02/11/2008 by nicola.

I have previously mentioned about using a wiki to try and represent some of my thoughts etc, well here goes nothing, you can now decide how insane I am or not, if you haven’t already done so. I was - as a personal development project, hoping to translate it into some other languages but haven’t had time yet, so have stuck a Google translation gadget in for the time being.

I did actually set up this wiki, but always viewed it as currently renting a couple of folders of personal writing space on it. The mobsessed folder is out of date, in terms of an update with that - there isn’t one! I have not been able to focus enough since July, I have written and running some python scripts on my phone, but still not looked at Android Java and looked at mobile web in more detail and I still haven’t found a way to send SMS as files to a web server, but I believe more than I did in May / June that it is possible.

I used pbwiki due to ease of setup but it does mean people have to request access to edit which is a pain, however, you can easily copy from the source code, which is a step in that direction I suppose - could potentially move it to another wiki software too. Some of the pages have nothing there but an intention yet…

This is not formal research and I have not had an opportunity to complete any experiments yet. I also have not attempted to look at neurophysiology before so my understanding is less than basic, am going with gut feel then seeing (if I understand) if the research backs it up or not. I also still don’t quite understand why my own brain which must know how it functions appears to be incapable of helping me type, write, read and understand it easily.

So I am not presenting anything as conclusions, it is ideas only. This wiki does not currently have appropriately cited references, it is a mess of thoughts. It should have and I hope to get that fixed soon. I owe a thanks to Mustafa too for a conversation about - I don’t know how long ago it was - 6, maybe 8 years ago when we were talking about mobile phones and he mentioned about the importance of magnets and magnetism in future technologies which had never occurred to me at the time and really kick-started my own thinking on mobile phones and connectivity.

Thanks especially to wonderful conversations with Inge de Waard and Jo Tait over the past year about mobiles, technology, learning, with their amazing and funny insights into these areas.

Apologies to the following who should be properly cited - who have greatly influenced my thinking on any of this would be - George Siemens - just about everything he has ever published about connectivity, humans and brains in the last few years especially hci and mobile connectivity aspects, ditto Stephen Downes on networks, technologies and openness (btw in case anyone was wondering, I was hoping to join in with the 12 week coursversation and bring some of this to the table, but life got in the way…was genuinely gutted not to),

Jay Cross on how humans move and communicate informally, Yrjo Engestrom on mobility, Jan Chipchase for amazing insights into mobile use and design, Michiel de Lange’s research, Howard Rheingold for the amazing Smart Mobs, Mark Kramer on using mobile devices via Mamk.net, C.Enrique Ortiz on mobility, Ajit Jaokar on mobile networks and openness, Jurgen Scheible with his great tutorials and book who managed to explain Python and programming in a way that I could understand and Ken Banks, Nathan Eagle’s work on mobility in Africa, massive thanks to all of them. Also thanks to various magical people in my delicious network !

I still don’t know where mobile learning is going and since joining the university where I currently work, I seem to have understood less and less what learning is about. I am still undecided about how mobile learning could be designed, completed, or even if it should. I needed to answer some questions and this is a first attempt to do so - an attempt to try and find some organisation of my own thinking about mobile connectivity - what were devices all about, how they behave with other technologies in an environment, how they connect, how they are networked, the randomness of human beings and how this all links back to human physiology and the brain, I think a lot of answers lie in our understanding of magnetic - electromagnetic waves.

I still have a feeling that some of the best mobile learning will be informal mobile learning which links into all of this. In 2008 with increased attention being focused on being mobile, mobile devices and mobile web, it felt like a good year to try and write - something in some way. However I need to move on from wherever this is at - I think why mobile phones and mobility are of so much interest to me is that like many others I think I am nomadic - continually unsettled, continually moving around, maybe I’m trying to make sense of that too - but that’s a bit deep and off the point for this blog.

Oh and because I’m not sure when I will next be posting, I am still looking at wikis and visualisation (I still have it as a to do and I’m still interested in it which makes it kind of difficult not to) after whining last week, someone very kind, patient and wise who knows me, suggested very nicely that I might have different ideas to 2000 other people and should still go for it - I started to look at ajax this week and got as far as attempting to put a list of pages into a jquery to display a treemap (don’t think treemap is best visualisation for this anyway) - but seeing as I know nothing about jqueries it unsurprisingly didn’t work, but I have not given up hope.

PS if you do visit the RFID page and you get squeamish at the sight of needles……..

Posted in mobility, mobsessed | Print | 3 Comments »

10/10/2008 by nicola.

Apologies again for anyone who has been reading this, couldn’t get going today one way or another.

There was an interesting session as part of an extended “Sony Session” today, although it was a sales pitch type thing, the case studies were really interesting and actually quite moving. One was a special needs primary school for deaf children in Birmingham, UK. They have found huge improvements in confidence and language levels of the children and their relationships between parents, children and school really have taken on a new dimension. They use the PSP for sign language - because for most of the children, sign language is their first language and English may be their second or third. Some session notes:

PSP for sign language filming video diaries. Limited language so can use video for interviews. Learning writing & spelling - use graphics. Children record video of teacher signing then can view on their journey. For school trips children can record what they see then go home & share with their families. Helping communication maybe confidence so their language is developing. What about multi modal & touch. Children like because psp cool - doesnt have special needs stigma. Now trying to create a bedtime story to take home each night so building up a virtual library.

