02/07/2008 by nicola.

This year, its changing and its going to get more fun ! If it gets easier to develop mobile apps, there’s millions of more possibilities for mobile learning too. There is an interesting article from European Communications this week summarising past, current mobile development activity and possibilities about how it could become easier.

1. Why isn’t it easy now?

In the preface of Designing the Mobile User Experience, Barbara Ballard starts off with “hundreds of devices, dozens of browsers, hundreds of implementation environments” and expands further about the variety of technology, messaging, connectivity options. I was at a DevMobi event last week and they mentioned that there are now over 3000 unique device profiles in the Device Atlas including a refrigerator The Device Atlas is a relatively new (and amazing) output from DevMobi which has complete lists of device characteristics / specifications for mobile phones, blackberries etc across the planet.

In a post last week, George Siemens mentioned that innovation in this space has been lacking. A recent post from C. Enrique Ortiz who has many years of experience in the mobile computing space, clarifies this further by showing the differences between local and browser based application development. So - mobile application development to date has not been easily achieved, not just due to all the different devices, but the different components within the handsets as well.

2a) What innovation has there been? I’ve had some cool apps on my phone over the years (mosquito repeller that worked in Bodrum, being one of the better ones!)
I guess this also needs - b) What has been the context for mobile innovation to date ?
I am not in a position to answer this fully, but in short mobile developers have not had the time or resources to develop for multiple devices in multiple countries and have had licensing restrictions on the development. Some highly innovative mobile application development has been carried out by developers, often for their own personal use on their device of choice at the time. These have been released within communities - such as xda as well as manufacturer communities and forums - software development kits have been around for several years. Some communities and sites have been specific such as S60. Lots of apps are available as freeware but are scattered around the web.

3a) Why are applications not all in a central place for downloading like a Sourceforge and b) how do you know what is good or not?
Context and purpose of development as above (as well as specific commercial development by manufacturers and operators alike). Two more sets of developer communities have appeared for developing apps for iPhone and Android. Device Atlas is also a start and there are initiatives afoot to create more central ‘repositories’ of accessible applications that can be downloaded and modified. For example, the Android Developer Challenge recently released some screenshots of the 50
re b) As with any opensource - how do you decide - look at resources, check the ‘readme’ documentation, check online reviews and ask internal and external colleagues.

4. Ok, so Android is opensource - developers can build apps, what else ?
Ajit Jaokar’s ‘Android crossing the chasm’ post, his ‘eleven architectures of the mobile web 2.0′ post and not ‘comparing ecosystems with operating systems’ post explain that Android with its development of an open stack releases the potential for others to not just be application developers, but also device manufacturers because they can now afford to develop them (hmmm Nikia phones anyone ).Google as a web giant with extensive web application development and web communities can explore where it is appropriate to bring these into the mobile space. Andreas Constantinou on the Vision Mobile blog, describes Android as being similar to a browser on steroids

If you are interested in further details, I highly recommend both Ajit’s blog and book, as a non-industry specialist, I find it both readable and insightful.

5. What about other ‘open’ mobile foundations ?
The two most well-known are Limo and recently Symbian foundations which will both provide opportunities for royalty-free software development and in the case of Symbian foundation, backwards compatibility to current device versions such as S60 3rd editions and others.

6. I still don’t really get where the mobile web fits into all of this or why its important?
We know that we have been able to create content via the web, reuse, modify and distribute it via the web. We also know that with web2 apps and rise of web-based social networks, we can collaborate with others to produce and update content regularly, depending on how/when/why/where users have connected with the content. With the development of the mobile web, you can also create and publish content using the web and it might be possible to avoid the development problems highlighted above - such as device interoperability and higher cost, (and speed to market?). With mobile phones currently outnumbering computers in terms of personal or group ownership, there may be chances that some people’s first or early experiences of the web at all, could be via a mobile phone or similar device.

The device, context and purpose are also highly significant here - you are using a mobile device because you are on the move, you want to find relevant things quickly, connect quickly, not spend too much time browsing and fiddling around with the keypad or touchscreen, connect with other people quickly, maybe collaborate on work-related projects as well. Wifi, bluetooth, RFID, NFC and GPS provide a range of possibilities for getting real time location-relevant information.

Mobile marketing thoughts suggest that because of this relevance of data based on where you are and what you are doing, that mobile advertising may be more successful. Admobs live data concurs with this.

