iPod Touch to be marketed as a gaming device
iPod Touch 2G
It seems that the latest adverts from Apple will market the iPod Touch as a gaming device - which in turn could get it into more pockets.
The latest iPod Touch advert from Apple was launched yesterday during Steve Jobs Keynote at the Let’s Rock event.
The Tag line for the iPod Touch now is “The Funnest iPod Ever” (not the funniest as I first read it!). The guided tour headlines games with music and movies as the reasons why you want an iPod Touch.
From a comercial point of view this is a problem mostly for Sony with the PSP (Howard Stringer Sony CEO was in the front row of the Key note apparently) - a more bulky gaming device that can play movies without the storage or touch. Nintendo will still compete on price and have all the great titles at the moment - but they must also be worried about the new iPod.
Why is this great for education? Well this increases the market place for iPod Touch (and to a lesser extent the iPhone) to gamers - they are a very picky bunch but if the iPod Touch titles become cool games then it could become a must have device - increasing it’s credibility. Anything that increases the street credibility of the iPod Touch helps create more software for it and also makes it more acceptable.
If Apple could only solve the problem of input - a clip-on keyboard that was also a screen protector as an accessory would be fantastic - or a bluetooth keyboard - or a full screen landscape keyboard for note taking.
Tags: education, iphone, iPod Touch
10.Sep.08 
devices, education, handy education, m-learning, mLearning, mobile phones 
Comment (1)
Review: Ubiquity - a grand project from firefox (for educators and students too)
I started seeing the buzz about Ubiquity last week after the anouncement my slice of the twitterverse seemed to be making comments about it - so I finally got around to installing it. It is an amazingly ambitious idea, but here is a quick review of the potential of Ubiquity for desktop and mobile learners - and a projection for the future.
The Idea
The idea behind Ubiquity is that natural language can be used to get the browser to do some tasks in a browser that are beyond a few normal keystrokes. For example you can select an address with your mouse and then press Ctrl-Space and then type map this and a map will be displayed - click on the map and you can then send this map as an email.
Ubiquity is a platform that allows people to write and share new commands (scripts or macros we would have previously thought of them).
The final idea is that all of these commands can be linked together - so that a user can input some quite complex instructions. An example given on the documentation site is “book a flight to Chicago next Monday to Thursday, no red-eyes, the cheapest. Then email my Chicago friends the itinerary and add it to my calendar.”.
Lets be clear this is very ambitious stuff.
The Potential for Education
How does this relate to education? Well the open nature of the commands means that commands for anything can be written.
When proficiently used it is possible to quickly pull data together from multiple sources which can be quickly combined. In some ways this can be thought of as cut and paste for the web.
It can also make data come to mean much more - highlight a word then Ctrl-Space define this and the definition is there on the page. Highlight a piece of text and then Ctrl-Space email this to xxx and an email will be drafted which can then be added to with other sources.
One very powerful feature is that you can edit a page with a couple of commands - for example select some text and say delete it is no longer in the page, select some text and say bold it can become bold. You can also say edit-page and the page becomes editable and you can type where you want, delete what you want and insert as you want. This means that students can edit any page on the web (BBC NEWS, Downing Street etc) although the edits only exist in the browser these can be printed off - so a custom BBC News page can easily be created and screen grabbed or printed.
There are already commands to grab something and quickly twitter it - there is no reason why text on a page could not be grabbed and sent to a mobile device for later reading.
The Problems to overcome
In all the analysis it should be remembered that this is just version 0.1 and clearly shows the power of the idea with some very simple commands.
However looking at people who are trying to write new scripts and combine them together it seems that there are still a lot of fundamentals to get working. For example - the email command supports Google Mail only and then only the vanilla version. Customising support to include Google Apps has proved to be quite hard and this has highlighted that something like email relies on the application knowing quite a lot about the user.
Then there is the problem of the natural language - as a programmer I am comfortable that I have to use exactly the required command - but to appeal to a wider audience there is going to have to be some flexibility.
The “Elephant in the Room” here is security - this is a very powerful scripting capability that is installed in firefox - an untrusted script will have the ability to do all sorts of nasty things to your data (files, bank account etc). To go back to the original vision of a sentance that should be supported :
“book a flight to Chicago next Monday to Thursday, no red-eyes, the cheapest. Then email my Chicago friends the itinerary and add it to my calendar.”
This is going to need at least access to my payment details and my address book - it will take a great amount of convincing me to give Ubiqutity this information.
For the moment I’ll be sticking with Dopplr and Skyscanner.net to solve this problem.
