Useful software for practical mobile learning

Since a fair bit of my time is spent working and researching in the field of Mobile Learning and there is not a lot of recent  listings of Software useful in practical m-Learning implementations I have compiled the following list from my bookmarks and Software I commonly use for these purposes. This list tries to represent currently usable applications not applications in the development stage.

Rather than writing this in the form of  a blog entry I decided to keep this as a live document within Google Apps that people can contribute to.

Please consider adding to this list if you find some useful mobile learning software missing. You can also subscribe to the changes to this list via RSS. You can also download this list as a PDF document.

m-learn: Mobile evidence gathering using GoogleDocs

This one nearly escaped my attention yesterday. Google has just announced the ability to edit Google Docs on your mobile device via their Google Mobile Blog.

Just point your mobile browser to m.google.com/docs and start editing.

Along with the use of 2D barcodes this will open a few interesting m-learning possiblities for educators that would previously have required custom coding to achieve. I can see this being very useful in situations where you have students being in the field and allowing them to enter data gathered using a standard mobile phone. The barcodes could point students to the location of the spreadsheet (avoiding the need to type the information)

The screenshot below shows a spreadsheet that I just made up for demonstration purposes.

The data gathered can easily be used embedded into LMS course pages for review in the classroom. The (quite capable) graphing tools in Google Spreadsheets can be used to visualise the results gathered. For some of our clients that use Moodle and GoogleApps for Education this is a very interesting combination as would allow for the authenticated entering of mobile data into the LMS.

It would be interesting to look at how you could easily geo-tag the information gathered for mapping purposes. But that’s probably a topic for another post.

Finding the ideal OS for (my) EEE PC

I have been a user of an EEE PC 900 for over 10 months now and in general very happy with the form-factor and it’s portability. I has been very useful in public transport, waiting rooms, coffee shops,…

However – in terms of Operating Systems I am now on my 3rd OS (despite initially telling myself that I will stick with the default and avoid tinkering) and it looks like I still have not found what I am looking for.

With the XP version of the EEEPC not even on the list of choices because of the sluggish performance on models I tried I survived on the default Xandros install for about 1 month until it’s ‘Easy Interface’ just got too painful in the number of clicks it took to get anywhere.

So I changed the Xandros install to ‘Advanced Mode’ which made some things easier, however the lack of any locking mechanism and the fact that installing nearly anything that was not officially supported (via other Debian packages) broke something else, forced me to look for a more standard Linux distro.

Eventually I chose Ubuntu for EEE (now called Easy Peasy – ???) As I have started to use Ubuntu on my VMWare desktops for some cloud-app development. The thought of having the same OS on the desktop and netbook had a lot of appeal. Next to CentOS (our Server platform of choice) I don’t want to deal with more distros than absolutely necessary. However in hindsight this turned out to be missing the key differences between both platforms. They are after all very different animals. While it was nice to have the same interface on both Desktop and Netbook, running Ubuntu on the EEE ended up being painfully slow and the WIFI support was pretty ordinary (which is not something I could say about Xandros). Another issue for me was that the support Huawei USB Wireless Modem E220 was sometimes unreliable and took ages to get working. I often had to reboot the machine to get the Wireless modem working again. And time is a very valuable commodity for me these days.

Eventually (after some research) I ended up with PuppyLinux and at first glance I have to say it was the fastest user interface I have ever seen on the EEE. There are a few oddities, such as running everything as a privileged user (same as Xandros) and as having Seamonkey as it’s browser instead of Firefox (which is a bit annoying for me as I have a few very useful Firefox add-ons I like on the netbook as well). But at first I thought I have found what I had been looking for.

If it wouldn’t be for the problems with network drivers (and how much use is the fastest UI, best functionality without Internet access on a Netbook) I would have dumped all others and stayed with PuppyLinux. Its startup time, speed, no-frills UI is exactly what I need while ‘on the run’. But after a number of hours of tinkering with drivers and various patches reported to work on other EEE versions I gave up. Getting WPA encryption on the WLAN side and the Huawei E220 to work was just too time consuming. Note: I tried to get Puppy 4.12 working. There are some ‘Puplets‘ specificly for EEE’s but mainly for 700 series using and much older codebase .

