Technology and Mobility – Mobile Learning 17th February 2009

I have categorised some of the thoughts I had about Mobile Learning into the advantages and disadvantages of technology in relation to learning and mobility.

Advantages of mobile learning/Pro’s:

• Facilitating learning – It’s great to be able to learn anywhere, anytime. You may come across some unexpected free time when a flight got delayed or something like this. You can then use this time to learn with the technology available.

• Often I find myself and other asking random questions like for example what the average size foot is for a woman. We can look it up instantly online or with a phone that has internet, most commonly the iTouch. It helps learning on the spot rather than thinking to oneself, I’ll look that up later and forgetting to do so. I believe that is easier for people to store information when their mind is actively interested in the topic at the time rather that try and re-call the interest at a later time to look it up. The emotional desire to find out the information and the reasoning behind it can often be forgotten by the time you look it up. I think that technology helps us access snippets of information that we question in our daily lives. Giving us the facility to absorb random interesting information at anytime and anyplace.

• You can create your own environment because the mobile technology allows you to locate where you are comfortable learning rather than being in a specific controlled environment. I feel this is more beneficial to creative learning as you are not under pressure to just get the work done so you can leave the controlled environment that has the tools you need but may be uncomfortable. The work may be more efficient in a controlled environment but less creative or have a lack exploration. The Design and Implementation of a Mobile Learning Resource by Sharples, Corlett and Westmancott gives an example of this “Microsoft of school students given laptop computers found that they used computers at home for a wider variety of learning tasks than a comparable control group with desktop machines.”

• We can collaborate with others around the world to educate each other and learn together. With no limit on time or location we are able to achieve this.

• It is very flexible and easy to work nearby people that we may need to have face to face interaction with at the same time as using technical tools if they are mobile.

• With no limit of location or time students are able to ask questions that they may not have thought of in class.

• We could always study in different places. Mobile learning was always there but now we may not have to carry around 300 papers. We can just bring around our laptop or bookmark all our resources online. Technology makes mobile learning more accessible and easier for us.

Disadvantages of mobile learning/Con’s:

• Studying in an unfamiliar I find there to be a lot more distractions. I find it harder to concentrate and fully benefit from the study as I would from an environment that I am used to working in. When I’m in a new environment I want to learn about that space so I get very distracting by everything going on in it. When I become accustomed to it then I am able to shut out the distractions and create my own place of work. I used to travel by train for forty minutes to and from college everyday. I found this time great for me to study and brainstorm. The fact that I was unable to do anything else on the journey encouraged me used the time to brainstorm or study. I was also used to using this space as my workplace and found it easier to sit anywhere and work.

• The presence of technology that allows us to work/learn anytime anywhere takes away defining boundaries between the work and recreational parts of our lives. It blurs the lines dividing work and home/recreation in our lives. We take away from our home lives by putting off work/study that we could do in college until we get home. We don’t separate our lives as clearly anymore. Equally as shown in the you tube video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGCJ46vyR9o) we don’t give as much attention in class if we are distracted by our social lives on the internet. We allow this to distract us knowing that we’ll catch up later on somewhere else. More than likely at home where we can relax a little more. The outcome is less beneficial classes and lack of focus on our work or recreational lives at a moment.

• We have to plan that all the resources are there for you to complete your work/study where ever you are. This was the same before technology though. You would have had to make sure you had all your learning tools before as well.

Research Aims for Dissertation 12th February 2009

I am currently going through some new ideas that I have for my dissertation. This causes a bit of a problem when trying to pinpoint what I want to get from my research. There are some common things I will want to get from the research so I will describe my overall aims of research.

• To gather knowledge of similar concepts and technologies and use this information to help direct my dissertation.

• Obtaining user feedback at several stages of the dissertation to make sure I am keeping on track.

• Analysing current products or systems designing for the specific market area.

I'm going to post up a few of the other ideas that I have for my dissertation later on.

Life logging – Memory and Forgetting 10th February 2009

Here are a few things that I thought of about on the discussion about Life Logging, memory and forgetting on the 10th of February.

• The internet in some ways reminds me of rubbish dumb. It stores everybody rubbish just like the things that we throw out in our real rubbish. A lot of people are very careful about what they will or won’t throw in the rubbish so shouldn’t we be as careful about what we are putting on the internet. Will anybody really looking through all of this rubbish on the internet. It might be there but does anybody really care. The internet might make our daily rubbish more accessible to the world but is anybody really going to do anything with it
  

• We talked a little bit about how technology is recording our every move like online banking but the banks have always recorded what we do.
  

• A point came up at some stage about the technology having great ability to record thin (factual or numeric) information but lacked the ability to re-call emotional feelings that we had at an instance. To some extent I disagree with this as I think flickr and facebook allow people to look at their friends photos of an event or place where they were, bringing back feelings to the viewer. I don’t think that they would ever be as exact as there were at a moment in time but do think that feelings can be recorded or a person reminded of them using technology.
  

• I think we need to forget what is not important to us any more so we can develop as people and in societies.
  

• It’s easier for us to move forward if we forget the past.
  

• Not forgetting is an education for the future but is a limitation for exploration in the future. It can limit creativity as we may stick to what we know works. It can hinder creativity. If I think about my website. Trying to start a new one it would be very hard to design one differently because it is stuck in my head. Computers record and force the memories further into our heads.
  

• Having the memory of something not perfect in your mind can also create and an interesting attachment to our feelings about that memory. Often if something is replayed to me factually (for example on a video) it can change the feelings I had about what happened at the time in good and bad ways.

One small idea that I thought about how technology could help the memory is; a game that would show people something visual and then test the person’s memory of it. I think there could be more questioning or less guidance by computers to help users try and use their memory.

Could we make a computer to act like us and make mistakes like we do, forget occasionally? We could correct it. It could test our memory. If we haven’t accessed something could the computer forget it. Computers games could do this with levels and then more space to do the level again or re-design it again. Like the game Little Big Planet. http://www.littlebigplanet.com/

I think there is definitely too many of our emails stored. It would be great if you had to choose to save it rather than choosing to delete it. This may also encourage me to reply to an email when I receive it rather than putting it off till later.