Living in the 4th Screen

Exploring the use of mobile technology in education and life

AP News: Pakistani tech wiz harnesses Internet for the poor

Pakistani tech wiz harnesses Internet for the poor
       
SEBASTIAN ABBOT
Published: 9/5/11


LAHORE, Pakistan (AP) - While many young tech wizards strive to invent the next iPad, Umar Saif is working to bring Internet-style networking to millions of Pakistanis who don't have access to the Web. He could shake up the country's politics in the process.
From: http://m.apnews.com/ap/db_16034/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=HnwqZPHZ

The New and Improved Remind101: Drop dead easy text messaging service for students

Remind101_text_messaging_for_t

Remind101 has been updated and it is easy as ever to send text message reminders to your students. Don't worry, students never see your mobile phone number and your never see theirs. Students live in the text message world. The rarely if ever use email. If you want to get a message to your students send them a text. Remind101 makes this possible. Oh, by the way, it is free.

Horizon Report: Mobile is King in the Near-Term

The latest edition of the Horizon Report came out yesterday. The Journal had a summary of what the report includes. Here is what The Journal said the report predicts for the near-term:

Near-Term Technologies

In the near term--one year or less--those technologies include cloud computing and mobile devices.

For education, the relevance of cloud computing this year--as opposed to last year, when cloud computing was focused more heavily on data systems--will be in allowing schools to expand the tools available for learning and teaching in ways that desktop software, with its restrictive licensing and often high costs, cannot.

"Schools are increasingly taking advantage of ready-made applications hosted on a dynamic, ever-expanding cloud that enables end users to perform tasks that have traditionally required site licensing, installation, and maintenance of individual software packages," according to the authors. "E-mail, word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, collaboration, media editing, and more can all be done inside a Web browser, while the software and files are housed in the cloud."

Mobile devices, of course, are already having an impact, but their potential, according to the report, has increased considerably with the launch of Apple's iPad, as well as the new and upcoming slate of Android- and webOS-based tablets that will help solidify the mobile/handheld device class as a well rounded and feature-rich technology category.

"With always-on Internet, mobiles embody the convergence of several technologies that lend themselves to educational use, including electronic book readers, annotation tools, applications for creation and composition, and social networking tools," the report said.

Mobile computing will continue to dominate the education landscape for the foreseeable future. Ubiquitous access, instant on features, and low price point will drive more adoption of these devices. I have seen a huge increase in adoption of the iPhone since it became available on Verizon in the school where I work.

Mobile Communications on the Rise

No surprise here. Mobile phone use is skyrocketing.
 
mobile stat info
 

The following is from NetWitsThinkTank:

This phenomenon is not just occurring in the US – According to a report by International Telecommunications Union (ITU) mobile subscription growth was strong in developing countries (which have 3.8 billion subscriptions), from 53 per cent of total mobile subscriptions at the end of 2005 to an estimated 73 per cent at the end of 2010. AMD is predicting that, by 2015, 50% of the world will have an Internet connection and Phone Count predicts that by 2012 there will be as many connected mobile phones as there are people in the world.

Why Mobile is a Must

T.H.E. Journal

Expert Perspective

Why Mobile Is a Must

We need a new educational model that makes learning personal and motivating, and helps secure our students’ future in the knowledge economy. Mobile technology opens the door to it.

  • By Mary McCaffrey
  • 02/08/11

Imagine a group of kids working together on a retrospective of the Civil War. One student is at the public library, going through microfilm of newspaper articles from 1861 to 1865. She finds a reference to the political ramifications of a certain battle--notably, a picture of an influential officer. The student then uses her smartphone to snap a picture of the microfilm screen and sends the picture and caption to her group for additional research.

EXPERT PERSPECTIVE

This commentary launches a new column in THE Journal offering an industry expert's view on a topic of vital interest to the ed tech community.

Meanwhile, a second member of the group is reviewing gravesites and comes across some ambiguous headstones. He takes out his tablet computer and, after a quick bit of online research, locates the appropriate person. While all of this is happening, yet another student is conducting a face-to-face interview with a relative of a Civil War veteran. Rather than hastily throwing together handwritten notes, this student is using his MP3 player to record the conversation. Later, he'll upload it to the group's Web-based project space for the other team members to hear.

What makes these authentic, intimate learning opportunities possible? Mobile technologies. Mobile devices provide the platform and, as importantly, the incentive for students to take personal ownership of the learning experience. The lessons absorbed form deep connections for students and add to their cognitive framework in ways that no lecture ever could.