Currently I am (reluctantly) back with Xandros (although the XEPC version of it) and using PuppyLinux as a ’secondary choice’ from the internal storage drive in the hope the wireless driver problems will be resolved at some stage. I would love to hear from somebody that has it working on the EEE 900 as I really like this puppy. And I’d be even quite happy to donate some dollars for this purpose.

Conclusions

• There is not yet an ideal distro for me
• PuppyLinux without the networking issues would be the distro of choice
• If you don’t have much time – stick with the default – the amount of time you burn finding something that works will by FAR outweigh the time savings in a fast UI (if you can actually find it)
• And (just in case if Asus is listening and wants some advice) – look at what these guys are doing with Puppy – this is what an alternative Netbook OS should be like – FAST boot, FAST UI, No-frills ….
• If you want to be as close to your desktop with ‘Windows-like ‘ UI – stick with the Original – at least then you can take the slow UI as a fact of life

Update: just found this link to an excellent article in the recent Linux Magazine on alternative OS´s for netbooks

Testing mobile Twitter clients

Being out and about a lot, I am a fairly heavy user of my mobile internet plan (currently with Hutchinson 3). One of the more common tasks when there is some down-time while in transit or waiting for coffee is checking out what’s happening in the twittershere.

Personally (being a web-app developer for years) I generally prefer browser-based apps over ‘native apps’.  Dont even get me started about J2ME apps. One of the main reasons for this preference is that I tend to switch handsets fairly frequently. This makes installing software on phones a large waste of time. Just copying your bookmarks (in my case I have made up my own custom start page on the device) saves a lot of time.

1) Mobile twitter (http://m.twitter.com)

Being Twitter’s very own interface this is probably the one most people start off with.

However the functionality of the mobile Twitter client is very limited and after starting to use Twitter more regularily I found the lack of functionality too limiting and started looking for alternatives.

2) Slandr (http://m.slandr.net)

The Slandr interface looked very nice and functionality compared to mobile Twitter was excellent. I quite liked the ‘Geo’ function in Slandr, however the annoying adds embedded in content put me off this one.

3) Dabr (http://m.dabr.co.uk/)

Shortly after trying out Slandr I found this client and this is the one I am now using as my default. I find the interface very clean,  the functionality is all I require on the mobile handset and after all it’s an Open Source product which I am happy to support over others.

4) Others

There seem to be some further alternatives which I did not have time to check out (since I am quite happy with Dabr):

• Tweete
• Twitstat

As for the naming of these clients – who comes up with these project names ? Dabr ? Slandr ?

Using Nokia Share Online to upload directly to Flickr

One of the nicest ways to get photos straight from your mobile to Flickr (without having to use e-mails) on Nokia devices is the Flickr Plugin for the Nokia Share Online application. Since a lot of my clients in the educational sector  are starting to use Flickr as part of their online teaching I decided to create a short HOWTO.

The application itself comes with the phone on most recent Nokia S60 devices (with recent Firmware – check Nokia Software Updater for new firmware). To check if your particular phone is capable you can check the Nokia Share Online Support site.

Nokia Share Online appears on the home screen of your device (screenshots are from a N95 8GB):

First time only configuration

On first use you will have to check the available services by choosing ‘Options’:

On a new device you will be prompted for your Flickr Username / Password. Since I have used the Flickr Plugin on this particular phone previously the Username was already saved (which is a bit of a worry – since deleting the account should have also removed the credentials I would have hoped).

Set the update frequency:

NOTE: Be careful with this setting as there could be mobile data fees involved depending on the method you use to connect to the internet on your device. Consult with your network operator on the fees if you are using the wireless data network of your phone provider.

After this step you are ready to connect to Flickr and sync your recent fotos:

Create Flickr Post

Once the service has been set up you can create post using the following steps:

Adding the Post Title and Description.

You can coose from a list of previously used tags (or create new ones).

Finally you can post to the web:

Your post is now being uploaded and should be available via your Flickr Photostream (mine is on http://www.flickr.com/photos/leogaggl/) soon. The upload time will depend on the size of the image and the speed of your data connection.

