New educational techs

The inclusion of mobiles in the horizon report is a key point. Questions of access are always important, and education that utilizes mobile phones is an important piece of any plan to increase access. Far more people have mobile phone than have computers. Estimates put mobile phone adoption world wide at over 3.3 billion (not sure if this is unique users or mobile phone subscriptions). Many people in the developing world will access the Internet for the first time through a mobile phone. Here in the U.S. we have a lower mobile phone adoption rate than other countries (particularly Nordic countries) but our adoption rate is still high. So we can assume most students will have mobile phones. The bigger issue is that many people will not have the mobile phones discussed in the horizon report. Most phones are still not internet-enabled and are not geo-locatable. An important issue going forward is not to conflate mobile phone adoption rates with smart phone adoption rates. Most of the educational uses discussed in the Horizon report are for newer, more expensive mobile phones. Not everyone can afford a data plan (I know I can’t. Dan, how do you do it?) So I do have a problem with saying mobile phones are widely adopted and then describing educational uses that can only be applied to the minority of these devices.

I agree with Jacob about Cloud Computing. THe Cloud is the future, and it will be a highly useful educational tool (tools?). We already use cloud applications all the time in the form of Google docs, gmail, and I think Wikis and blogs. The most important thing is how Cloud Computing can cut down costs for students at less privileged institutions, just like Jacob says. I’m think about the NCSU AFS space, and how it lets students store things on NCSU servers in case they don’t have computers or their own Internet access. Even more impressive is the Virtual Computing lab at NCSU, which “provides a remote access service that allows you to reserve a computer with a desired set of applications for yourself, and remotely access it over the Internet.” Students can access these virtual computers from elsewhere and then use programs they otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford. Good stuff, and a good first step in helping bridge some of our serious access gaps.

Final technology I’m going to address: geo-location enabled devices. I think there is great potential for teachers to use these devices for educational purposes. I also don’t think they raise the concerns Jacob brings up in his post. 1. if schools provide students with the devices, then the students will only use them during school hours, so they won’t be “stalked” during a time when they aren’t supposed to be supervised anyways. 2. Even if the school asks students with GPS enabled devices to use a certain application, the student will know when the application is running and the location being reported. It would take quite the nefarious school district to install a location aware app that is always on and alway reporting location.

One of the more interesting ways I think location aware apps can be used is as a creative writing tool. Whrrl, a great geo-location service, has users put together stories through location and pictures of location. With the simple tagline, “what’s your story” Whrrl has created a geo-location enabled story telling space for interested users. The services can obviously used in other ways as well, the most obvious being for history classes, parks and recreation classes, architecture classes, and field work in the natural and social sciences. I really think people will come up with much more creative ways to use this ability though, and I’m kind of excited to see what they’ll do in the future.

The inclusion of mobiles in the horizon report is a key point. Questions of access are always important, and education that utilizes mobile phones is an important piece of any plan to increase access. Far more people have mobile phone than have computers. Estimates put mobile phone adoption world wide at over 3.3 billion (not sure if this is unique users or mobile phone subscriptions). Many people in the developing world will access the Internet for the first time through a mobile phone. Here in the U.S. we have a lower mobile phone adoption rate than other countries (particularly Nordic countries) but our adoption rate is still high. So we can assume most students will have mobile phones. The bigger issue is that many people will not have the mobile phones discussed in the horizon report. Most phones are still not internet-enabled and are not geo-locatable. An important issue going forward is not to conflate mobile phone adoption rates with smart phone adoption rates. Most of the educational uses discussed in the Horizon report are for newer, more expensive mobile phones. Not everyone can afford a data plan (I know I can’t. Dan, how do you do it?) So I do have a problem with saying mobile phones are widely adopted and then describing educational uses that can only be applied to the minority of these devices.

I agree with Jacob about Cloud Computing. THe Cloud is the future, and it will be a highly useful educational tool (tools?). We already use cloud applications all the time in the form of Google docs, gmail, and I think Wikis and blogs. The most important thing is how Cloud Computing can cut down costs for students at less privileged institutions, just like Jacob says. I’m think about the NCSU AFS space, and how it lets students store things on NCSU servers in case they don’t have computers or their own Internet access. Even more impressive is the Virtual Computing lab at NCSU, which “provides a remote access service that allows you to reserve a computer with a desired set of applications for yourself, and remotely access it over the Internet.” Students can access these virtual computers from elsewhere and then use programs they otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford. Good stuff, and a good first step in helping bridge some of our serious access gaps.

Final technology I’m going to address: geo-location enabled devices. I think there is great potential for teachers to use these devices for educational purposes. I also don’t think they raise the concerns Jacob brings up in his post. 1. if schools provide students with the devices, then the students will only use them during school hours, so they won’t be “stalked” during a time when they aren’t supposed to be supervised anyways. 2. Even if the school asks students with GPS enabled devices to use a certain application, the student will know when the application is running and the location being reported. It would take quite the nefarious school district to install a location aware app that is always on and alway reporting location.

One of the more interesting ways I think location aware apps can be used is as a creative writing tool. Whrrl, a great geo-location service, has users put together stories through location and pictures of location. With the simple tagline, “what’s your story” Whrrl has created a geo-location enabled story telling space for interested users. The services can obviously used in other ways as well, the most obvious being for history classes, parks and recreation classes, architecture classes, and field work in the natural and social sciences. I really think people will come up with much more creative ways to use this ability though, and I’m kind of excited to see what they’ll do in the future.