Above is the canvas size of the iPhone and iPod touch – quite big isn’t it!
I’ve updated the popular post we have on designing for the small screen to include some notes on the iPhone / iPod Touch screen canvas.
Just showing the screen canvas on a normal computer monitor I think is quite instructive about how much smaller it still is to a computer – but the post also shows the canvas size in relation to other mobile phones.
Sport is an obsession for Nicole (watching it at least) and she really enjoys both the winter and summer Olympics every two years.
Part of it is to support the German team, but mostly it is about the stories behind the people and understanding what this all means to them.
For the last winter Olympics that we were in the UK for – Nicole watched the German coverage on our TV but also had a laptop showing her the BBC interactive coverage so that she could see every event going on – and follow any news and updates in English and German from various websites.
This year is not so good though – although the first two channels in Spain have coverage all day of the Olympics – they are very focused on Spain – and keep reshowing their great moments – forgoing live action for endless repeats of cycling and other things they are good at. The have a web streaming service but mostly this just rebroadcasts what is on the TV – which is not really the point.
As we are in Spain the BBC and German internet streams are not available to us – so Nicole is coping with text based updates and the odd illegal feed over the internet.
However Gary has just said that he can do some technical jiggery-pokery and help Nicole watch the BBC coverage from here across the internet. Hooray for Gary – what a great and fine (if a little short) man he is.
It is Nicole’s birthday in a couple of days and this is the best present she could get at the moment!
Thanks to Gary!
Ajit Jaokar is organising a great conference about the next mobile megatrends – but too far away for me to attend!
If you are lucky enough to be in California on the 8th of September or even luckier and are there all the time – please have a look at the website and consider attending : http://www.mobilewebmegatrends.com/.
There are people speaking who are well worth listening to – in addition to Ajit there is Barbara Ballard who is always worth listening to about usability on mobile devices and should have an interesting perspective on the upcoming megatrends.
OMTP‘s new initiative BONDI will also be discussed and I think the talk around this might be very interesting.
I’ll have to cope with just twitter and the resulting blog posts for my understanding of the next mobile megatrends.
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.
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.
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.
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.
My iPod shuffle got accidently washed a couple of days ago – and was dead upon being found in the pocket of my shorts.
I left it out in the sun yesterday to dry out and feel better – and whilst I was listening to some Queen this morning (The Miracle was the track) I plugged the iPod in again – and it works - hooray!
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.
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.
We have just spent the last hour waiting around for someone to make a nice signed photocopy of our passports. In 3 months this has been our first run in with bureaucracy in Spain and ironically it happened today after we signed up with our Gestor, who is the person who is supposed to sort all of this out for us.
A Gestor is a sort of cross between an accountant, solicitor and administrative assistant. They sort out all of the messy stuff for you and tell you where to sign and if you should sign. On top of that they provide advice on tax and accounting and complete you tax returns.
As you might imagine to get someone to do this for you requires a degree of trust and we chose ours based on a recommendation. Unfortunately the person who recommended our Gestor lives outside of Valencia and so it took about one and half hours to get there.
It is with relief though that we travel back to Valencia knowing that tax, health insurance, our status here and that of The Big Green Monster are all in hand. On top of that our Gestor was a nice and funny lady who gave us great advice on many things.
We are just returning from the airport after saying goodbye to Nicole’s sisters, brother-in-laws and nephew. They have been with us for a week and it is the first time that we have had people stay for so long and also using both spare room and living room as bedrooms.
In all it has worked well-even when Nicole’s nephew Luca has taken-over the livingroom whilst sleeping the large terrace has made this not a problem. I have been able to work during the day fairly normally and they have even taken care of most of the cooking so it has in some ways been better than normal.
It took a bit of work to persuade them to hire bikes as it cost €40 each for the week and they were not sure they would use them. In the end it turned out that we went out on the bikes everyday and most of the days more than once. I had hoped that the bikes would also help them feel independent-and that seemed to be the case.
All in all a good week but it has made us grateful we have such a large flat(and terrace). It has also made us realise a few things we would change when looking for a new flat.
Yesterday I went with Nicole’s two brother-in-laws to see the last day of the July 2008 bull fighting in Valencia.
I really do not know what to think about the fighting – I went because I wanted to decide for myself what to think not just think what others think.
I found myself changing my mind several times over the time we were there and there are several things that I did not like immediately. Firsty I expected it to be a single man (the matador) against the bull but it was a man on a horse and several matadors that were in the ring against a single bull. On top of this the man on the horse changed his horse every 8 minutes or so once the horse was tired. All of this for me made it not fair match for the bull and enhanced the enivtabilty of the bull’s death.
Maybe I went with the wrong expectations, but I thought the bull would at least have chance to live. I thought that if the bull was good enough and put up a good fight then it would live, but this was highly innocent. For one thing if the bull won then the matador would lose and this is not something they would easily cope with-it is all about machismo.
I also did not understand how much it was entertainment and show. To kill the bull they must put a very nicely decoraated skewer into the bull where the spine is. Instead of doing this once with one skewer they do it many times ending with a final skewer that is very long and then kills the bull. Once this long skewer goes in three matadors run out and surround the bull knowing it is no longer a danger. If it is that easy – then why not use the big skewer at the start? ANSWER: Entertainment.
The entertainment part was the cruelest part for me which is strange aas it has nothing to do with the well-being of the bull just the morals of other people which does not help the bull at all. This really got me thinking about the fight from purely an animal welfare perspective. It is not easy to do this – you can black & white about it and say it is cruel to kill the bull – but what does this have to do with animal welfare when you are a meat eater and already responsible for aniimal deaths that you do not see each day.
The next question for me was is this a bad way for the bull to die? I found his hard to answer-clearly there are better ways, but for a bull the chase and fight with multiple wounds seems very natural – the dignity of it for them means nothing. So I still can not answer this question.
I left the stadium feeling like I wished I had not paid to see six bulls die in the same innevitable way. I did not enjoy it particularly but I think it is something that people should see to make up their minds and better understand the experience.