Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Blackberry Playbook Announced

Billed as "Blackbery amplified", and the "professional tablet", is this the device for IT Directors and HODs - not students?!

http://na.blackberry.com/eng/?2&RMID=MR00300_GL_EN_MU_2010-09-27_BB_Teaser&RRID=4C323FB9E5B2257CE10000000A506748

BlackberryPlaybook.png

  • * 3 MP high definition forward-facing camera
  • * 5 MP high definition rear-facing camera
  • * Codec support for superior media playback, creation and video calling
  • * 1080p HD video; H.264, MPEG4, WMV HDMI video output
  • * Micro USB, Micro HDMI, and DLNA media streaming
  • * Flash 10.1 support
  • * 7 inch screen
  • * Capacitive multi-touch
  • * Blackberry Tablet OS
  • * 1GHz Dual core processor, 1GB Ram
  • * Pair BlackBerry® PlayBook with a BlackBerry smartphone via secure Bluetooth® connection - other mobiles???1
  • * Blackberry Appworld - currently 8353 apps, and 2428 themes - compare with 50000+ for Android and 250000+ for iOS


Vickel presenting at Sharefest

Presentation on Came project pedagogical change

Peter Looms Sharefest Keynote2

3 keys of mobile device development, social , context ( sensors), media.

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Web 2.0 Meme Map

Web 2.0 Meme Map from Tim OReilly: A nice overview of the core concepts characterising Web 2.0

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/web_20_meme_map.php

Original: http://www.flickr.com/photos/timoreilly/44349798/Web2MemeMap

Slideshare on Open Context Model - featuring Unitec (slide13-14)

Fred Garnett's presentation on the "Open Context Model of Learning" features the use of Thomas Cochrane's (Unitec, New Zealand) research on learner-generated contexts and learner-generated content using WMDs (Wireless Mobile Devices) and Web 2.0 as examples of implementing the Pedagogy-Andragogy-Heutagogy (PAH) continuum - see slides 13-14 in the embedded presentation below.

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

New iOS apps - particularly for iPad

There's quite a bit of iOS app activity after Apple's slight relaxation of control over app development:

  • VLC now available for iPad - view any video file!
  • Slideshare app for iPad - Slide by Slide
  • Google announce Google Docs editing coming to iPad soon

Android 2.2 Update

The Android OS 2.2 update is now available for the HTC Desire in NZ - just installed via wifi directly to HTC Desire. You need 25MB Ram free to install, although the update does seem to free up a little Ram after the install.

The update brings several obvious new features:
  • 3G to WiFi Hotspot app
  • Navigation
  • Flashlight
  • Graphics appear better
  • Better quality Video recording
  • And other stuff I haven't found yet


Definitely worth the update, and nice that the update was painless. I'm liking Android - apart from the dodgy adds you get in some free apps.

Thursday, September 09, 2010

Music students with iPads


Exploring the potential of the iPad for music education

Music students with iPads


Mobile Learning - turning any space into a learning space with iPads.

Tuesday, September 07, 2010

Mobile Blogging options for Typepad & Wordpress

You can upload/post to Typepad from your mobile phone in several ways:

  1. Use the mobile browser http://i.typepad.com
  2. Email upload – find your Typepad upload email in your Typepad profile and add as a contact on your phone – then either MMS to it or use GMail on your Phone to mail posts to Typepad.
  3. Download the Typepad App from either the iTunes App Store (iPhone/iPad), or CellSpin from the Android Market (Android Phone), or CellSpin from the OVI STore (Nokia) on your phone
  4. Install Pixelpipe on your phone & link to Typepad as a ‘Pipe’
  5. Install the HelloTXT app on your (iPhone/iPad, or Android) phone
  6. See http://help.sixapart.com/tp/us/typepad_mobile.html for more options.

You can upload/post to WordPress from your mobile phone in several ways:

  1. Use the mobile browser http://m.wordpress.com
  2. Email upload – find your WordPress upload email in your WordPress profile and add as a contact on your phone – then either MMS to it or use GMail on your Phone to mail posts to WordPress.
  3. Download the WordPress App from either the iTunes App Store (iPhone/iPad), or the Android Market (Android Phone), or from the OVI STore (Nokia) on your phone
  4. Install Pixelpipe on your phone & link to WordPress as a ‘Pipe’
  5. Install the HelloTXT app on your phone

Monday, September 06, 2010

Vox Migration Plan

As you have probably heard - Vox, our preferred free Blog/eportfolio site is closing down on 30 September. You will need to choose an option to move and export your Vox blogs to either: Typepad, Wordpress or Posterous (there is no simple export to Blogger or other Blog hosts beyond these three). The import to Typepad is quick and simple, the Wordpress and Posterous import can take several hours.

So - which to choose?

Well there's really not a lot of difference between Typepad and Wordpress anymore, and your choice either way will be fine, however I'll outline what I see as the key differences (PS, I have, and still use: Blogger since 2004, Wordpress since 2006, and Vox since 2007, effectively keeping three copies of blog posts and tweaking each site for different audiences).

Unfortunately none of the current free options provide the range of functionality that made Vox so useful for collaborative student projects, however this can be achieved by using a 'bricolage' of tools - i.e. Typepad or Wordpress for student blogs, turning on the Auto Tweet option for posts in Typepad & Wordpress for creating community and social networking, using RSS subscriptions to follow activity (e.g. using Google Reader), and using Flickr or Picasaweb for hosting and presenting images, and Google Docs for collaborative documents.

Both Typepad and Wordpress feature the ability to create static pages associated with your main blog, and their themes are more customisable than Vox with both offering add-on free widgets. They are both also more iPhone/iPad friendly than Vox, and provide limited free blog-view statistics options.


1. Typepad:
http://thomcochrane.typepad.com/

The Typepad import is the easiest.
Typepad includes a 'follow' option that is similar to Vox's 'neighbourhood' feature for building online community.
Only the Typepad 'Micro' option is free - however the import from Vox feature appears to give free users more feature access than standard Typepad Micro, and is add-free.
Typepad's more powerful customisation and community tools are paid upgrades.
There are several iPhone/mobile editing apps available for Typepad blogs, but no free iPad editor yet.
The paid Typepad options offer more flexibility than Wordpress.

http://www.typepad.com/features/the-right-choice/

Mobile version: http://itypepad.com
Also support for email upload and blogging

2. Wordpress:
http://thomcochrane.wordpress.com/

Wordpress offers more customisation for free than Typepad, although media hosting for free is limited, including no video (you can still embed YouTube etc in posts for free) - paid upgrades provide video hosting and larger media allowances on Wordpress.
There are a couple of free iPad Wordpress Blog editing apps available.
Wordpress uses custom embed code for externally hosted media - that can take getting used to.

http://en.wordpress.com/products/

Mobile version: http://m.wordpress.com
Also support for email upload and blogging

So depending on what is most important to you you can choose either Typepad or Wordpress and have made a good choice!

The simplest option in my opinion is Typepad Micro.



Hope this helps.

Thom.