The midden » mobile http://sumdy.edublogs.org education, technology, change Tue, 20 Oct 2009 12:02:44 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.2 en hourly 1 Horizon Report 2009 http://sumdy.edublogs.org/2009/02/09/horizon-report-2009/ http://sumdy.edublogs.org/2009/02/09/horizon-report-2009/#comments Mon, 09 Feb 2009 16:22:50 +0000 Will Stewart http://sumdy.edublogs.org/?p=139 The latest Horizon Report, that looks at the likely impact of emerging technologies on teaching, learning and research, features six examples of tools, applications and devices that will change the way we operate. Two of these technologies, i.e. mobile devices and cloud computing, are already with us and used extensively. With the advent of the 3-G iphone and Google’s Android phone the potential for new and innovative forms of learning, assessment and collaboration is huge. Anyone who uses Google Docs, Flickr, YouTube and Mobile Me  is already linked into a “cloud”.  Educational institutions, certainly in HE, probably don’t yet realise the extent to which their students and, indeed, their workforce are making using of cloud computing.

The other four technologies covered in this report are:

The report describes the relevance of each of these technologies to teaching and learning, as well as providing some useful links to examples of educational applications.

]]> http://sumdy.edublogs.org/2009/02/09/horizon-report-2009/feed/ 0 Techno-bedouins: nomads of the 21century http://sumdy.edublogs.org/2008/04/13/techno-bedouins-nomads-of-the-21century/ http://sumdy.edublogs.org/2008/04/13/techno-bedouins-nomads-of-the-21century/#comments Sun, 13 Apr 2008 13:32:18 +0000 Will Stewart http://sumdy.edublogs.org/2008/04/13/techno-bedouins-nomads-of-the-21century/ This Special Report in the Economist highlights the impact of an increasingly connected world on the way we live, work, communicate and generally spend our days. All those gadgets (mobile phones, laptops, PDAs) that we have been carrying around for years, and which tantalised us with promises of quick and easy access to an online world ( but only if you had a techy friend who knew the 40 steps needed to achieve this) are now finally delivering the goods. Thanks to the arrival of faster and reliable cellular networks, getting connected through our mobile phones is now straightforward. Through an ever increasing number of wi-fi hotspots, connectivity from anywhere is finally happening.

The digital nomad is defined not by the gadgets and devices that they carry, but by what they leave behind. The analogy with the Bedouins is an interesting one. The nomadic Bedouins do not carry water because they know that they will be able to get some at the next oasis. The digital nomad doesn’t carry his documents because he knows that he can access them online when he gets to his destination.

This is a useful report describing the likely consequences of this long-awaited connectivity on the way we lead out lives.

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