A Desktop in Your Pocket
Today's mobile technologies bear little resemblance, functionally or physically, to first-generation cell phones. They include a broad array of devices such as music and video players, cell phones, smartphones, tablets, and netbooks, all with access to cellular carrier networks, WiFi, or both. And while features and performance continue to climb, prices regularly drop, making mobile devices virtually ubiquitous.

The potential enormity of this user base has attracted software developers large and small. Nearly every available mobile device supports third-party application development, providing a rich selection of productivity, entertainment, and education applications, along with core functionality such as instant messaging, e-mail, calendar, and Web browsing. And advances in processor performance, storage, cameras, and sound have all contributed to providing users the same rich media experience they've come to expect from desktop systems. The integration of QWERTY keyboards is making obsolete the days of pecking out text messages using a numeric keypad. Also common are large, high-resolution displays that offer onscreen keyboards, multitouch gestures, and the ability to clearly view the screen both indoors and out. All of this combines to create the equivalent of a pocket desktop, in a portable, always-connected form factor.

So what is all of this doing for K-12 education? Nothing short of disrupting and transforming the established teaching and learning paradigm. To start, mobile technology is helping to solve the two challenges facing education today: students' desire to learn differently, and students' need to learn differently.

Kids today are captivated by the personalization and socialization of online tools--the ability to build large networks of friends; share their thoughts, feelings, and goals; and communicate as they wish. Students have become so invested in mobile devices that our society has coined a new term for them--digital natives--to represent their having only known a world where all of this is possible. And not only is it possible, it's possible anytime and anywhere, via a plethora of devices and widely available cellular and WiFi networks.

The upshot is, these digital natives now have in their hands the tools to shape their own education in once unimagined ways. They have the ability to interact with other learners at their convenience, with differences in time and place presenting no hurdle. They can research, on the spot, any topic of interest. And they can capture the moment, whether it's in a picture, a video, or a blog entry.

Blessed with all of these capabilities, students have what they need to function in a knowledge economy. It's the obligation of 21st century educators to prepare students for this new economy, which means providing them with the skills to locate the most up-to-the-minute facts, and then turn those freshly acquired facts into solutions appropriate for the task at hand. So students must become effective researchers, which in turn requires them to develop an understanding of how to identify quality sources of information. Developing these new information retrieval skills requires us to encourage students to push beyond old boundaries of space (classrooms), content (textbooks), and authority (teachers).

Mobile devices fulfill all of these demands. They give students a tool that allows them to express themselves in any format they wish, build networks of sources, and perform on-the-spot research to produce and act on the most current facts. Moreover, it puts in their hands a technology that engages and relates to them and sparks their curiosity. Students can now participate in an individualized approach to learning, which occurs through personal application--the student as doer. To get the fullest benefits of this new learning mode, occasions for personal application have to be available to students in any setting--in the classroom during independent study, in the library with small groups, walking home from school, while waiting in line at the movie theater, and on and on. It's mobile technologies that give students the means of owning their education on these terms.

Tools of Engagement
Mobile devices are not the first technology to promise great improvements in education. Similar claims were made about e-books, distance learning, electronic whiteboards, and many more. But there are several differences between those earlier tools and the opportunity presented by the use of digital applications, resources, content, and the Internet in tandem with mobile devices.

To begin with, mobile technology and Internet access are already ubiquitous, requiring little or no capital investment by schools. Students--or really their parents--are the ones making that investment. Earlier educational technologies required schools to deploy the technology, incorporate it into the curriculum, and train the users. Once schools made it past the deployment and infrastructure issues, they often ran right into training as the next stumbling block.

This time around, students, generally already expert users, need little or no support, and faculty and staff quickly become acclimated. In any case, as opposed to requiring specialized support from a handful of experts, newcomers have an enormous user base to tap for assistance.

Plus, previous generations' tech innovations mostly perpetuated the traditional classroom structure, and in doing so missed out on perhaps the single most potent enabler of academic success--student engagement. Mobile technologies have no such failing. Students need no extra encouragement to use them. They already spend virtually every available moment on them, texting, instant messaging, posting personal status updates, and the like. All of that energy can also now be brought to their schoolwork.

Can you imagine telling a kid to stop spending so much time on algebra? Or not to go overboard on researching historical sources? Sounds like pure fantasy, but that could become the new reality if we have the courage to discard an outdated teaching methodology that doesn't reach today's students, and instead embrace their bustling, burgeoning digital world. Mobile devices applied in the context of education will engage students, foster deep and meaningful learning, and result in today's kids reaching frontiers that generations before them could never hope to glimpse.

Will Smart Phones Eliminate the Digital Divide?

Will Smart Phones Eliminate the Digital Divide?

Within five years, every K-12 student in America will be using a mobile handheld device as a part of learning, according to Elliot Soloway, a professor at the University of Michigan who's been following ed tech trends for the last three decades.

