What Makes a Good Phone for Education Pt1

Now that all the dust has settled with the iPhone, it is great to see the impact it has had on the Mobile industry. There are new innovative phones including the Nokia Xpress 5800, the Sony Ericsson Xperia and of course the G1 (see below). With all these new phones I thought it was about time to place a stick in the sand and start to look at what I think is essential for a phone for education.

1) Wifi

2) Flash enabled browser

3) Full QWERTY keyboard

4) Video capture

5) Media Player

6) Removable storage

7) Mini usb connection

8) 3.5mm A/V connection

I will now try and explain why I have chosen these.

The wifi is essential as data charges are still very high and I kind of guess there will always be a charge associated with it, which is only fair. But from a teaching point of view if the children use their phones for education, who pays for the data used? The easy way is to hook the phones onto the schools wifi network.

I have not just said browser, but carefully chosen the wording, flash enabled. There is only one mobile browser that is flash enabled and that is called skyfire. Unfortunately, it only available in the US and is in beta. Browsing the web without flash (this is a plugin and is downloaded automatically when you visit a site with flash content, normally sites that have video on them) is like looking through a pair of dirty glasses. You get some of the picture, but there are parts you just can't see.

We know children are good at using the standard phone keypad to text, but if you asked them to type in a web address, believe me I think that the novelty of being able to use the phone keypad would soon wear off. I think that the a virtual keyboard (like the iPhone) would be as good, if not better than a physical one that the Blackberry phones have.

From experience and talking with other teachers, video capture is just so good for children and creativity, enough said. Oh the iPhone doesn't have it!

The media player, well if you can create the content, you need to see it. Although I would add that the media player should be able to play all media, not just created on or for phones.

As you create more content, there is a real need for storage, but again I have been careful with the wording and added removable. This means like a memory card, similar to the ones used in digital cameras. If it's not removable, like the iPhone, then when you run out, that's it.

The mini usb connection is an industry standard that it used to connect devices together. But more importantly it can also be used as the charger connection. How good would that be to have a charger that could charge more than one type of phone, instead of having a Nokia charger and a Sony Ericsson charger etc.

Again the 3.5mm connection is also industry standard and will not only allow the children to use their standard headphones, but if they forget, any headphone will fit it. Again the school would only need to have one type of TV out cable that could be plugged into any of the children's phones, instead of them having to bring in their phone specific cables.

This is just the start of my thought and ranting. We could be looking at What makes a good Educational Phone for Education Pt52!

What do you think? Are all these needed or are there other things that need to be added to the list?

Iphone Vs Google Phone

I don't normally blog about something that the rest of the world is already doing, but in this case I just had to. I was very sceptical of the Google phone (aka gphone, G1 phone etc.), because I wondered whether I would like to have an open source OS (Android) controlling my phone. This is from a man who is very pro active open source and have been for many years, starting with Red Hat Linux. I just couldn't get my head around the fact that anybody could modify the OS and I was having nightmares about hackers being able to get to my contacts or wipe out my prepaid balance. Then with launch this morning I kind of got my head around it that the network operators will initially control what is on the phone and if you then want to add anything then you will have to take a risk. I guess kind of like jail breaking your iPhone!

What really sold it to me was a video of the browser, which can be seen here.

UPDATE: Also check out the UI with his video here.

I've always believed that browser is king and have blogged about it on many occasions. You have to see the video to see that it is as good as the the iPhone browser and it was also nice how they made a point that you can cut and paste between applications (no dig at Apple, yeah right!).

This is one nice phone, not as flashy as the iPhone, but with a lot more potential. Once again competition is great to have and I wonder how many people out there with an iPhone had wished they had waited. I for one am glad I did!

Google Chrome

Unless you have been living on Mars, you will have heard about Google's new browser called Chrome. It has had worldwide attention and lots of people blogging about it. I have chosen to let the dust settle and then give my views on it. I don't want to get into the technicalities of it, like speed, compatibility, comparison to other browsers etc, as there are plenty of other blogs that have done that.
The main question is why have they (Google) decided to bring out a browser when it is common knowledge that they support the Mozilla Firefox browser. The answer I feel is not to just to be a competitor to Microsoft's browser, but is in fact related to their upcoming Android platform for mobile devices. I'll try and explain my thoughts on that one. When I was considering buying an Iphone I decided to start using the desktop version of Safari to try and familiarize myself with that so that when I got an Iphone I would find it easier to use the mobile version of Safari on the phone. I think that the same will happen with Chrome. Google have openly said a mobile version of it will be available for Android and what better way to promote it than produce a Desktop version first, so that people can become familiar with. Imagine the revenue that Google could extract from having their own browser on a billion phones and not have to pay a cent to anybody else (as they do at present to Mozilla to have their search engine on the default homepage). This I believe is another very clever and strategic move by Google, who continue to support the open source software model (unlike Microsoft), but yet still look to develop a dominant position in all areas of this new web 2.0 arena. Interestingly their browser is largely based upon Apple's open source webkit not Mozilla Firefox. I also think that if Mozilla don't hurry up with the development of their mobile browser they could miss the boat altogether and become a small player in the desktop market like Opera has.
A new round of the browser wars has begun, Jim, but not as we know it, this one is going to be more focussed on the mobile market.

