my thoughts on the iPhone

At the risk of being the only person in the world not enamoured with the iPhone, I'd like to share my thoughts on my recent trial of it.
A bit of background first: I've been using a Windows-based touchscreen mobile phone since 2006 and have had mobile Internet access all this time. I am also very into Apple-based products so am not out to 'diss' it for the sake of it. I am merely making a comparison of my experience between the phones and their usability.
I can understand people's enthusiasm for browsing the web by touching the screen if they have never done this before. And of course the pinch technology to zoom in and out and navigate around the page is very nice. Plus the screen is very bright and clear (all Apple products are outstanding on this!)
What would I miss if I moved to the iPhone?
1. The use of a stylus to tap on the virtual keyboard, although you can buy them for the iPhone but there's nowhere to store it on the device. Even with my skinny fingers, I struggled to get the letters right.
2. Predictive text. This speeds up my typing immensely on my HTC phone.
3. Being able to copy and paste. This surprised and annoyed me on the iPhone, the lack of a 'clipboard' feature!
4. Not being able to select text to delete. On the iPhone, you have to move the cursor and then tap the backspace key like mad to delete text! Why?!!
5. Arrows on the keyboard to move across to edit text. Okay, the magnifying glass thingy to help you move the cursor looks nice, but it just doesn't get to the crux of what I want to do , quickly. Overdesigned, if you ask me.
6. Being able to use multiple applications at once and copy and paste between them.
7. I felt rsi coming on as I hovered my finger over the virtual keyboard. There's something less assuring about the keyboard compared to the HTC, and that's saying something since the Touch is very slow to respond, and still I prefer it! Kind of like typing on a pc keyboard; I like the keys to respond and therefore prefer typing on a full keyboard to a laptop keyboard. With the iPhone, i didn't get a sense of having pressed with the right amount of pressure...
8. Apparently the iPhone doesn't have a 'file manager' type application so you cannot choose a file to upload, for instance, if you were using Moodle or some other website and wanted to choose a picture to upload? No chance. Does anyone know any different?
9. No support for Flash on websites.
10. I turned on Bluetooth on the iPhone and on my HTC. My HTC found the iPhone. The iPhone was still searching...I had to use my HTC to prompt a pairing. Paired it, but couldn't send a photo across to the iPhone. In any case, I'm not sure what you can Bluetooth from the iPhone. I went to Pictures and looked at the options there: Use as wallpaper, email photo, assign to contact. Hmmmm. Anyone have any experience of Bluetoothing something from and to the iPhone?
11. I couldn't transfer anything to the iPhone on iTunes since it belonged to someone else and iPhones will only pair with one iTunes at a time. I didn't feel like wiping out Tim Brophy(O2)'s music library, so wasn't able to transfer files across to test things out. Windows-mobile phones allow you to guest access and to explore the files on the device. I couldn't use the iPhone as a 'usb stick'.

I guess it's all in the applications - maybe I should ask this little fella to write some for me: http://tinyurl.com/brwvrk

Another time, I'll add a post about what I DO use the HTC phone for, maybe it will give people a few ideas for using it with other learners who are being equipped with the same...

Nintendo DS Lite, Pictochat, Handheld Learning 2008

My current favourite m-toy is the Nintendo DS Lite. I received mine after signing up early for the 2008 Handheld Learning conference (what will they give away next year? PSP?), proceeded to buy a few games for it to get to know its functionality. Games like My Word Coach include opportunities for you to write the letters to fill in blanks, which is a great bit of interactivity. I also have My Chinese Word Coach so I can practice my Chinese handwriting and word recognition. It's great!

Apart from the touch screen, My Chinese Word Coach includes opportunities to listen to pronunciations and to record them and compare your recording with the original. This gets my thumbs up for a well-thought out programme.

The Pictochat function is another great feature of the DS. It's like having a chat room in your hands. So long as there is another DS or DS Lite nearby, you can go into a chat room and draw or type to your heart's content. Not only can you send your message to the other person, you can pull down a previous message, add to it or erase part of it and then send it back! See video below:

This has some potential for simple gap-fill using words or formulae. We used Pictochat to great effect at the Handheld Learning conference: the friendly banter meandered from what the speakers were saying to trying to find ways to communicate where we were in the big hall. I met some new people through this and it's certainly a great way to reduce isolation in a big conference such as HHL2008. (pix of Chat Room B)

At another session, storytelling came to the fore when I drew a hand coming out from one side of the screen. Someone else drew another hand coming out from the other side of the screen. I then drew a croissant being thrown by the new hand towards mine. A third person (mention no names http://tinyurl.com/markvanhooft - scroll down to see his entry about my presentation at the HHL2008) drew his hand coming up and stealing my croissant! The story continued but I won't bore you with the details. This was not only a great ice breaker but allowed us to be creative, inventive and to show our personalities with drawings as well as handwriting and text.

During my presentation at the HHL2008, I also mentioned the R4 card to people. This is a Flash cart with a micro-DS memory card preloaded with Moonshell (it's like an alternative operating system for the DS that will run from the memory card). Another similar card is the M3 but I haven't got that one.

I put jpegs, .txt files, mp3 files and ogg videos on to the micro-SD card. I put that into the R4 card and insert that into the DS. The DS turns on with Moonshell and I can then look at the photos, view the videos, read the txt files as an ebook. I can even play .nds games! I converted a video using the Moonshell tools (http://forums.maxconsole.net/showthread.php?t=18663) which saved it as a .dpg file for the DS.

The R4 card retails for about £20 and comes with a 1Gb micro-SD card and preloaded with Moonshell, so all you need to do is to drop in your media files. Photos do have to be 256x192 pixels. Video screen size didn't seem to matter too much.

