The ultimate in e-learning affordance... can you imagine the potential for educators and students to be able to design and adapt their own physical user interfaces for normal computer apps?
A research site by the New Media Consortium that shows novel research projects for developing mobile learning / interactive apps. Perhaps the MD team can take a look through the research projects and see which can be adapted for our own projects?
LEGOs and Lincoln Logs are for Luddites. Sifteo cubes are the new building blocks.
Each cube has a 128-pixel color LCD screen, wireless connectivity, a 32-bit ARM microprocessor, and an accelerometer that responds to tilting and stacking. You can arrange them to create everything from vocabulary puzzles to building challenges, all of which can be enjoyed by as many people as you can crowd around the coffee table.
Sifteo founders Jeevan Kalanithi and David Merrill previewed the cubes at TED 2009 when they were grad students at MIT. The cubes debuted at CES this year. The design marries classic tactility with new hardware and software.
“Sifteo cubes are the first gaming solution to deliver truly hands-on play,” Merrill said. “[The cubes combine] the latest in embedded computing and sensing technology with a timeless play style.”
Fascinating! Enhancing mobile learning with tactile and spatial play.
I was thinking how we could adapt iPhones or iPads to fit together like what we do for children's building blocks or mahjong tiles... Do watch the video too!
I just happened to think: Imagine if this pattern-recognition tech concept could be adapted to mobile phones in the near future, it might make for a very powerful blended learning / augmented reality tool. :) According to the researcher, implementation for mobile devices is feasible.
Possible applications for m-learning could be: gestural recognition, dynamic object association and the like.
E.g. If we could use an iPhone/Kinect to track a student's movements and remotely control an external apparatus halfway across the globe (maybe explore an Amazonian jungle to study biodiversity first-hand), or help disabled students (maybe cerebral palsy sufferers) communicate their thoughts more clearly... or perhaps get the students to "air-sketch" Chinese/Tamil characters to produce music on the go...
For more info: http://info.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Personal/Z.Kalal/
Well,
that was quick. Right after yesterday's surprising announcement,
Sony flew its yet-to-be-released NEX-VG10 camcorder into London just in time for
today's showcase event. Naturally, we had to get our hands on this shiny baby,
and boy we were impressed. In case you missed the news, this snazzy device is
the world's first consumer HandyCam with interchangeable lens, meaning you can
share E-mount lenses with your young NEX DSLRs, or take advantage of
the abundant A-mount lenses with the help of an adapter (which will cost you
extra, mind you). Likewise, there are also hot and cold shoe mounts on the mic
shaft to cater your current camera accessories. Read on for our thoughts on the
rest of the camcorder -- we've put together a little sample clip for you at the
end as well.
There
isn't much to complain about with this $2,000 (and, sadly, possibly £2,000 for
the Brits) piece of kit in terms of appearance and ergonomics. We like being
able to hold it by either the seemingly solid body (using the strap) or the mic
shaft, and both ways provided comfortable grip without much fatigue due to the
light weight (even with the bundled lens). We were also able to quickly master
the jog-dial control next to the 3-inch screen, but for this price, we expected
a touchscreen interface as well to make life easier. As for the bundled F3.5-6.3
18-200mm lens, we found that zooming required a bit more effort than we liked,
so thankfully there's auto focus mode -- just like any ordinary camcorder -- to
save us from further wrist work with the focus ring. We must also point out that
unlike the Olympus PEN,
this Sony camcorder didn't pick up any mechanical noise from its lens auto
focussing; otherwise, this kit totally wouldn't deserve such price tag.
Of
course, what we really care about is the picture and sound quality. All is
revealed in our sample reel below (remember to enable HD playback mode), but in
brief: stunningly accurate colors, sharp 1080/60i picture, and impressive audio
sensitivity (notice how the mic was able to pick up conversations from afar; you
can also enable just the front mics to minimise background noise). You may
notice some shakiness while we were adjusting the lens -- we'll blame it on our
lack of practice from the little hands-on time we had. Regardless, the NEX-VG10
certainly lived up to our expectation, and we look forward to hear what the
filming hobbyists think of this prosumer-level camcorder when it comes out in
September.
Update: commenter
aim120 dropped us a link to Sony's own sample clip. Enjoy!
Adobe unveils new publishing tools aimed at mobile and tablet devices
Digital Publishing Suite, which can be used by publishers to create, preview, publish and distribute digital content for mobile devices
The publishing industry is reinventing itself and a new era of
editorial and advertising innovation is upon us as publishers target new
mobile hardware platforms," David Wadhwani, senior vice president
and general manager for Creative and Interactive Solutions at Adobe says in a release today.
enable magazine publishers... to deliver groundbreaking experiences across tablets, smartphones and other devices
The technology enables publishers to create digital publications featuring interactive content, such as videos, which can then be distributed across different tablet and smartphone platforms and adapted for other devices in the mobile market
The suite, which was unveiled at the Adobe MAX conference today, is expected to be publicly available in the second quarter of 2011
The Technology Integration Matrix (TIM) illustrates how teachers can use
technology to enhance learning for K-12 students
The TIM incorporates five interdependent characteristics of meaningful learning
environments: active, collaborative, constructive, authentic, and goal directed
(Jonassen, Howland, Moore, & Marra, 2003). The TIM associates five levels of
technology integration (i.e., entry, adoption, adaptation, infusion, and
transformation) with each of the five characteristics of meaningful learning
environments.
Together, the five levels of technology integration and the five
characteristics of meaningful learning environments create a matrix of 25 cells.
Nice find! I particularly like the concept items on the x-axis and they could be used for evaluating e-learning. The vertical concepts are a bit dated.
When students were given their own iPad, they were given full autonomy of their device and had to set it up from scratch. They set up all of their own accounts and installed their own apps, from a combination of required apps to those which they chose themselves. Each student was given a $40 iTunes gift card to use for their purchases. Experience showed that true success relied on moving away from the school being the "boss" of the machine to one where it was student driven and student managed.
It was found that the Ipads are very different from laptops in that students can really relate to them and, when used, they do not become the focus of the learning. Instead they become one device which can be used with all learning tools that students have access to. The iPad became the "red pen" where much of the work got done in other ways and the iPad was used when needed. Laptop computers control thinking and control the desk. When used, they become the focus of the learning. iPads are a technology which has really changed the way students work with computers in the classroom. The real challenge for staff is to embrace this and to understand that you can't expect to have iPads in the classroom and teach the same way that you did when you didn't have them. It changes the way students work and they way teachers teach.
Like your comment about how the iPads don't become the focus of the learning. That's a thought that's been on my mind recently - the importance of the perception of "seamlessness" in tech usage.
That's probably one of the most important reasons a technology gets adapted - no matter how cumbersome it seems at first (e.g. learning how to drive a car) - because the normal usage of the technology doesn't hinder the intended task at hand. (That's why once you learn to ride a bike, you don't think so much about the bicycle itself as you think about moving faster.)
Think Donald Norman in "The Design of Everyday Things" has a term for this: affordability.
So I guess, my thought on the usage of the iPad (and any new tech at hand): The learning of the new tech need not be intuitive. But the everyday usage has to seamlessly flow with the given task at hand - so that the tool and the user become "one" with the task. (Just like how a user fumbles with a pair of chopsticks at first, but once he masters it, his chopsticks "become" part of his fingers.)
Then such seamless technologies get seamlessly adopted as "cognitive-multipliers".
