Handheld Technology in Remote Areas of the Developing World
I am one of those people who enjoy food and travel shows like Globe Trekker and hosts such as Anthony Bourdain and Andrew Zimmerman. I happened to catch a few minutes of one of Zimmerman’s Bizarre Foods episodes the other day. He was visiting a floating village of fisherman who lived literally on a river in Southeast Asia. He had been invited into the home of one of the fishing families where the wife prepared a meal of fresh fish for her family and their guest Zimmerman. Because she washed the fish in the water just below the boat house, which was full of diesel fuel slicks and fecal matter, Zimmerman debated whether this meal might be too extreme even for him. In the end, however, he ate it in the interest of being a good host. One brief scene in particular caught my attention, however, more than the interesting lifestyle or the exotic meal.
Here was a village of fishing families living in the most primitive of situations, literally preparing their food in the same water where the dumped their garbage and relieved themselves. But for 2-3 seconds, the camera settled on a battery sitting on a deck. Attached to this battery was a cluster of cell phones that were being charged. While the point of the show was to fixate on the drama of eating the potentially contaminated fish, I thought the scene with the cell phones was by far the most important message in the segment, because it underlines the revolution that is occurring around the world. Here was a group of families who lived in the most primitive of conditions, yet they had mobile phones and with them, access to ideas and information from around the world.
Almost everybody can afford a cell phone, even when a computer is beyond their reach. It is mobile technology that is finally closing the divide. NPR estimated recently that there is currently 1.5 billion desktop computers in the world, but 5 billion cell phones. This positions handheld mobile devices to be the technology that finally brings access to information to every corner of the world. The opportunities that will be created by the rise of mLearning and smart phones over the next 5-10 years in the remotest of places will be staggering. It is an exciting time for education.
mLearning
Filed under: Learning Theory, mLearning, Self-Directed Learning |
Leave a Comment I am feeling a bit guilty right now. Today was supposed to be a day for working on my class, but I got caught up in configuring some of my devices for mLearning, aka mobile learning. I really wanted to set some time aside to explore some of the possibilities and today turned out to be the day. Up to this point, mLearning has seemed a bit hyped. But today I set up my Nokia Nuron 5230 smartphone to download several podcasts from NPR and PRI. Now I can listen and learn pretty much anywhere, anytime. I can listen to the podcasts through my BH-214 wireless Bluetooth headset or in my car through the Bluetooth connection to my car stereo. Downloading and listening to podcasts while on the road is now easy and routine.
I also set up a Stowaway wireless keyboard, and now the smartphone works just like a mini-computer. Texting, e-mailing and note taking are now extremely easy to do and just as convenient as being on a netbook. And speaking of netbooks, I also configured my netbook to tether to my smartphone using a Bluetooth connection. Now the phone provides a wireless Internet connection to my Netbook, anywhere that I have cell service.
Finally, also on the netbook, I installed Intel’s AppUp store for netbooks and downloaded several applications, some free, and some not.
While some of the innovations I describe have been around for a long time and really aren’t earth shattering, the way that I have suddenly brought everything together shows me that mLearning is more than just trying to see things on a tiny screen. It is a learning strategy of surrounding yourself with learning opportunities-anytime, anyplace through technical innovations that we are just starting to grasp. I can’t wait for the hologram screen and controlling by hand gesture to reach the market.
A Concept Map for a Cognitive Approach to Multimedia Learning
Here is a concept map I created a while back for a cognitive approach to multimedia learning. I thought it broke the concept down nicely and would be worth sharing here.
The Google Reader Next Button
I have been using Google Reader to follow blogs for a long time. For me, it is an indispensable tool that allows me to quickly scan information in the blogs I subscribe to. But once in a while, when I have time, I enjoy reading the blogs in the context of their original sites. That’s where the Google Reader next button comes in.
It’s a nice feature that Google offers where you can paste a button in Firefox that allows you to use Google Reader through just one link. Clicking on it takes your browser to the next unread item in your reading list, marking it “read” in the process.
To add the link to your Firefox browser, go to “settings” and then “goodies” in Reader.
Intel AppUp
Intel has launched a new service that delivers applications for Netbooks in a way similar to Apple’s store for iPhone and iPad apps. I don’t know how successful this service, known as AppUp will be. It’s offerings seem limited and overpriced, but a generic service targeted at NetBooks could take off eventually. Maybe using a platform like Adobe AIR would be a better approach, as a single app could be written once and played on a multitude of applications.