Cathie and I make the following prediction: within five years, every child, in every grade, in every school in America will be using a mobile learning device, 24/7. Take that to the bank! Yes, while today, 99 percent of schools ban cell phones, we stick by this prediction?

To read the complete article, please go to:

I Never See This With Hands

"I never see this with hands," was Sandy Riggs response to all the text messages she received when she asked her freshman Biology students to text her what they thought DNA precipitation meant. Riggs teaches at Collegiate High School in Texas. Ms. Riggs said that texting has increased her student's confidence.
 
Collegiate High School Principal Tracie Rodriguez said the science and English departments use texting the most with class assignments. Teachers can choose whether they want students to text them. The trend began with a student asking if it would be OK for them to text their teacher, she said.
She said at one time students were coming to class with incomplete assignments and texting was a way for the students to feel comfortable with getting in touch with teachers outside of class, she said.
The school does still enforce a rule that cell phones can’t be used in class unless approved beforehand as part of a class assignment or in an emergency, she said.
In addition, parents haven’t expressed concerns about their student’s cell phone bills or texting charges, she said.
 I think using text messages with students is a good idea as it is the preferrable means of communication for today's teenagers. My only concern is that teachers and administrators make sure the text messages stay focused on school related activites and not move over to to personal issues. Additionally, I can understand the concern some saff members have is giving out their personal phone number. To still use text messages with students and not give out your phone number you can use a free Google Voice account or use your email program to send text messages. I explain both situations here and here. Follow this link to read the full article.

Learning English in China via a mobile phone

According to this post on TMCnet English-language learners in China are having their lessons delivered to them via their mobile phones.

Publishing group Pearson and phone maker Nokia know a good opportunity when they see it. They're partnering to sell English-language learning materials to mobile phone users in China, the country with more English learners than in any other country, according to Reuters.

The delivery system of mobile phones makes sense: There are 720 million mobile subscribers in China, more than double the number of Internet users. 

This is a smart move by Nokia and Pearson given the number of mobile phone subscribers in China. I have been reading more and more of these types of ventures in parts of the world were cell phone use is more ubiquitous than internet connected computers. Will this type of learning platform take off here in America?

Siri - Your mobile personal assistant

Siri

Siri is a recently released iPhone app that wants to be your mobile personal assistant (Android and Blackberry apps are coming). Their website says "You ask, Siri does." According to them Siri is a new way to get things done. Technology pundit, Robert Scoble, recently wrote a post titled, "Why if you miss Siri you'll miss the future of the web." Scoble likes Siri because of how they have stitched together a number of services in a single app. Think of it as advanced search. You can type commands or just say what you want and it converts your voice to text and finds what you need.

I downloaded the app to my iPhone and so far it works quite well, even nailing my voice requests 100% of the time. I travel infrequently and don't even get into big cities that often so I am not sure how often I will need a service like this. Download the app and give it a try. Follow the link above to Scoble's website to read more about the app or watch an interview with the Siri developers

Abilene University Embraces Mobile Technology in a Big Way

Acu_report


I have mentioned the iPhone initiative at Abilene University here and here, but it was in reference to something else and not the entire initiative the University has undertaken. In the Fall of 2008 Abilene University gave each of the incoming freshman an iPhone or iPod Touch.

The ACU website says the following:

Freshmen use their iPhones or iPod touches to receive homework alerts, answer in-class surveys and quizzes, get directions to their professors' offices, and check their meal and account balances. Applications from Apple's online App Store helped many teachers discover new ways of teaching their courses.

The University created a mobile portal called ACU Mobile. The portal allows students to connect to campus news and calendars, course documents, various forms of media, and serves as a pocket guide to local events, restaurants, and sporting events.

The University filed a report about it's findings during the 2008-2009 school year. The report mentions two students who began developing apps for the iPhone. It talks about professors who used podcasts to augment their classroom instruction. You can follow the link to read through the full report.

I like the approach ACU has taken. They standardized on a device and built a mobile portal to provide content that is optimized for the mobile device. I know there are pros and cons on device standardization but in my experience when you have the same device it removes a lot of barriers to wide scale adoption by your faculty and important stakeholders. As a teacher if I know all students can access my podcasts easily then I will invest the time in creating them. On the other hand if I have to spend my time helping kids access information via a number of different devices and entertain excuses as to why they could not get the information, then there is a chance I might not get involved in using the technology in the first place. Ease of use and access are key ingredients when undertaking a major technology initiative like ACU has.

Mobile Data Apocalypse?