Enjoy !

QR code usage in Japan

Just came across this post about barcode tombstones in Japan. Shows very clearly how much public acceptance the 2D barcode technology has got in Japan.

It allows visitors to the grave to access to the biography and photos of the deceased person and leave a personal message.

This concept probably takes some time to get used to, but you can see that it could clearly add some value for people visiting cemeteries. There is not much info you can fit on tombstone. A good example of providing ‘further information’ for people that are interested.

iPhone User Survey

As people that know me are aware I am not the biggest fan of the iPhone (3G – hello ???), but obviously from a professional perspective it is another phone that is with us and gaining market share (although not much happening in OZ yet). And to be fair it is breaking some technical ground as well (just not in the areas I most need). From my own anecdotal evidence I was expecting a high percentage of users to choose the iPhone because it ‘looks cool’ or is a ‘chick magnet’ – but I can not back this up by an empirical research (yet) .

But nevertheless I found this report a very interesting read:

Rubicon Consulting iPhone Survey

A short summary:

• Users are generally young(ish) – well – depending on your definition of ‘young’.
• iPhone users are overall very satisfied with the product.
• Rather than eating away the competition the iPhone seems to be expanding the smartphone market.  About 50% of iPhone users replaced conventional mobile phones ( most often the Motorola Razr – which is a good thing IMHO ), about 40% replaced other smartphones (Blackberries & Windows Mobile devices mainly).
• Usage No.1 is (reading) e-mail – no surprises there.
• Around 60% browse the web daily on the iPhone and overall the iPhone increases mobile browsing. Over 75% say they do a lot more mobile browsing on it than with their previous mobile.

As the survey is US based hence there needs to be some degree of caution translating findings to other markets, but in general an excellent resource.

Unmetered mobile access to university websites

I came accross this article last week which I found quite interesting in terms of it’s impact on m-Learning.

University inks unmetered Web access deal with Bigpond

The unfortunate thing is that this is only limited to one particular
university and one provider only. It would be interesting to see if
there are any other institutions that are going down that track. How
about a general unmetering for the ’edu.au’ TLD ?

[2D Barcodes] Global standard approval for mobile airline check-ins

Another good sign that 2D tagging is here to stay and there is some (long overdue) standardisation on the way.

Original Article – Herald Tribune

Co-working in Australia

After reading an excellent article by Brad Reed on Network World (this seems to be the online version: Co-working: the ultimate in teleworking flexibility), I finally got motivated enough to do some more research about this phenomenum in the two places of interest to me (Austria and Australia) as well as write a quick entry about this.

The whole co-working concept has been interesting me ever since it started, but the organisational issues associated with starting such a venture (and as with everything else – a lack of time) have always prevented any serious attempt to actually move in this direction. But after reading some of the examples in the above mentioned article and doing some further research I am starting to warm to the idea again.

Some interesting case studies

• Worldwide listing of Co-working Sites
• Google Map of US Co-working sites
• Irish Coworking Site
• Co-working Google Group

Activity in Australia

After some quick online research there appears to be some activity also in Australia although things seem to be still very much in their infancy. Most of the activity seems to be happening in Canberra, Perth, Syndey and Melbourne (in order of ‘online’ activity).  Andy Howard in Sydney has an interesting post on his site and  fellow software developers describes the situation in Perth and Canberra. It seems (not surprisingly) that most people interested in co-working are in ICT related industries.

Unfortunately so far I have not seen any activity in South Australia. I would have a few locations in mind in the Adelaide CBD (as I have rented there before in a previous life), however I don’t have the capacity to take on the administrative effort at this stage. If anybody in the vicinity of Adelaide (South Australia) is interested in pooling
some resources to get a similar project off the ground please just us the contact section of this site or leave a comment.

The rather unfortunate thing (compared to Europe) is that co-working does not even seem to be on the radar for any Government (or semi-Goverment) Agency involved in the provision of support to emerging businesses. I have recently visited a coworking space in Austria sponsored by the local Chamber of Commerce (Wirtschaftskammer) and I found it a rather good investment of funds seeing the activit and buzz around the place.

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