3G or WiFi Part 2

Well who would have guessed that 65,000 visitors to Hamilton's V8's (big car race) would have brought the Vodafone network to a standstill. I am posting this at 6.15 in the morning because by 12.00 the network will once again be overloaded and at times cannot even be used for phone calls never mind to connect to the internet. What as this got to do with education, well if we want our students to use mobile devices outside of the classroom we have to have a more robust infrastructure that can cope with a sudden increase in connections and traffic. Would I give anything for a WiFi connection for the three days the event is on? Well yes and no. I can sort of put up with not being able to use Google Reader and also view the latest news via my mobile browser, but not being able to make a phone call is something I cannot accept from such a big company such as Vodafone. If I had WiFi at least I could use VOIP to make the call, oh sorry no because Vodafone don't like you to do that over their network!

Russell Beattie

This mobile guru has created quite a few ripples in the blogosphere this week. I have followed him on the web for about 2-3 years and he was one of the first blogs I subscribed to when I was originally using netvibes all those years ago. He's been through a lot over those years including working for Yahoo and getting divorced (you can read all this on his blog www.russellbeattie.com). Anyway the development on his latest project, mowser (a mobile transcoder like skweezer, which basically makes full size web pages accessable on a mobile device) has been stopped. His reasons are both monetary and that he no longer believes in the mobile web. This last statement was taken out of context, particularly by zdnet, and two camps formed quickly on the blogosphere. My take on it is the same as Russell, he didn't mean there would be no mobile web, just that due to the rise in the availabilty of full browsers (read that iphone, opera s60 and of course the fantastic Opera mini) people who are going to browse the web don't need transcoders any longer. Good on you Russ for recognizing that early on and pulling the plug on something that (as he has quoted) was only a short term project. Unfortunately nobody could have foreseen the impact of the iphone and full browser combination. For those people in the camp that have criticized Russ for his comments and still believe that the web should have mobile versions are also looking at it with a short term outlook. I think there will always be a place for dedicated mobile versions of some sites (namely Google Reader for one), but to believe that the full web will go small is just plain silly. Russ Beattie has been round long enough to realize this!

3G or WiFi

The latest from the blogosphere is that there has been a 700% increase in the uptake of 3G USB dongles in the UK and that WiFi might not exist in a few years. Some of this has been in part to the poor reliability, speed and availability of the existing WiFi networks. You might ask, what has this to do with education? Well over our holidays the school will be installing Bluesocket, which is a layer that sits above our wireless network and allows any WiFi device (read that phone, PSP etc.) to securely connect to our network. This is great for the school and I have had a proactive involvement in this since I got my p990i phone. Now I'm thinking that by the time WiFi enabled phones get into the hands of our students (these are traditionally high end smart phones), there maybe unlimited, fixed price data plans available in New Zealand. At that point I know from exeperience what would be the easiest for the children to use and it's not WiFi as it's difficult enough to get a laptop on it nevermind a phone. Multiply that task by 25 students and you can see it's a no brainer!

Cloud Computing and Mobiles

It's been a while since I last blogged, but here is a subject that I have a real passion about and that's the sort of thing you need to get yourself back into it. I subscribe to the Opera Mini blog (no surprise there) and they informed me that they had added a neat feature, whereby you can zoom into any image before you download it. This was available on Opera mini 3.x and is really useful when you only have a small screen like a phone. Anyway the clever part is that they did all of the updating on their servers and like magic that functionality was suddenly available, for what could be up to 100 million people (this is Operas estimates of Opera mini users). This is the real power of cloud computing, where the 'real' power is in the server farms that they operate, just like Google does. You no longer need power hungry processors and huge amounts of memory and operating systems on the device. It just becomes a connection to the 'cloud'. I also received an interesting feed looking at how a simple browser on the phone can replace all the in built applications found on any modern smart phone, like mine. I already use my browser a lot rather than the inbuilt applications, because it is faster and I won't always have a smart phone as I believe that cloud computing is the future and I will have a phone with an advanced browser connecting me to the clouds. Hopefully people will think that my head isn't in them!

Now that's me conectd

Well after quite a few weeks of reading forums and trying to remember the linux command line I have managed to connect the Asus eeepc to the web using my 3G Sony Ericsson p990 phone ,ooh yes! People will probably think, what's the big deal when you can connect using wireless, Ethernet or just plug it straight into your broadband router. I could have waited for the in built 3G card that Asus have promised or I could have purchased one of the linux compatible 3Gmodems that some forums have suggested work with the eeepc. But that would have been the easy way and I just don't do easy. I wanted to use my phone because that's where my data plan is and I have used it successfully with Windoze. I didn't want to have to get another device and another data plan, when I could just keep things simple. I still can't take the smile of my face when I saw it first connect and I am blogging using the connection now. I feel even more pleased as there are very few people around the world who have done it as well (at this point you are probably thinking that there is only a few people who would want to do it as the other options are more main stream), but it just goes to prove that it can be done and I feel it is the ultimate in being conectd and still mobile. It just rocks!

