Living in the 4th Screen

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This post on Nature.com explores the increasing use of smartphones within scientific laboratories. The article specifically mentions the iPhone and apps that are targeted for those in the scientific community.

With a seemingly unlimited number of apps available, the iPhone can be quite a handy tool. An increasing number of apps are targeted to scientists, and lists of must-have apps for researchers have proliferated. There are apps to calculate how to prepare solutions, view restriction enzyme information, search online databases for papers and even store downloaded papers. Well-known product vendors for biological research are also beginning to release laboratory apps for the iPhone. Promega has an app with product information, tutorials, protocols and unit conversion calculators, and Bio-Rad has a quantitative PCR app.

The article goes on to mention Google and it's open-source Android operating system and the potential that platform brings to the scientific community. Another area the smartphone is reaching into scientific circles is through the publishing of scientific journals for mobile handsets.

But for the present, the most immediate potential for these devices is in providing a painless way for researchers to keep up with their reading wherever they happen to be. Mass media publishers have embraced the iPhone for delivering their content, but there has been little activity in the scientific publishing arena—RSS news feeds notwithstanding. But the situation is changing. Several publishers, including Nature Publishing Group, have apps that will go live any day. The nature.com app will let you read full-text articles, view full-size figures and save references.

This article adds to the continuing proliferation of mobile computing and its encroachment into all areas of our life. In my mind this only begs the question, "What are the implications for current students sitting in our high school classrooms?" These students will be using mobile computing devices throughout their entire day by the time they enter the workforce. Mobile computing ubiquity and the fact that I find many students use their mobile devices in an irresponsible way and they know very little of the full potential these devices offer them, leads me to say there is a huge gap that needs to be filled with today's generation. Current high school students need training in the responsible use of all forms of electronic media and they need to be taught the positive ways these devices can be used to assist them in their daily lives.

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A post over on the moblearn blog walks you through some steps to help you make a decision regarding which device to purchase for your classroom or school. I like the focus on outcomes instead of just what the best device is. It does depend on what it is you want your students to learn and do.

Below is a snippet from the post:

Do you want your learners to be consumers, or creators of media? 

long term, helping your learners to be “creators” is always better and can be applied to a wider range of learning situations. (Think writing, filing, reporting, synthesising information, publishing.)  

Follow the link above to read the full post. There are some good ideas there and it will definitely get you started in your search for mobile learning devices.

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Last spring the University of Queensland in Australia offered a course in designing mobile applications. Teaching Coordinator Aaron Tan said the enormous popularity of the iPhone and other types of smartphones have created a demand for mobile applications. It is believed that the course, Comp 3000, was the first of it's kind in Australia.

According to the article on the university's website Mr. Tan said:

“Courses like this have been very popular in the US, so I think that there is interest on campus, students just haven't been given an outlet to express it,” Mr Tan said.

“I'm hoping that this course is a starting point, and will lead to discussion groups or just ad hoc activity.”

He said students would be creating applications for the iPhone and Android operating systems. He is encouraging students from outside the engineering and computer science fields to apply. As a culminating project the students will have to create a new application for assessment.

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According to the Times Online in the UK, Google will be launching their own smartphone. The article states Google will offer free calls throughout the US and cheap international calls. The Google branded handset will run the new Android OS codenamed Flan, have a processor twice as fast as the iPhone 3GS, and a large touchscreen. Google wants their phone to be carrier agnostic.

The article in the Times Online goes on to say:

The real breakthrough, however, will come with the marriage of the Googlephone to Google Voice, the Californian company’s high-tech phone service. Google Voice gives US users a free phone number and allows unlimited free calls to any phone in the country — landline or mobile.

“We’ve never had this situation, where a single vendor controls the entire stack, from the operating system right up to Google’s cloud services,” says Ashok Kumar, an analyst at Northeast Securities. “It changes the competitive and bargaining dynamics like never before.”

I have been saying since I started this blog that the mobile phone wars would heat up. That will in turn increase competition, drive down prices, and cause widespread adoption. I did not expect this to happen so fast and that Google would throw down the gauntlet in this way. This should be fun to watch. If Google can really pull off free calls from any where that could be another paradigm shift like the first iPhone was.

The implications for education are limitless. I still believe in due time school networks will be irrelevant. Students will just access the cloud via a cellular network and bypass the schools network all together.

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