Matt Lewis suggested that using a browser to develop and deploy applications opens up possibilities for non-development specialists to have a go too (mobile widgets being a good current example of this). Gábor Török provides an overview of the different environments compared to a browser. He agrees to an extent but suggests that the proliferation of mobile browser versions and their current limits in terms of interaction / rich functionality may make it more complex.

7. So how can we develop mobile web content that is going to work, be enjoyable and useful ?

My journey into mobile web is documented on this site and its ongoing. One of the best resources available is the devmobi community website. Devmobi are part of Dotmobi whose investors (incl Google, Microsoft, Nokia, Sony Ericsson etc etc) have put money into the company to help ’standardise’ the mobile web and provide resources for anyone who wants to create a mobile web presence. Rudy Da Waele’s M-Trends is another good resource for mobile web development ideas. For mLearning specific ideas, mLearnopedia.com is a fantastic starting place.

If you are interested in mLearning but not sure how much technical understanding you need in order to develop content, the rise of the mobile web and the opening up of development opportunities will lead to you being able to access something on the ‘front end’ so that you can develop without needing to code or worry about how to make it work on devices. Barbara Ballard’s choice of book title is useful - it is not designing mobile applications, but designing the mobile user experience. They are mobile - moving around, what do they need or want? As with any other learning experience that you wish to create - who are your users, context, purpose etc . Device considerations come in a lot further along the process (although knowing about them / gaining an understanding of some of their characteristics can help and may make the process more cost-effective etc)

I will post back about this over the next few months as my ‘mproject’ continues, I would love to hear from you in the meantime.

For now, its back to Python

I am going to Open Tech Day this Saturday so have just attempted to download Android SDK and the Eclipse development environment (woohoo, it has pictures… well at least until I have to start typing !)

Posted in mproject, opensource, Mobile phones, mobile web design | Print | No Comments »

01/07/2008 by nicola.

Hi, some have started appearing, if you have contacted me via email between Monday am - now and have not received a response, please could you resend / contact via alternative means : nicola@aydindesign.com or Skype,
Thanks for your patience and apologies for any inconvenience
Nicola

Posted in Uncategorised | Print | No Comments »

25/06/2008 by nicola.

Kiwanja.net and Ken Banks - originator of Frontline SMS concept have launched the latest version of the highly innovative Frontline SMS today.

FrontlineSMS is a text messaging platform using a laptop and phone. This concept has already worked in grassroots NGOs in developing countries allowing people with different versions of mobile phones to be able to communicate and work together. It’s a free opensource solution that works locally using a local SIM card to connect on a local GSM network whether large or small groups. An important factor in developing countries being internet access, bandwidth - not required for Frontline SMS - communication that works and doesn’t have to be expensive !

Can it be used for mobile learning and education ? A comprehensive list can be found on the Kiwanja.net mobile database One of the really exciting things about this solution is the speed of development - with low resources, putting it in the hands of people now - so they can do things to improve their lives - now .

Huge thanks to Ignatia without whom I would never have found Kiwanja.net in the first place !

Posted in opensource, Africa, mobile learning | Print | No Comments »

24/06/2008 by nicola.

Today’s announcements about Nokia buying remaining shares in Symbian and the creation of an open Symbian foundation, reported in various places, including Pocket Lint and TechCrunch It will include Symbian, S60, UIQ, MOAP(S).

According to the whitepaper released by the new foundation, it will have backwards compatibility to Symbian OS 9 and S60 3rd edition and will support environments including Symbian C++, POSIX C (whatever that is), C++, Python and Web. It also claims that it will provide integration for other environments including Java, FlashLite and Microsoft Silverlight.

Be interesting to see what happens over next year alongside Android development from the Open Handset Alliance. So what does this mean? Ajit’s post last year, about open source and open standards explains some of the issues including licensing and interoperability.

Posted in mproject, opensource, Mobile phones | Print | No Comments »

24/06/2008 by nicola.

3 blog posts in 24 hours, must be twitter withdrawal, I wonder if there’s patches…

No more emotional ranting here I think. What a difference a few days, a few contacts with a few people can make !

Also I joined this community yesterday - if ever needed an example of how technology can enable conversation around very ‘difficult issues’… I have a lot to understand about these issues and its nice to find somewhere away from BBC or Al-Jazeera too.

