06/07/2008 by nicola.

OpenTech schedule

No idea if presentations will be available or on presenters’ blogs etc. I found the sessions really useful, I don’t think I get nervous when attending conferences as an attendee but I was more bothered this time - being new to ‘higher level’ development and having seen how some online communities can be with ‘newbies’ but concerns were unfounded - everybody that I spoke to was great - interesting and helpful. Having conversations between sessions was just as helpful in terms of ideas and pulling thoughts together. Talked with some people about programming including the fragmentation around mobile phone development (and these are people who have actually experienced the real pain of it having actually developed stuff, I have only done to some extent with web design for different browsers - but this is far more complex).

Starting to think that as I develop with programming - if I can get to a foundational level of some sort with mobiles - being able to tell a computer (or mobile device) to do something and actually find a way of getting the computer/mobile to do it, could possibly be one of the greater freedoms I am likely to experience in my lifetime. Downside being that if you develop stuff, then people are going to come to you expecting bug fixes - wouldn’t want to be weighed down with that. Getting stuff out in beta, working with a community, get new releases out as soon as possible - seems to be the route to take.

Which leads into one of the great sessions about innovation and why nothing in IT is simple from Simon Wardley who said he was going to deliver 150 slides in 15 minutes. I didn’t count but wasn’t bothered - no death by powerpoint here. He explained that in IT - moving towards commoditisation - away from products to services - one of his slides showed about loads of different types of aas’s in existence (e.g. SAAS software as a service) He also explained that as information becomes more certain - i.e. case studies and best practices emerge, - you are moving further away from innovation and its strategic value drops -

Excellent point - one of my personal biggest frustrations working within learning technology - how many times do you get asked in a day when you explain about a new technology - show me examples and then even further - show me local/global/corporate/big4/academic/HE/surrey etc etc etc - which then brings us back to ‘risk’ and how to evaluate & manage it, at which point the momentum of innovation has moved on and gone elsewhere. Don’t think it means it doesn’t happen, you still experiment with new technologies and you can innovate as a result of evaluating your experiments - but you are not starting with a blank canvas.

Matt Webb (co-author of Mind Hacks) - session on interconnected, fascinating visualisation of information about his research into cybernetics and neuroscience - how people have connected with and developed technologies. He also has started drawing maps of connections between all the leading thinkers (& inventors) and how they were all connected over the last century - I hope he does get an opportunity to develop and publish his research further - its fascinating, all the links and patterns between people and the conversations, projects between them. I’m not doing justice to it here, because I know next to nothing about neuroscience, but his interconnected blog shows in more detail. Really amazing stuff ! Mind Hacks is definitely on my future reading list too.

The Android session was good - nothing amazingly new for me, interesting that software on a phone currently costs around 25% of handset development and has been increasing. Each application has its own process, shouldn’t lose state (i.e. when you restart or go back into, you don’t have to redo a lot of things from where the program code was last - at) and can be all be modified, reused. Michael Jennings mentioned that the developers from the $10m developer challenge, all get to keep their code and can do what they want with it - its not Google property. Discussion seems to continue about whether Android which should help with reducing fragmentation by providing this one open platform - might also experience fragmentation with Android handsets themselves - so the same old mobile development problem could continue ? (I don’t have an answer to this right now, will return to once I am further along with Python and I get further into Android)

Had completely random thought at this point - does anyone know of any research into eye-tracking patterns on mobile phones - i.e. whether we scan a mobile screen in the same way as a pc one? If anyone does and could point to - that would be really useful.

Linking data with W3C semantic web project - Tom Morris provided an overview of his involvement with this - I can’t provide a decent overview, need someone like Stephen Downes to explain it - but basically they are building data commons with RDF - RDF because its easier to combine multiple bits of data. Uses sparql - looks like SQL but isn’t. More info about linked data project and getting semantic.

There was a sponsored presentation from Tiddlywiki - I can’t make my mind up about whether I like Tiddlywiki or not, but it is very clever and fairly easy to use. I looked at it as part of a wiki project I think around a year ago - one of the main points is that it doesn’t require a server to edit it. They are now part of BT Osmosoft - there is a new product - ripplerap which is designed as a free, opensource - conference collaboration tool.

Using open source for local political campaigns - to save a bicycle path in Bristol. The campaign was run by using open source technologies to connect and collaborate with everyone - sourceforge hosted code -perl mining of council petitions -mapping -google docs for collaborative editing -pay as you go drupal hosting -pay as you go SIM card for the press contact - home printed stickers to put on buses -bulk scanning of FOI documents, leaflets etc .

They created videos on Youtube of people using the path regularly, videos of local MPs supporting their campaign, used the website and email from Google apps, to arrange events such as campaign walks along the path. They have scored a temporary victory but campaign is ongoing. Steve Loughran suggested creating a sourceforge for political campaigns with drop downs to quickly select choices for local or regional campaign - interesting idea. He also mentioned one downside - in that using open source means that your interaction with data is exposed i.e. government both locally and centrally can use it for data mining to get information about what you personally have been saying, doing and who you have been contacting.

UPDATE
Re using python and bits of string to fight arms dealers, this amazing story - Alexander Harrowell’s post available now - the power of open networks in 2008 is just - mindblowing! Don’t need any more reminders about whether its worthwhile or not which is my ultimate takeaway from yesterday.

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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 !)

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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 !

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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.

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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 !

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20/05/2008 by nicola.

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02/05/2008 by nicola.

This post is about links to some great stuff I’ve been looking at and now not got time to write about in more detail:

1. George Siemens has provided a fantastic overview of not just open education resources, open source and open content but also questioning motivation for promoting use of open content. He mentions about the need to be able to develop (and publish) their own content, then how to make this available - taking into account the ‘localness’ (apologies if that’s not a word) of their content. Curriki? but again, publishing to a wiki when you don’t have much access to a pc is challenging, there are a couple of mobile wiki projects around, one in SA looking at searchable audio wikis in a school, using phones - but phones are not the only part of an overall solution to improve access to education using technology (I think - we’ve tried downsizing laptops, how about upsizing phones which are already out there - to some degree).

2. More brilliance from Jan Chipchase about how people are using mobile phones to improve their circumstances in developing countries - Open Studios where people who would not normally have an opportunity, can pitch / show their design ideas, explaining the context and reasons for the design. Local context being so important, ok so it doesn’t do Nokia any harm either but its SO helpful in understanding how people want to innovate locally.

Also a great presentation of research in Uganda about shared phone practices

3. A report, found via Mobile Active on Wireless Trends for Social Change - a great read.

We are so lucky to be able to access all of this information and that these brilliant thinkers (George, Stephen, Jan, Katrin and many others) are willing to share their ideas and presentations with the world !

4. Also on open content, from Kairosnews, a guide to research writing available as open content.

5. Stop Wildlife poisoning campaign in Kenya, the photos and videos spell out clearly the appalling effect on wildlife. Baraza blog has been documenting the build up and outcome of a multi-agency meeting held in Kenya last week , they have now launched a separate blog on this issue about trying to ban a poison called Carbofuran. Its great that they can bring all parties involved (including manufacturers and government agencies) together to discuss and agree actions for moving forward in a positive way.

6. More on how to stop faffing and get on with stuff, from Afrigadget too - an interview with Simon Mwacharo who is talking about his renewable energy business creating affordable, sustainable energy solutions - talking with his customers about what they need locally and providing solutions - this is up there with any great lesson in business.

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