Are we at the threshold of a data apocalypse? According to this post on The Mobile Opportunity blog we are at the precipice of a mobile data explosion. See the graph below.

According to the post there has been a shift in the thinking of mobile data usage:

... in the last year or so, the attitude has shifted dramatically from "no one is using mobile data" to "oh my God, there's so much demand for mobile data that it'll destroy the network." A lot of this attitude shift was caused by the iPhone, which has indeed overloaded some mobile networks. But there's also a general uptick in data usage from various sources, and the rate of growth seems to be accelerating.

The article goes on to quote some analysis from Cisco regarding data usage by smartphones:

Cisco estimates that a single smartphone produces as much data traffic as 40 traditional feature phones. So converting 10 million people from feature phones to smartphones is like adding 390 million new feature phone users, in terms of impact on the data network. The more popular smartphones get, the busier the network becomes.

I know my wife and I consume copious amounts of mobile data on our iPhones. Just 18 months ago our mobile data usage was zero. It has risen significantly since we purchased our iPhones. I have read recently about dire predictions regarding mobile usage and how demand will out pace supply. I have also read that mobile network providers can not keep up with demand. I think there is to much money to be made with mobile data and that the carriers will figure out a way to improve transmission or to throttle the heaviest users.
Mobile_growth_chart

The Walled Garden of Analog Educational Resources is Crumbling

Judy Breck, a New York based expert in open content, recently wrote on her Golden Swamp blog a post titled, The Scarcity of Learning Sources is Contrived, the Best Stuff is Free. It is a thought provoking post. I am not sure I agree with everything she writes, but some of her points coincide with what I have been stating here on my blog. She writes:

The gushing spigots of money poured into analog educational materials manufacture a scarcity that belies the reality of 21st century learning resources. Billions alloted into the printed walled gardens of textbooks and digital walled gardens of for-pay school resources deepen economic woes ...

Teaching and learning should now, and inevitably* will, use the open internet instead. An individual’s mobile internet browser will become the primary access to knowledge for each student and teacher. We should be working to make this happen soon. “Shame on us” when we do not do so.

I agree completely that a mobile device will become the primary access to knowledge for all students. When I started this blog and my research on mobile devices in education I was not sure what role these devices should or would play in a school setting. I am now more than convinced that the mobile space is where the future lies for education. More and more content will be accessible via a mobile phone and the devices and associated costs will begin to become more affordable. This will drive adoption to even greater numbers than currently exists.

Ms. Breck, in her post, goes on to say:

Now that learning resources are emergent online, it is only a matter of time before they break down the garden walls of learning resources. What broke the grip of the music industry and is now going on with main stream media will happen soon to educational materials. It has already begun.

She predicts the paradigm shift that has taken place in the music industry, and now in print journalism, will soon happen with educational resources as well. Provocative ideas to say the least. Follow the link above to read the full post.

 

How about Mobile Phone Friendly Websites for Schools?

Curtin University of Technology has created a mobile website to allow students access to information, support services, and campus wide facilities. It is believed to be the first of its kind in Australia.

Below are two quotes from a news release posted on the school's website:

Curtin students will now be able to access information about transport services, financial support, housing and places to eat, on their mobile phones.

‘We also know that 99 per cent of our students have mobile phones and that 75 per cent of those phones are web-enabled, so this sort of website is going to reach the vast majority of our students.’

How about mobile websites for high schools here in the US? Interesting statistics in the quote above - 75% saturation rate for web-enabled phones amongst their student body (Consistent with what I posted here). What percentage of students in your high school have web-enabled phones? How fast will that market grow in the next few years? Will your campus be prepared for the onslaught of web-enabled phones that I believe is coming to all high schools? 

As prices for both phones and service contracts decline in the next few years, because of competition, will I believe, lead to a surge in web-enabled smartphones amongst high school students. These phones can access the internet without ever touching the school network. How will your Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) address these types of issues? I believe school networks could become irrelevant. Students and teachers will not need to use the school network to access information. They will simply bypass it. That is why I quoted the following in this post:

The article references a report titled "Pockets of Potential: Using Mobile Technologies to Promote Children's Learning". The report recommends that school administrators begin to ease restrictions on the use of cell phones in school. Basically the report validated the approach we had decided upon.

As school budgets become increasingly tighter, how will school administrators answer parent's and board member's questions regarding the use of mobile phones on campus as a way to reduce IT costs? What do you say to the parent who asks why they should spend $150 on a TI-89 graphing calculator when their child's smartphone, that they already purchased, has a graphing calculator app on it that is superior to the calculator? These types of questions loom on the horizon as sure as Mariano Rivera will close out the 9th inning of a baseball game. As administrators, I believe we need to start preparing for these scenario's today.