Data Plans

We've talked these past couple of weeks about the benefits of being conectd. Mobile Internet access, igoogle pages that bring you all the weather and news that you need in one place, youtube videos to your mobile, Sky mobile tv and not to forget mobile blogging. But all this isn't really practical unless you have a decent data plan. Loading up an igoogle page uses about 400kb and a 3 minute youtube clip about 2Mb. On Vodafones standard mobile prepaid plan that would cost you a whopping $4.00 and $20 respectively but with a data plan like ours $40 for 400mb that's only 4c and 20c respectively! A bit easier to stomach so before you start hammering those mobile youtube videos make sure you have a decent data plan.

Mobile Media Content

Two great things have happened over the weekend:-

1) the mobile youtube site (m.youtube.com) now has the full catalogue of videos available. Up to now you had a very limited selection. This is going to be a fantastic resource for my teaching and of course personally when you just want to watch that certain Little Britain clip again.

2) I managed to find away round getting Sky Mobile TV on my p990. It's kind of a long story, but here's the short version. I have a Vodafone branded 3G phone which is all you need according to Vodafone New Zealand advertising. Well it's not true and I have told them this and received the usual "nice, but giving excuses" email from them. Anyway the lowdown is you actually need a Vodafone Live compatible 3G Phone. So anyway I thought I would give it a try again and searched for it on the Mobile Live site. I found a link to the Sky Mobile TV E channel and realised that from the URL I could find the other channels. Bingo, I subscribed and was watching live cricket on my mobile. Go India, you just can't back the Aussies when your a Kiwi!

Anyway, this brings up, what I feel is key to the uptake of the Mobile Internet, the dreaded Data charges. Now you don't get charged for the Sky Mobile TV data (just a $2.50/week subscription), but you do for youtube. At least you get a warning before you download any videos, but believe me my data plan is going to get hammered this month.

One Web or two?

There has been a lot of blog talk this week regarding the argument for and against having mobile friendly sites. This is a subject close to my heart as I have been using the mobile web since wap was first introduced for the mobile phone. I currently use opera mini, even though I have a full mobile browser on my phone as well. This argument has come around due to the iphone having a full browser and being sold as "having the real web" in your pocket. My personal view is that there should be only one web as technology has solved the problem for us with better browsers. The one reason why wap didn't succeed is that it didn't deliver what it promised and what people wanted. Opera mini runs on the majority of phones and displays full web pages with a zoom function (just like the iphone browser) and I don't know what I would do without it. What has this got to do with being conectd you might ask? Well simply, give people a good experience of something that they are familiar with (the web they see on their PC) and they will want to use it anywhere. There are a lot of iphone users that have actually complained about "cut down" web sites when they want the full web experience, because it was one of the reasons they bought it. Once you've had the full web, believe me cut down or mobile versions just don't seem the same again. Then again I use Google Reader Mobile on my phone as the full version just doesn't work in opera mini. So here is my recommendation, you always see websites that say this has been tested with (or is compatible) with IE6, Firefox 2.X, Safari etc, well why not add opera mini to that list. This will tell people that this site is "mobile friendly" and they haven't had to even create two websites, now that's a thought!

The Impact of being Conectd

After just over a year of having the mobile phone and being conectd where ever I want to be (and of course there is cell connection), I thought it was time to reflect on the impact. I feel that being able to use google reader anywhere, anytime (see that as 6.30am which is when I am at my most receptive) I have seen my educational professional development really mature and now have a clear vision. Having a world of useful (and sometimes useless) information in your pocket is fantastic and surprises some of the children I teach. Especially when you show them that you can see their profiles on the social websites (such as beebo etc) right there on your phone. I will be looking at this in later posts. It also made me think are you conectd sat at a wireless hotspot with your laptop? Me I don't think so.

Off the Grid but Still Conectd (part 2)

We made the first steps towards going off the grid last year when we got rid of our land line (and therefore our broadband connection). We then purchased two top end smart phones (SE P990i) and more importantly data plans which gave us 3G connection speeds(384Kbs where available). Having no fixed line broadband at home means we use the phone as a modem and connect via the USB to our PC's. Not as slow as you would think and with a 400Mb plan each plus the ability to upgrade to 6Gb it's not too restrictive either. I wouldn't recommend this for everyone though especially if your using lots of bandwidth with video, games and music but the connectivity works great for us.

Off the Grid but Still Conectd (part 1)

We're back now. Christmas is over and we've just returned from a short camping trip on the East Coast (Napier). While camping we were far enough away from civilisation to be 'off the grid' relying on our own power and water but still near enough to get a cell connection which meant we could still access the Internet, our readings, weather reports and news. All thanks to our mobile phones.