Horizon2007:Shortlist 2a

From Horizon Project

2007 Short Lists Time-to-Adoption Horizon: One Year or Less Online Collaboration: Easy, Accessible, and Virtually Free User Content: It’s All about the Audience The Reason They Log On Can You Hear Me Now? The Resurgence of Audio Time-to-Adoption Horizon: Two to Three Years Your Phone: The Gateway to Your Digital Life The New Video is Smaller than You Think Virtual Worlds, Real Opportunity Mapping Goes Mainstream: It’s Not What You Know, It’s Where You Know Time-to-Adoption Horizon: Four to Five Years The New Scholarship and Emerging Forms of Publication Massively Multiplayer Educational Gaming Personal Learning Environments Internet-Wide User-Centric Identity Systems Key Trends Realities for Higher Ed are shifting Globalization is driving change Information literacy is not a given Academic review does not reflect how scholarship actually is conducted Collective intelligence is increasingly seen as a measure of credibility Growing gaps are emerging academically and socially Critical Challenges Assessment Leadership Intellectual Property and Copyright The Craft of Media Creation Collaboration Mobile and Personal Technology

Time-to-Adoption: Two to Three Years

Your Phone: The Gateway to your Digital Life

Mobile phones are becoming the storehouses of our digital lives, containing an increasing share of our personal and professional resources and data. Over the last year, mobile phones have become increasingly more powerful and adapted to multiple uses; virtually every phone now sold includes some multimedia functionality, as well as instant messaging, web browsing, and email. QUERTY keypads are common, and geolocation and the capability to record video and audio are quickly becoming a standard features as well. With over 225 million mobile phones manufactured each year worldwide, innovation in these devices is occurring at an unprecedented pace.

At the same time, more and more kinds of content is available for phones. Websites can automatically detect if the browser is housed on a phone and format content accordingly. Video is a click away on almost all new phones, whether you want it streamed to you via the network, played off your SD card, or want to capture it via your phone’s internal video camera—and it is hard to find a phone anymore that does not include a still camera with increasingly better megapixel resolution.

Photos, email, music, and other personal files already accompany many of us wherever we take our laptops. The newest form of this trend no longer requires the laptop—your phone is your personal digital repository. High speed broadband, combined with the multifunctionality of new phones and increased storage capacity via removable memory, is making rich media and live content the next big application for phones. Not only will you pull out your phone to show the latest wallet photo of your children—you will be able to show a clip of them speaking at their graduation ceremony as well. Hundreds of your favorite MP3s, on-demand video, navigational assistance, restaurant recommendations, your photos — even language lessons — are all just a thumb click away.

Relevance for Teaching, Learning & Creative Expression

• The increasing capability of phones, plus the fact that virtually everyone has one, is already making these devices an attractive delivery platform.
• The ability of phones to record data has tremendous applications in fieldwork.
• The ability of almost all phones to access email, instant messaging, the web, and calendaring increases the ways in which students and instructors can communicate—and is eroding the digital divide.

Examples

• 20 Ideas for Using Mobile Phones in Teaching & Learning: http://teaching.mrbelshaw.co.uk/index.php/2006/09/21/20-ideas-getting-students-to-use-their-mobile-phones-as-learning-tools/
• Universities use Rave Wireless to offer bus schedules, safety information, and other services for students: http://www.ravewireless.com/prod_academic.htm
• Citizen Journalism – using mobile devices to capture and upload news items as they happen: http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2006/07/digging_deeperstanford_fellow.html

For Further Reading

Going to the MALL: Mobile Assisted Language Learning (Language Learning & Technology, Vol. 10, No. 1, January 2006, pp. 9-16) Describes ways various mobile devices are used in foreign language study. http://llt.msu.edu/vol10num1/emerging/default.html

3G: Not a Failure (Wireless Week, Nov. 1, 2006. By Rhonda Wickham, Editor-in-Chief.) Describes the current state of the 3G network and where it is headed. http://www.wirelessweek.com/article/CA6387872.html

More resources tagged at http://del.icio.us/tag/hz07 -- If you have more, add or tag them in your own del.icio.us account with our official tag of hz07

---

Discussion

Add your thoughts, suggestions, examples to add here, and indicate who wrote it-- e.g. [Alan]

The biggest problem with phones are the size; small surface for I/O. Currently a great portable communication device. Becoming a great entertainment device (audio and video). But I don't see much educational value. OK here's my bias; learning is about re-organizing neurons, entertainment is about stimulating neurons. The former takes work, the latter observation and listening. Much of the popularity of the media we are discussing in the main stream is due to entertainment, stimulating neurons by seeing and hearing. IMHO learning is a more active process involving struggle and resolution by the self, not the characters on the screen.