Tags: education, learning, ubiquity
05.Sep.08 education, off-topic Comments (0)
Follow up on educational startups
Last week I wrote a guest post on TechCrunch UK questioning the lack of start-ups in the UK that are focused on Education. This article started a nice debate about what exactly the problems are and why both entreprenuers and investors steer clear of solving the problems in education in the UK.
In addition to the comments on TechCrunch a link was also pointed to the article in a post on the handheldlearning.co.uk forum - which started another debate.
In the article I point out that the UK education market is dominated by schools, universities and further education colleges but also that there are also segments in this market for informal education - workplace training, language learning etc.
Structural Problems
The discussion however focused very much on the schools market place and there was discussion around who the actual customer is (schools or local education authorities or central government). The confusion seems to have been created because a headteacher has control over their own budgets and makes the purchasing decision, but local and central government heavily influence these decisions. The picture is not as simple as that because in addition to the local and central government there are other quangos that also influence the decisions - BECTA being the largest.
Can anything be done about this “structural problem”? not easily, but if start-ups were given support and encouragement from the the influencers (BECTA, central and local government) then products and services would be more appealing to schools. This support does not have to come as funding - recognition and support of an idea with appropriate feedback would be good enough to help encourage funding from angel and VC sources.
Niches and content
Another point raised in the discussion was from Paul Sweeney:
There are existing billion dollar players (education publishers), and early successful niche players don’t tend to get bought out for high multiples.
The point about the existing players is true and in my opinion this is what makes the market place prime for disruption - as those existing players are not innovating. The second part talks of niche players and points out that they are not so attractive for venture capital becuase their value never increases enough to pay back at the levels that are needed.
So niches should be avoided - start-ups looking to help with very narrow areas of education may find problems when scaling esepcially when what they offer is mostly based on content. The Open University proclaimed that “Content is no longer king” when starting their OpenLearn initiative - and this is an astute move which will will have a large effect for university level education over the next ten years. How will open content affect publishers? Well that is the key question here.
Products and services that solve real problems in education that are neither niche or content focused - should receive funding (if they really do solve the problem and have a good business model behind them).
Why the focus on languages?
It seems the answer to this question is quite easy - start-ups avoid formal education because they don’t understand how purchasing works. So they turn to informal learning and look at the biggest consumer sector and realise that language teaching is not niche and that content for language learning is open. Also language teaching is global and means that companies do not have to focus on a UK only market.
This market is very crowded though for this reason - which brings its own problems when looking for funding - but this competition is certainly bringing innovation to the market (for example our own getawayphrases).
So many areas that are missing out
What is clear is that within education there are so many market sectors that are not getting any focus from start-ups whilst all the focus in on language learning and to some extent schools.
Hopefully the debate is starting to get people thinking - next I would like to talk to BECTA about how they can help.
Tags: education business, learning 2.0, start-ups
28.Aug.08 education, handy education, m-learning, mLearning, off-topic Comments (0)
New York Times Article on iKnow initiative
Yesterday I mentioned the iKnow initiative at Freed-Hardeman University well today it is covered in more detail in the New York Times.
From the article:
The rush to distribute the devices worries some professors, who say that students are less likely to participate in class if they are multitasking. “I’m not someone who’s anti-technology, but I’m always worried that technology becomes an end in and of itself, and it replaces teaching or it replaces analysis,” said Ellen G. Millender, associate professor of classics at Reed College in Portland, Ore. (She added that she hoped to buy an iPhone for herself once prices fall.)
Tags: devices, iphone, mLearning, mobile-learning
21.Aug.08 devices, education, handy education, m-learning, mLearning, mobile development, mobile phones Comments (0)
iPhones in education? A US university is taking the initiative
I came across an initiative last week from from Freed-Hardeman University which is planning to give their students a uniform collection of technology including a macbook and either an iPod Touch or iPhone.
I think this is an interesting approach, because most other approaches focus on either a laptop or a PDA when looking to give equipement to students. When the focus is on just handheld computers then a lot of work must go into helping students create content using handhelds with creative tools. The small screen may be OK for creating small pieces of work - but is not suitable for essay writing or creating presentations (I know it is possible and is used for this - but my argument is that it is not really suitable).
As mentioned before we think the Mobile Phone or Handlheld is suitable for delivery of some content, revision, planning and a group of things we call Handy Education.
So to provide students with both devices seems to me to make a lot of sense - I am keen to find out the results of this initiative. One thing that concerns me is the lack of useful tools for the iPhone - iPod Touch platform - especially that synchronise data with a laptop (be it PC or mac).
Tags: handy education, iphone, mLearning, mobile-learning
20.Aug.08 devices, education, handy education, m-learning, mLearning, mobile phones, off-topic, tools Comment (1)
Where are the other educational startups?
I’ve just written an article for TechCrunch UK about the lack of educational startups in the UK - you can find more details here : http://uk.techcrunch.com/2008/08/20/please-sir-where-are-the-education-start-ups.