If you want to go on the Internet with your DS, or design your web site to be DS friendly, read this interesting review: http://tinyurl.com/4bhga6. Note that "Sites designed for greater accessibility will also tend to work better. " So maybe we can use the DS as a web accessibility diagnostic tool ;-)

So if you have Nintendo DS's in your institutions, why not stretch its use a little further. I look forward to hearing stories of how people have used Pictochat in classrooms, and how they have used the DS as a media player!

My slides from the HHL2008 can be downloaded from here: http://xlearn.co.uk/handheld/ls_ppt_hhl2008.ppt

Others can be found by going to http://handheldlearning.co.uk/

And congratulations to Chris Tansey of Wyke College for winning one of the awards at the HHL!

Weird technology fixes

Ok, this must be the weirdest technology fix I have come across to date that works. It's almost like asking someone to sneeze three times and the thing that wasn't working, will work again!

Basically, my HTC Touch on Windows Mobile 6 was refusing to let me install anything on it, either by download or via Activesync. I was getting very frustrated and had this problem for months.

I finally came across this article that solved the problem:

http://tinyurl.com/6chx7n

Anyone have any weird fixes like that to share? If any of the MoLeNET colleges are using the HTC phones and have this issue, this fix may be useful to you so TAG IT at once!

QR codes

Having heard about QR codes from James Clay, Carl Smith of London Met etc, I thought I'd have a go at it myself.
I couldn't Bluetooth the software to my phone, no matter how I tried (the .jar file went across but not the .jad file), but with my Sony Ericsson, I managed to transfer the .jad and the .jar file on to the memory card via a card reader and install the software on the phone that way. I used the kaywa reader (http://reader.kaywa.com/) and made my own codes using their online facility (http://qrcode.kaywa.com/)

I think QR codes are going to be great on open day - if you provide the students with the phones/kit to read them, and then have a booth to help students get them on their own phones (which in the long run means you can use QR codes around the college more) - will try this out in Sept 08.

Agree with James re reducing the need to type out URLs etc on a phone to access a website, but I think simply using it for location-based information is useful, and if you provide students with the means to make their own for an exercise, it will get them more excited about preparing and then reading information then a simple label on an item/location.

Ideas: anatomy (qr codes on a mannequin/anatomical figure), parts of an engine, a nature trail - identifying plants, identifying health and safety signs around the college (provide a sheet of paper with the signs and the qr codes, they have to spot them around the college and fill in location) etc.

Cutting and pasting with the Wii

Two blog posts in one day! Blimey!

I decided to try out my idea of using cut and paste on the Wii (instead of doing some proper work) and here's the video of my result.

Some of the features I really like about this is the way you can zoom out to see all the photos on your SD card. You will see me choosing the Road Signs picture on the Wii, then cutting the text from the right and pasting it under the correct picture on the left.

Because it's more like a 'copy' than a 'cut', you could do one to many labelling exercises (around input and output devices, for example).

I love the fact that you can make the 'pasted' image bigger or smaller by moving the Wiimote closer to the screen or further away from the screen, so you are using 3-dimensional movement to control the final 'stamp'. What a blast!

Enjoy! (by the way, images are Crown copyright, taken from direct.gov.uk)

Using the Wii for educational purposes

Here are some reasons for using the Wii for educational purposes that I have witnessed in various colleges:

1. The games encourage hand-eye coordination

2. The learners enjoy the interactivity and for under £200 compared to a £3000 Smartboard, it buys a lot of engagement.

3. The games can allow people with disabilities to join in an activity that would not be easy to do in real life: bowling, playing tennis, fishing etc.

4. Learners enjoy creating their own Miis, characters that represent them, and creating Miis for their tutors. A discussion around physical attributes could happen here - face shape etc

5. Take pictures and videos with your SD-card camera, pop them into the Wii and you can draw on top of the photos (pointing out Health and Safety hazards for example), run slide shows, create jigsaws from your own photos. Thanks to Josephy Priestley College for these ideas. One more from me: copy areas and paste them (cut out words from the bottom of a picture and paste them in the right areas to label parts, for instance?)

6. Get on the Internet with the Wii (see my other blog posts about using the Wii) and never have to buy another game! Try the word games, puzzle games, shape or colour matching games, painting programme etc. This is my current favourite logic game that will get your learners' goat (as it were): http://wiiplayable.com/playgame.php?gameid=246

7. Browse web sites using Opera (you have to buy this for the Wii) for a whole new experience.

8. I know Hull College have bought a racing game and a 'steering wheel' for their Foundation Tracks motor vehicle students and it helps them to understand manual versus automatic transmission a lot better as they can witness the difference for themselves.

Got any more good examples or ideas? Send them to me and I'll collate them and put in a post to ILT Champs one of these days, or maybe add to Dave Foord's wiki on ILT...

USB headphones and mic

I have a Samsung Q1 Ultra which is a nice ultra-portable PC. However, it does not have mic input and relies on the built-in mic, which records too much surrounding noise to be effective. 

Having used Dave Foord's USB headphones and mic at the RSC YH summer conference (and suffering the Princess Leia effect), I thought I'd buy some for myself. A little bit of research later, I bought these from Kenable.co.uk:

So they're only cheap (£4.99 incl VAT), but they are space saving, and the brilliant thing about it for colleges is that you can attach your own headphones to it!

So, if your PCs still have the audio and mic inputs at the back of the PC, or you just don't fancy sharing ear wax with other people, why not get some of these and get your students doing more voice recordings/podcasting?

I would highly recommend asking students to use Voicethread.com as a great alternative to PowerPoint presentations. Good for group work, encourages recording of voice or webcam comments on slides or videos and can be easily reviewed by the rest of the class immediately after the lesson.

I'm hoping to use it with my online teaching from September!