Visit mepeace.org

Posted in middleeast, Technology | Print | No Comments »

23/06/2008 by nicola.

Wonderful things on there including 100 ways to succeed and 50 Have Yous. There’s also a fantastic community - the conversations around posts are great and he has Cool Friends.

My favourite ones this year so far are Don’t know where you’re going, so what, get going anyway! , Get out (I like people telling me to get out of the office now) and this week’s All at once where he mentions getting going quickly and getting on with everything at once.

Posted in professional | Print | No Comments »

22/06/2008 by nicola.

SMS - found a brilliant SMS tutorial from developers home where I first learnt some xhtml-mp and basic when trying out mobile web coding last year. Understand some of the differences between how to send SMS between phones and pc, but have temporarily stalled - because in order to practice SMS commands - need to buy a GPRS modem and I’m still trying to find the right one I need.
Predictive text - still not got any answers, someone suggested something about using ’spell’ feature but I still can’t get it to recognise html tags etc

Priority is programming languages - attempting to learn at speed - in order to see if can do something with open source (Android, LiMo…) and / or standalone, downloadable app for mobile - so need python (S60s), Java and C++ (others) - have started learning python - using two great online tutorials/books:

Byte of Python
Learning to Program

Am not in a position to output anything much yet - do not think that realistically going to achieve python, java, c++ by September but will see. Going to Open Tech day soon, so will be attempting to look at linux too before then.

So in summary - still don’t know if can manage to ‘magic’ SMS message into a web page without resorting to having to do something via the web such as mobile ftp. Am currently trying to stay away from covering mobile & multimodal web yet i.e. if you want to do something on the mobile web, you need web connectivity, bandwidth and a compatible mobile device, so already you would not be designing an app accessible by everyone.

Links are scattered but everything so far related to this project can be found on this feed. Thanks to a great post on Ignatiawebs, about Zoho, have started trying to use that for this project but nothing of use to share from there yet.

Posted in mproject, mobile web design | Print | No Comments »

20/06/2008 by nicola.

Two situations have happened in the past couple of years where over enthusiasm has resulted in recklessly agreeing to do things which later leave me feeling embarassed and frustrated.
1. Last year - started having early discussions with a person about designing a website for a charity - via a social network, not through the UN online volunteering which is my usual ‘channel’. It all sounded ok at first, was approaching fairly cautiously but at some point I seemed to think it was ok. Hadn’t reached a point where actually agreed to start anything. Just one thing, can’t remember exactly what it was now, but it rang a faint alarm bell, so I decided to google the person and found some references to this particular person on some scam sites.
2. Yesterday met with 2 very nice people who are doing some research into collaboration / collaborative tools and we did have a really great chat. However later found out when got home that the company that they are doing the work for, a large company have previously had a commercial operation which involved staging events - legitimately - but during those events, the nature of those businesses / commercial activity being carried out is something that I personally don’t approve of - at all.

Would like to think that have enough on and offline life experience to stop making bad judgements, but apparently not.

Has 1) made me want to stop volunteering online ? NO WAY. Could 1) ever occur again ? hope not.
What about 2) ?

We have been doing some very experimental stuff with second life at work and one of the students has been researching ethics in second life. We have been discussing how easy it would be have discussions / do stuff with no-one being able to really trace back what was either discussed or done. I am definitely one of the web / online collaboration fans and actively promote this but the reality is that more online collaboration can make it easier for people with crappy motives to carry out their crappy ideas.

I decided to delete my twitter account last night - I will miss the interaction with a mostly amazing bunch of people but there are also a whole bunch of people in my network that I have got no clue about and the idea that even one of them could do something awful makes me feel sick. I don’t know whether I would restart with twitter or not. At one point last night, I was questioning my entire ‘web / online’ use and networks I am in - whether to stay in them or not, whether to shut down the website, this blog etc

I don’t think that would be a sensible approach. There is no doubt that widening access to information and people is of greater benefit - providing networks where people can find, talk, share with others is a great thing and there is the bad side, but hopefully sharing these kinds of things online can lessen the impact of bad stuff being carried out too.

Had a nice ending to this day at least - doing some web2 stuff at work and just asked around our regular VLE user mailing list (we don’t have a formal learning technologies network group ‘online’ formally yet at Surrey, but on its way) if anyone using blogs for either personal or in their teaching / learning and have been flooded with enthusiastic emails from people who have thought about, really want to find out more or have made a start - this was totally unexpected and very cool

Posted in media, Technology, eLearning | Print | No Comments »

16/06/2008 by nicola.

