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If Your Customer Can't Tell Your Online Forum Is Anchored To Your Website, That's Probably A Good Thing.

via online.wsj.com

While Jive and Lithium are the ones mentioned in this Wall Street Journal piece, Telligent also has a strong story when it comes to the integration of mobile environments and things like online forums and groups.

A good example, and one the WSJ briefly alludes to, is having the capability to use email to push messages back and forth to a customer's online forums. But that scenario isn't just a no-brainer for external communities. It's also big when you're introducing online applications inside the firewall to a group of new users. By allowing a company's employees to use their mobile phones, you don't have to disrupt the way they're communicating today.

We typically set up groups internally and users can create and receive updates on their mobile devices when new information is available. As users get comfortable with that approach, they'll often move to more sophisticated subscription options like RSS feeds or personalized widgets.

While I'd rarely be against the development of a full-blown iPhone app in this context, I think the way mobile's evolving, most access will be browser-based.

Dedicated applications will bring their own merit though, perhaps providing offline access, exclusive content and the "official" brand feel that a richer client app might provide. Either way, the mantra should be flexibility. If your customer can't tell your online forum is anchored to your website, that's probably a good thing.

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Modifying the Primary Mode of Instruction

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What are you doing in your classroom?

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The Walled Garden of Analog Educational Resources is Crumbling

Judy Breck, a New York based expert in open content, recently wrote on her Golden Swamp blog a post titled, The Scarcity of Learning Sources is Contrived, the Best Stuff is Free. It is a thought provoking post. I am not sure I agree with everything she writes, but some of her points coincide with what I have been stating here on my blog. She writes:

The gushing spigots of money poured into analog educational materials manufacture a scarcity that belies the reality of 21st century learning resources. Billions alloted into the printed walled gardens of textbooks and digital walled gardens of for-pay school resources deepen economic woes ...

Teaching and learning should now, and inevitably* will, use the open internet instead. An individual’s mobile internet browser will become the primary access to knowledge for each student and teacher. We should be working to make this happen soon. “Shame on us” when we do not do so.

I agree completely that a mobile device will become the primary access to knowledge for all students. When I started this blog and my research on mobile devices in education I was not sure what role these devices should or would play in a school setting. I am now more than convinced that the mobile space is where the future lies for education. More and more content will be accessible via a mobile phone and the devices and associated costs will begin to become more affordable. This will drive adoption to even greater numbers than currently exists.

Ms. Breck, in her post, goes on to say:

Now that learning resources are emergent online, it is only a matter of time before they break down the garden walls of learning resources. What broke the grip of the music industry and is now going on with main stream media will happen soon to educational materials. It has already begun.

She predicts the paradigm shift that has taken place in the music industry, and now in print journalism, will soon happen with educational resources as well. Provocative ideas to say the least. Follow the link above to read the full post.

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Mobile phones - Cultural resources for learning?

Louise Duncan, quoting from the paper, Mobile phones as cultural resources for learning – an analysis of mobile expertise, structures and emerging cultural practices, had this to say on a recent post on her blog:

“Outside the classroom learners are building up new rich media literacies as they create their own habitus of learning in everyday life. We propose that schools should, and ultimately must, recognise and embrace this change. However, we are aware that such a perspective provides a challenge to our conceptions of where the boundaries of formal education are positioned.”

Bachmair, Pachler and Cook state that ”Educationally, knowledge and media are cultural resources, which are no longer controlled and governed by the school.” Our schools should not be a place that students are rendered unable to engage with the culture in which they exist. Educators should instead be embracing these devices and their capacity to improve the learning agendas set within the formal environment of a school.

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Handheld/Mobile Timeline

Got this from Judy Brown' website. I thought it was a nice layout for mobile computing history. This was taken from a slide for a presentation she was giving on mobile computing.

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GigaOm's Liz Gannes On The Location-based Craze

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How Fast is Mobile Computing Growing? Check out these Real-Time Stats?

Gary Hayes has created a real-time mobile computing calculator. The statistics below are since you opened this page. If you follow the link to his page he provides links to his sources to justify the statistics he has in his mobile counter.

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How about Mobile Phone Friendly Websites for Schools?

Curtin University of Technology has created a mobile website to allow students access to information, support services, and campus wide facilities. It is believed to be the first of its kind in Australia.

Below are two quotes from a news release posted on the school's website:

Curtin students will now be able to access information about transport services, financial support, housing and places to eat, on their mobile phones.

‘We also know that 99 per cent of our students have mobile phones and that 75 per cent of those phones are web-enabled, so this sort of website is going to reach the vast majority of our students.’

How about mobile websites for high schools here in the US? Interesting statistics in the quote above - 75% saturation rate for web-enabled phones amongst their student body (Consistent with what I posted here). What percentage of students in your high school have web-enabled phones? How fast will that market grow in the next few years? Will your campus be prepared for the onslaught of web-enabled phones that I believe is coming to all high schools? 

As prices for both phones and service contracts decline in the next few years, because of competition, will I believe, lead to a surge in web-enabled smartphones amongst high school students. These phones can access the internet without ever touching the school network. How will your Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) address these types of issues? I believe school networks could become irrelevant. Students and teachers will not need to use the school network to access information. They will simply bypass it. That is why I quoted the following in this post:

The article references a report titled "Pockets of Potential: Using Mobile Technologies to Promote Children's Learning". The report recommends that school administrators begin to ease restrictions on the use of cell phones in school. Basically the report validated the approach we had decided upon.

As school budgets become increasingly tighter, how will school administrators answer parent's and board member's questions regarding the use of mobile phones on campus as a way to reduce IT costs? What do you say to the parent who asks why they should spend $150 on a TI-89 graphing calculator when their child's smartphone, that they already purchased, has a graphing calculator app on it that is superior to the calculator? These types of questions loom on the horizon as sure as Mariano Rivera will close out the 9th inning of a baseball game. As administrators, I believe we need to start preparing for these scenario's today.

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