Ben Stein on Hatred in America
Ben Stein stated his Declaration of Conscience on CBS Sunday Morning today in response to the plague of hate that seems to be growing and increasingly accepted in our nation. I thought it was fitting.
“This is a big country. It is a great country, filled with opportunities. It is the magnet for those all over the world who want a better life. And while we face grim challenges from many directions, we make this pledge:
“We became a great nation because we are an open, loving nation. Most of us believe in a loving God. Whether we are believers or atheists, we believe in the rights of all. We welcome all who respect the rights of every other American. We welcome and respect all who want the same opportunities and legal protections for all Americans.
“We are a busy people, we Americans – rebuilding our economy, defending ourselves, educating our children. We are far too busy to hate. We will not preach hate, sell hate, try to get elected by hate. We will follow our forefathers’ example and only stoop to hate those who try to kill us. For those within our borders, unless they preach hate, our motto is always “Love thy neighbor.” We can and we will disagree about almost everything, but we will not do it in a spirit of hatred based on religion or race or sexual orientation or wealth or poverty.
“If our enemies want to live by hate, that is their loss. But we are not going to imitate their hatred. We live by love of our fellow man, and they will not stop us.”
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/10/17/sunday/commentaries/main6966357.shtml
TV-Fox
Filed under: Open Source, Open Content and Open Education, Uncategorized, Video |
Leave a Comment One of the many great things about the Firefox browser is the ability to add new features and utilities as extensions. It turns Firefox into so much more than just a browser. Firefox is free and open source to begin with, and there are literally thousands of free and usually open source applications that can be downloaded and installed. If one takes the time to tap into the sheer power of these offerings, Zotero for example, it becomes one of the great values available today in computing.
One cool extension that I recently stumbled onto is TV-Fox, which helps you to organized and easily browse TV broadcasts from dozens of nations. For someone like me who is interested in languages, international news, and foreign cultures, this is a gold mine. I have been watching internet broadcasts for years, but it has usually been more than a little frustrating in the past to try to find them. Many links were broken or never displayed properly in other sites I tried to use in the past. But TV-Fox installs as a toolbar in your browser and gives you instant access to hundreds of quality broadcasts from around the world. It actually makes surfing the links fun and entertaining. Just to see what’s out there. And best of all, the links seem to be monitored so that everything works. It is just one example of the many high-quality extensions that are available for Firefox.
Adobe eLearning Suite 2
Adobe reports that eLearning Suite 2 will be available for shipping in June. A major development is that Captivate 5 will now be available for the Mac. I am looking forward to trying out the new roundtripping feature between Captivate and Soundbooth, Flash, and Photoshop, which should make Captivate even more powerful. Captivate 5 assumes a central role in the new suite, functioning as the “quarterback” to coordinate and pull in other tools as needed to deliver sophisticated eLearning and simulations.
Amazon CloudFront
While this may be old news for a few, I just discovered Amazon CloudFront today. I lost most of the day playing with it, but what a great find! I’ve been looking for a cheap hosted version of Adobe Flash Media Server and Amazon CloudFront uses it. Best of all, there is no monthly fee for it. Just like Amazon S3, or Simple Storage Service, you only pay for what you store and the data that is transferred. And like S3, CloudFront is ridiculously cheap. Somewhere in the neighborhood of .10-.15 per GB. I have several gigs of stuff stored on S3 and my monthly bill still comes in at less than $3.00.
Using the JW Player, I managed to successfully stream several flv files from CloudFront. I also discovered in the process that S3 provides URLs so that you can also deliver static content and even swf files directly from S3 storage. To make either service work, you have to change the ACL settings, which are like permissions, but the whole process is pretty easy once you get it all figured out. If interested, you might check out this guide. My next project in Amazon Web Services will be to learn how to use the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud.
10 MySQL GUI Tools
Filed under: Open Source, Open Content and Open Education, Web Development |
Leave a Comment Navicat has always been my tool of choice for MySQL. But if your employer doesn’t pick up the tab for tools like Navicat, it can be a bit pricey. This list has some excellent tools, both proprietary and open source.
http://www.databasejournal.com/features/mysql/article.php/3880961/article.htm
