Bewarethegeek Goes Digital

I hate being sick at the beginning of semester, it makes you so behind from the get go! Anyway I’m trying to catch up, and I read The Horizon Report!

Development process using a Wiki

This is interesting especially in the context of our subject, as we will be using a wiki for our group projects. In addition, that they’ve used live RSS feeds to keep them current is particularly relevent considering they are commenting on the adoption of new technologies. I recall working at my previous place of employment, an online advertising agency as a web content manager. It was a small (but time consuming) part of my role each week to skim through various news sources, both online and print media, in search of press clippings relating to the company I was working for. I suggested setting up a live RSS feed based on keywords, but the bosses were not at all interested despite how much time it would save. I think in some cases, industry’s hesitancy to move away from older methods of doing things is one of the biggest stumbling blocks for the adoption of web 2.0. And getting off my soap box now…

Let’s look at the 6 emerging key technologies mentioned in the horizon report…

1. Mobiles

The Horizon report categorises them as something that will be adopted in a year or less. I feel this is too conservative an estimate in some regards. Mobiles are in full use now. As of 2005, according to this article, there are 2 billion mobile phones in use. This article, however, discusses the digital divide with mobile phone use, stating that the most popular phone in developing nations is one that cannot support data and thus would not be an effective learning tool. So while mobile phones are in full use now, whether they are in full use now as a learning tool is questionable. So in this regard I do agree with the report’s assessment of time frame.

In terms of my experience with mobile phones in a learning context, my experiences are limited. When I was a student, mobile phones were the new kid on the block, infinitely popular for SMS and photo sharing. In fact, so distracting from our studies were mobile phones that in high school, my school banned mobile phones from the campus. The use of mobile phones in a classroom setting, I feel, would be too distracting. That said, the horizon report lists new functions of phones that I have used before, for example using a phone as a scientific calculator saved me numerous times during my science degree when I forgot my actual calculator. Unfortunately this is the closest I’ve come to mobile phones actually being a learning aid for me.

That said, I think my learning experiences not relating to mobile phones is also to do with how fast I break them. I have a tendency to break or lose phones rather regularly. Because of this, I do not spend the money required to purchase a phone that supports 3G, wifi, apps etc. On the other hand, the Horizon report does mention mobile blogging, which I am very familiar with – my twitter account is linked to my mobile phone, and I can update twitter with a simple SMS whenever I like. This article agrees that mobile phones will play a big part in twitter’s growth.

2. Cloud Computing

The horizon report references Flickr as the best example of cloud computing and I tend to agree. It reminds me of the decentralised peer to peer filesharing networks that used to exist in much greater number than they do now, with copyright laws being heavily enforced. There are numerous open source browser based applications for performing various tasks, especially creatively. I myself have learned a great deal about audio formating, codecs and file conversions by using Media Converter. This site is free for files up to 100mb, which is more than enough for general use, and saves the user hundreds of dollars on purchasing propriety software.

I would also venture that sites such as delicious and netvibes are starting to fall under cloud computing – as we can see from our own netvibes accounts, these are online free applications that are able to be utilised as learning and research tools.

3. Geo-Everything

While I can see the obvious learning benefits for geolocation technology in the future, especially in the sciences, I have no experience with it in a learning context, aside from, as I think most people have done, using google maps to locate one’s own house via satellite. while I own a GPS for driving around (I have the sense of direction of a brick), I don’t feel that I can use it particularly in a learning context.

4. Personal Web

This is something I particularly think is being adopted now rather than in 2-3 years time. For example, we are utilising the personal web in this subject with blogs, delicious and netvibes. I am active on twitter not just on a personal level but also an education and professional level, subscribing to twitter feeds relevent to my field. Last year I undertook a subject as part of my masters known as Digital Media Technologies, which involved designing and developing a web based project. I developed an online help portal using the Joolma CMS. How this utilised personal web, however, was that we used blogs to map our development progress. This was particulalry effective, especially if we had problems along the way, as other students could read our blogs and comment.

The horizon report also references personal publishing sites – this makes me think of sites such as lulu.com, which are print on demand publishing sites that allow anyone to publish a book (and I think they’ve expanded to various other media now). I know that many teachers are publishing readers and textbooks in this manner. Free textbook online sites are also coming to mind, for example the National Center for Biotechnology Information website, which is a huge free resource for molecular biology, has numerous free online applications relevant for scientists, as well as free textbooks. It was by far the most extensively used tool I used when I was working in science.

5. Semantic Aware Apps

Though I’ve never used any Semantic-Aware Apps (and in fact had never heard of them until reading the report), I am very excited about seeing the way this will develop.

6. Smart Objects

This is another one I haven’t really heard about (though having read the horizon summary on it, I am wondering if my e-tag is a smart object). I wonder if learning tools such as digital whiteboards are going to be the beginnings of smart objects in a learning context.

I also wanted to comment on this particular trend that was mentioned…

Increasing globalization continues to affect the way we work, collaborate, and communicate.

I think this is particularly important and also relevant that it is the first trend they list. Social networking in particular is definitely THE number one way I communicate. It is also the biggest way I collaborate – in groups I tend to be more active on wikis and discussion forums than I would be in a face to face group setting. I have done parterned uni assignments over facebook before (and received a good grade!) It allows world wide collaboration – I am currently discussing communities with a girl in Croatia over facebook.

~ by bewarethegeek on March 14, 2009 . Tagged: cloud computing, collaboration, globalisation, horizon report, mobile technology, Web 2.0, wiki