From the article:
“The market for Education in the UK is massive - there are 26,562 different schools in the UK, and 157 universities and classroom based learning is only part of the picture. There is also adult education, distance learning, workplace training and many qualifications that could be thought of as niche, but have high enrolments each year. On top of formal education there is informal education that is best represented by language learning and the “Dummies guide to” range of books……”
Please follow the link and join the discussion.
20.Aug.08 education, off-topic Comments (2)
More on the iPhone and iPod Touch in Education
If Apple hit their sale goals (and there is every indication they will) there will be another 10 million iPhones in circulation by the end of 2008. This will bring the total number worldwide to close to 14 million iPhones.
I can’t find detailed figures on the iPod Touch - but I have found references saying that the touch is now outselling the iPod Classic, and others saying that Apple is downgrading sales figures for the iPod Touch this year. (If someone can contact me with better figures I’d be grateful!). For the sake of this article let’s assume there are already 6 million iPod Touch devices and that these numbers will continue to increase at a pace similar to the iPhone.
This means that by the end of this year there will be at least 20 million iPhone/iPod Touch devices in the hand of real people.
The really important question is who are these people? I would like to get an idea of the demographics of iPhone and iPod Touch users. It would seem to me that the iPod Touch is more likely to be a school or university student from 15-21 and the iPhone is more likely to be a professional 25-35 - but that is purely gut feeling. At this high level it is clear to see that educational software would be different for those two audiences and gives an indication about what types of sftware would be useful to them.
Can anyone help me get better figures for the iPod Touch sales? I know that it has none of the country constraints of the iPhone and is available world-wide. Also how can we get to better understand the demographic - has anyone seen any research in this area?
The lack of a good input mechanism make both of these devices of less use in education for classroom work, but the multi-media capabilities are great. The Touch could do with a microphone and camera though so that in can capture in addition to play multi-media (lets hope both of these get announced with GPS for the iPod Touch in September).
Tags: education, handy education, iphone, mLearning, mobile-learning
18.Aug.08 devices, education, handy education, luzia research, m-learning, mLearning, mobile phones, off-topic, tools, uHavePassed Comments (2)
Revision, Planning and Data capture
As we have become more experienced in what works and doesn’t work on mobile phone we have begun to focus our efforts in three specific areas when writing tools to support students - Revision, Planning and Data capture.
Why are we so focused only on these three areas? We believe that these are the areas where Handy Education (using convenient tools) is most useful and effective.
Revision / Practice
When revising the content of a course - most of your time is spent in one place with your text books (and other materials) around you - reviewing your notes and writing more concise notes. Of course not everyone revises in this way - but lets call this the most common approach. Is there a place for a mobile phone during these sessions? Maybe (I am sure the imaginative could crowbar in a way to include a phone in these sessions), but I think the phone comes into it’s own when away from these sessions.
We try to support students here by providing ways to do “micro-revision” to support these sessions - with Flashcards and quizzes to help practice recall of the ideas and concepts.
With process and technique based concepts like those of Mathematics the most effective way of learning the technique or process can be to repeat and practice it. There must be feedback to help the student understand where there are problems in the process, so the student learns to correct these problems.
We have been using mobile programs to help people work through mathematical problems, whilst providing immediate feedback with step by step instructions on how to correctly calculate the answers. These programs are less sophisticated than PC based equivalents - but the convenience of use means that they can be used many times to help build a students confidence in these problem areas.
Planning
Having convenient access to a list of outstanding work and upcoming deadlines is of great use to students (especially university students and adult learners who have to balance their studies with other parts of their life).
This data should be available to students in any way that they need to access it - via computer or phone or other device.
We are making sure this data is available in all these ways.
Data Capture
Capturing data about your workplace or work situations is very useful in a number of vocational courses these learning diaries are used as new skills are aquired and practised at work. Being able to capture - audio notes, videos, pictures, text and structured data that can be used later by a student to review their progress and used in write-ups - is very convenient when using a mobile phone.
As we continue to develop our platform for students we are making sure all of these areas are covered.
Tags: data capture, education, memory, mobile, mobile phone, planning, practice, revision
06.Aug.08 devices, education, handy education, luzia research, mobile development, mobile phones, tools, uHavePassed Comments (0)
Handy education - not mobile learning
When I first got involved with mobile phones and education - my first impressions of the usefulness of having support on your mobile phone were completely wrong.
The first tool I wrote was a tool to help me learn German vocabulary - I had a list of 1000 words that I wanted to be able to remember and I already had made a pile of flashcards for the first 100 words that I carried in my pocket. I wanted to stop having to remember to take carry the flashcards with me - so putting them on my mobile phone made a lot of sense. I purchased a Windows mobile and in a couple of days wrote a program to help me track and manage these virtual flashcards.