Learning Circuits Big Q for June is Second Life Training?

This video shows an example of problem based learning in Second Life. For more details of the PREVIEW project, there is a blog available which has more videos, screenshots etc. Professor Maggi Savin-Baden at Coventry University is directing the project.

Posted in virtual world, eLearning | Print | No Comments »

07/06/2008 by nicola.

This is probably going to be a very boring post but I have various strands of thoughts which are circling in my brain kind of randomly, am going to attempt to connect and explain so if you did want to, could hopefully follow my train of thoughts so far.

Background / context:
Jan 2005 When I decided to start my web design qualification - why - was doing eStuff (incl eLearning), knew some but not enough about tech side, was more interested in mStuff (incl mLearning) and how things were changing with the web - i.e. more of web2 apps seemed to appear then. I decided back then I wanted to try and do something interesting with mobile web and mLearning at the end of it. So decided to do a web qualification i.e. computer foundation / some Internet architecture / eCommerce / web design & little bit web dev, so planned path was web - mobile web - mobile learning.

Also during some of 2005/06 was in an eGov role in Poole - this role was about helping people working in the council to eEnable / transform (seeing as its now called Transformational Government) front end and back end of creating, processing and publishing of information and advice to the public. UK central government had provided a grant to all local councils to help them ‘digitise’ and there were 54 different ‘projects’ to be achieved. eLearning was not one of these but I was following some of the developments through reports like Becta’s emerging technologies series which had very useful information about trends.

Accessibility was a key issue then too because by enabling information in digital / electronic formats - i.e. information and interactions being available to everyone is a good thing, not to mention the legal implications being a public sector organisation. The key being people want choices about how they access information which may depend on context, purpose, location etc.I was spending a lot of time having lots of interesting discussions with people across the council, about different types of information and on devices that it could possibly be displayed.

Some of these discussions were with Poole Forum which was a group set up for people in Poole with learning disabilities and we were talking about various different devices and ways of accessing information. So kind of areas thinking about then were device independent web access and learning - was it possible to design and publish information that could be displayed on as many appropriate devices as possible, using just one method of development. Not sure that it is actually possible to do with one method because mobile devices more complex now but will be finding out I guess….

So now - 5 strands of thoughts
1. Backwards compatibility - text, SMS messaging and SMS web as per previous post

2. Future proofing - multimodal web and multimodal messaging. There are some resources, around about multimodal learning Cisco paper , articles . As with the lovely “web2.0″ multimodal can mean different things to different people. My context for this being multimodal web & messaging only, so I understand it as….a future extension of mobile web and learning - giving people choice over how they interact and use information and for the purposes of this little project, looking at voice-text only.

A multimodal browser will allow multiple types of input or output using a range of options - keyboard, touch, voice etc I will be looking at Xhtml + Voicexml (x+v) markup languages. I first heard about Voicexml from mobile design expert Barbara Ballard who has written lots about class based design and mobile usability - what kinds of apps are fit for what purposes and contexts etc I will be using her recent book on designing the mobile user experience to find out more.

More on multimodal to follow in next post.

3. Stand alone app vs web app - in 2008 which is going to be better and for what purpose in terms of creating, distributing and users accessing….who is the target audience for the app and who is creating it, using what device.
4. Mobile app vs pc app - is it needed at all - as above with multimodal what is the context and need.
5. Development of app - open source (Android) v …anything else which isn’t ! However can’t go near an open source community until have more web dev knowledge, I don’t think they’d appreciate someone coming along and saying what is linux all about then
6. If I had time would be looking at handwriting recognition - text but this is out of scope for now i.e I would like to finish what am doing by end of summer.

What I want to do
Create a couple of small mobile apps - bearing in mind the above 5 strands and document the process on here. I will not be documenting any other bits relating to any other learning technologies on here before September at earliest (except when I can’t help myself), its going to be tech and some random bits of carpentry stuff. First app as in previous posts is a mobile editor and depending on time, 2nd app would be a mobile screen capture app.

If anyone knows of any good resources on any of the above, would love to hear from you re delicious or whatever , thanks !

Posted in mproject, opensource, mobile learning, mobile web design | Print | No Comments »