Another product is embedded it http://embedit.in

works with pdf and PPT files .

Richard Millwood a short history offline

Ok this is a becta related post but Richard is a mate . Its a really nicely written well informed piece of history of tech especially edtech  You must read it. Richard has influenced me a lot in the short time i've known him so go on download and read it. More detail below followed by link.


Richard Millwood has produced a thorough history of the developments of hardware from the teletype to the smartphone and of software from punched card input to LOGO to cloud computing. Graphic displays, office productivity tools, interactive multimedia and social networking are considered in the context of the educational imperatives of the time and the development of communication and creativity among learners in each decade since the 1970s. The article looks at the implications of the way that technologies and pedagogies have interacted in the past to focus ideas for the educational technology of the future.

page to down in variety of formats below

http://emergingtechnologies.becta.org.uk/index.php?section=etr&rid=14826

Mobile Libraries got a life far outside the Library

Working with Jon Trinder of Glasgow University of Monday was amazed to find people hadnt come across The Mobile Librairies blog possibly one of the best blogs on mobile stufff ( sorry Carlsberg and others) .

Covers loads of Mobile stuff not just library related at

http://mobile-libraries.blogspot.comlibrary.html

This recent post on how to use twitter in your Library is a good example worth a look

http://mobile-libraries.blogspot.com/2009/09/100-ways-to-use-twitter-in-your-library.html

RFID tracking of museum visitors and personalised content delivery

Interesting report found By Alistair McNaught of Techdis. Lookis at RFID in Museums context

"In this project, we explored the deployment of RFID-based technologies to observe visitors’ behaviour in a museum to record what exhibits they visit and when. This data has tremendous potential to enhance museum visits through personalizing information via dynamic interfaces, or profiling the visitor to make recommendations for future activity inside or outside the museum. The outcomes of the project demonstrate the viability of (passive) RFID technologies for museum visitor tracking and provide empirical validation of the near-human tracking accuracy of the system in two different environments. "

http://www.archimuse.com/mw2009/papers/baldwin/baldwin.html

Screens and Pages publication by NIACE

 just received a copy of this worth a read. 

 About This Publication

This good practice book shows you how technology can be used to support and encourage reading, particularly reading for pleasure. It introduces technology such as blogs, wikis, RSS feeds and social networking sites and shows you how they can enhance and enrich reading. The book also shows you how to use this technology to make reading more accessible.

You may have seen headlines like:
"Technology – with the wealth of choices and distractions it brings – is directly responsible for the decline of traditional reading, especially among younger adults."

Our new book gives a more balanced understanding of technology and reading by explaining how you can use technology to encourage reading.

The new book will raise your awareness and increase your knowledge of how to use technology to support and encourage reading
for pleasure.

http://shop.niace.org.uk/screens-and-pages.html 

Mike Wesch ALTC 2009 presentation

Really worth a look.

http://alt-c.blip.tv/file/2615703/

Information-rich and attention-poor

Interesting piece on abou the challenge of being iformation rich and attention poor. I use the phrase "we are the first genration in history where the ability to sort information is a as important as the information itself."


http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/information-rich-and-attention-poor/article1285001/

the idea of the power and finacial worth of inforamtion filters is a concept worth thinking about !

the Awesome Highlighter >> Highlight text on web pages

Thanks to Ian Usher for sending this my way is is it just me or is this highling tool and ulr shortnening tool for web pages brilliant  http://www.awesomehighlighter.com/  this is a section of my blog highlighted using the tool http://awurl.com/uCUePmM2e

its got send to twitter and firefox bookmarklet one to watch .

Thanks Ian

Social Media in plain English Common craft strike again

Simple short but breathtakingly effective, Commoncraft video explainng social media in plain English