Highlight of the week for me was the keynote today from Yrjo Engestrom - a brilliant brilliant session on mobility entitled Wildlife Activities, New Patterns of Mobility and Learning. I am going to return to this session in more detail in a future related post. He described a current research project looking at mobility, see also From Teams to Knots, mobile version

I’ve emphasized bits which made me sit and think (as someone who has actually spent several hours of their life sitting and thinking about mobility, this was wonderful) some session notes mostly from his slides:

Mobility - context - reconceptualised. mobility - wildfire activities - communities - new potential for learning. Current patterns do not touch what is going on in the lives of learners. Script & counter script in mobility - how learner should move. Third spaces for learning Kris Gutierrez.

Movements - what are people engaged in - in wildfire activities - takes the shape of expansive swarming and multi-directional pulsation, with emphasis on sideways transitions and boundary crossing. Social production - what activities are carried out - changes radically. Not standard engineering logic - problem solving e.g. continuous running of assembly line - wildfires disappear then emerge again.

Movement of info, people, and things create textures that are constantly changing but not arbitrary or momentary. The textures and trails are made up of traces and trails which are both cognitive - in the mind - and material - in the world. Dispersed and distributed, yet well co-ordinated and aware of the whole in each node. Strong object and use value orientation. Quick adoption and creative use of up-to-date information and communication technologies but little emphasis or dependency on them (he used three examples of communities - skateboarding, birding and Red Cross disaster relief teams all of which are not currently dependent on the web but mobile technologies are crucial). No closed world of virtuality.

He described wildfire (where fires emerge, disappear then suddenly and rapidly re-emerge) communities as mycorrhizae - hybrid, poorly bounded, centre does not hold.

He describes his current research in learning in wildlife activities as a working hypothesis. Primarily learning without higher levels of mastery, fractured, poorly charted terrains, crossing boundaries. Subterranean - embodied, lively, cognitive trails and social bonds make terrains knowledgeable and liveable. Self-reflective, inherent in these communities - documentation, scrutiny, peer review. Learning by experiencing - high stakes personal involvement, risks, critical conflicts, shifts of identity. Quick improvisational adaptation and long term changes. Holoptic (cool - new word) oriented towards global view, every one in the local node has access to the whole but without central control.

So much to think about here - he is looking at mobility as it actually happens - its difficult to study and trace everything. (Jan Chipchase and Adam Greenfield’s research for Nokia spring to mind, especially Jan - so many of his photos observing the urban environments he moves around in… hmmm…designing for mobility - context, interactions, access, user choice…..). Mobility - shifting positions, shifting perceptions.

Posted in mobility, Mobile phones, mobile learning | Print | No Comments »

25/09/2008 by nicola.

Interesting presentation asking about the types of mobile user experience that you might be hoping to achieve and interaction considerations. I have only been looking at this recently, there are experts such as C.Enrique Ortiz who have been analysing the present and future mobile experience for many years. I’ve been also trying to think about what kinds of interactions can take place in the environment, what is a mobile user looking for, how they would like that interaction to take place, what benefit can they get from connecting in different ways, what is the context…

There’s a nice table on Slide 9 which outlines types of interactions, availablity, cost etc These could all be part of any mobile learning solution that you may wish to consider for an audience that might be mobile and will affect the kind of interface you might like users to be able to access when they first open your mobile learning application or widget etc

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

26/08/2008 by nicola.

I have started to think about this area a bit more recently, which is very inconvenient when my brain should be thinking deep and meaningful python and java thoughts but…

Via experientia.com an excellent article from Adam Greenfield which analyses differences between location and context, with resulting interaction design based on this understanding of environment, the devices used within it and the interactions between a human, devices and the environment itself.

He refers back to his previous post defining

“a mobile device’s capabilities and available interface modalities at any given moment are largely if not entirely determined by the other networked objects around it…..the device is of almost no importance in and of itself, that its importance to the person using it lies in the fact that it’s a convenient aperture to the open services available in the environment, locally as well as globally.”

I believe this is related to the extended mind concept too. I recently read the Andy Clark and David Chalmers extended mind essay which looks at the extension of cognitive processes into the environment and how the mind could exist in an external environment. The Guardian has also recently asked if an iPod is part of the mind.

I don’t think it is but then at the moment I have a very limited understanding of how the mind works. I read the extended mind essay as the mind literally extended into the environment, not into a device as such. There are comparisons between an advanced GPS enabled mobile device such as a smartphone and a notebook with information written in which can be accessed, but is it the connectivity / interaction / relationship between the device and the environment which is actually where the processes are ‘ignited’; i.e when you listen to the radio and a song comes on which invokes a good / bad memory, it is not the physical radio which is connected to your mind, it is just the enabler ?

So if you have a smartphone which can access information whilst you are mobile, wandering around an environment such as a city, with the variety of connections that will soon be available through GPS, Wifi, possibly SMS, I think it would be the combination of - how you are feeling whilst you are freely wandering around, any sounds, sights, smells or something you can touch etc that might be affecting your memory and then with a possible connection to a specific activity/interaction such as RFID / NFC sending information on an exhibition / museum to your phone through a networked tag in the environment, which could all be part of an extended mind, not just the device which could be in your hand, on your wrist, around your neck, on your clothing ?

Maybe…

Forgot to mention, Digital Encounters is another good read around this topic.

Posted in mobility, mobsessed, Mobile phones | Print | No Comments »