My vision was that I would use these flashcards in the same places I was using the real flashcards - whilst waiting for people, on a train etc. The idea for me was simple - the phone program would make life easier by tracking which vocabulary I knew already and which I didn’t and if I my memory for it was getting progressively better. The program would also mean I would not have to remember to take the flashcards with me.
What really happened though was that I started flicking through the cards in many places, taking 2 minutes here whilst waiting for the kettle to boil at work - another 2 minutes whilst on hold on a phone call etc. I would flick though the cards whilst sitting in front of the telly, lying in bed and in many other unexpected situations.
What became clear to me was that having the program on the mobile phone - did not only help me study outside of the house and office - where it was more difficult before, but it removed barriers to studying in those normal places also. Before I had to go and get the flashcards - organise them in piles, and then work through them - once finished I would have to make sure they were put away carefully and then return them to their place of origin. Now I had ot reach into my pocket and press 2 buttons - state was restored from my previous session and off I went, when finished - press one button - lock the phone and back in my pocket.
The realisation that my mobile program had reduced a barrier to me building my vocabulary, rather than just allow me a more convenient way to package a learning resource was key for me.
Indeed with uHavePassed we receive information back from our users about when they use the software (each time they synchronise with the server) - we can see what time they take tests and it turns out that very late in the evening is a very popular time. It is our assumption that our users are in bed at this time and taking practice tests. The motivation and effectiveness of studying before sleeping should be the subject of a separate debate, but I found this to be further evidence that programs on mobile phones do as much to encourage and support students in the house, school or place of work as they do outside of these places.
Whenever I talk to others about the tools we write for mobile phones - the picture they first create is of people on a bus or train etc. It takes some time to realise that mobile learning tools can be used anywhere (even infront of a computer) because they are designed for short interaction periods, focused only on specific tasks and give good continuity through start / resume functions.
For us the phrase mobile learning is a great way to first introduce the tools we create, but is highly inaccurate in detail - our tools can be used anywhere, but location is not key.
In German the word for mobile phone is Handy (just to prove that first program worked) and reflecting on the English meaning of this word, convenient, says to me it would be better if we thought of what we did as Handy Education - not mobile learning.
Tags: education, handy education, learning, mobile phone, mobile-learning, mobilelearning
04.Aug.08 devices, education, handy education, languages, luzia research, m-learning, mLearning, memory, mobile development, mobile phones, tools Comments (5)
Nokia N810 review
I’ve been using a Nokia N810 for the past week and was interested to see how a pocket sized mobile device (but not a phone) might be useful in education.
If you are unware of the N810 it is the latest in a range of devices that Nokia call internet tablets. It has a size similar to that of an iPhone, but it is not a phone at all- it can only use WiFi or bluetooth to access the internet. It also has a touch screen and GPS like the iPhone, but I think that is really where the similarity ends.
Unlike the iPhone the N810 is an open operating system and any software can be installed on it. This openess does a lot to highlight why the iPhone closed system is more suitable for consumers than it will to encourage take up of similar devices.
The device is perfect for me but I can see that it would not be suitable for all. The OS is called maemo and is a linux derivative. The interface is very friendly and it can upgrade over the air which is missing on nearly all mobile devices. The problems come with the software, which is typical of a lot of linux software in my experience in that it just about does what you want. In the week I have been using it I don’t think I have used a piece of software that has not crashed at some point.
Even the apps that come as part of the OS have crashed, and this annoying for core apps like email and the browser (a firefox derivative). Those open source apps that I have installed have worked just about but I can’t see any of them making it in a world where Apple is setting expectations.
I think at this point i should mention that I love the device and feel it is perfect for me. There are times when i want to take a phone out and times when I want the capabilities of the N810 but I am glad that I don’t always have to carry around one device with all my eggs in one basket. It can utilise the 3G connection on my phone to access the internet when there is no WiFi.
It is interesting that Google’s new mobile OS Android can already run on the N810 but in a restricted way (slow). I am not sure of the technicalities but it would be great to see Android replace maemo completly because Android seems to have a much better memory management system and philosophy.
Anyway enough of the technical stuff - how is this device useful in education? Well in short it isn’t - sure it could be shoe horned to have a place competimg against a windows PDA but in all truth without a good range of software it has little use as a school or institutions sponsored device. For an individual who finds it fits their needs then it is perfect!
If Nokia want to make it suceed they need an OS that will give developers more of a platform than one niche device and for that Android makes perfect sense.
Tags: devices, education, mobile-learning
31.Jul.08 devices, education, m-learning, mLearning Comments (3)