As a follow up to looking a UMPCs & netbooks as alternatives to mobile phones, I did a bit of desk research on how many possibilities there might be. Googling netted a currently incomplete comparative chart on Wikipedia.
The Kohjinsha range was recommended to me by the team at Canberra Primary School in Singapore as one of the hardware possibilities for their mlearning project. The school is a ‘future school’ @ Singapore & involved in rolling out mlearning to the entire school over the next two years. There are also a large number of schools in the Uk who are using game consoles like the Play station portable (PSP) & the Nintendo DS for mobile learning.
Therefore I googled Kohjinsha & New Zealand and found the Australian / NZ distributor for the Kohjinsha series. Emailed them to find out if I would be able to have a look & play with one. The email reply came back promptly from the Tegatech Sydney office & the NZ representative contacted me.
The price of a Kohjinsha in NZ is pretty steep (over $2000!!) which would allow the purchase of 3 or 4 asus eees. However there is the added lure of the tablet & touch screen. The agents also emailed specification for three ruggedised UMPCs which would be more suited to use in a trades workplace environment. All of these are tablets as well. They included the GETAC , the Eo TufTab & a sahara tablet. All looked great but very expensive!
The above caused me to look at tablet netbooks that would help obviate some of the evaluations of the small keyboard & screen we have had from apprentices with the current crop of 7” to 9” screen size netbooks. Not many around but there should be more in the next couple of years. Looks like we will have to keep working with mobile phones for the moment.
Showing posts with label canberra primary school. Show all posts
Showing posts with label canberra primary school. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
mlearning2008 extras
Slight frustration at not being able to get to all the sessions due to two or more interesting sessions being presented at the same time or overlapping. A trawl through the conference proceedings reveal the following :-
James Cook from the London Metropolitan University on ‘appropriation of mobile phones for learners’ which was on how mobile phones are made used of by people to assist them in their daily lives. The paper uses socio-cultural frameworks & will have relevance to my work on mportfolios.
Jackie Haigh & Chris Dearnley from the University of Bradford are about to undertake a survey to identifying the student attributes that impact on mobile learning. They plan to find out what aspects of the student profiles & learning practices promote or discourage sustained use of a mobile device as a learning tool both in work based and university settings.
Andy Pulman from Bournemouth University reports on an evaluation of using Nintendo DS along with software around ‘brain training’. Findings include that mobile devices are ‘personal’ and help to develop familiarity, expertise and confidence in users. Using a Nintendo DS has proved to be a reliable & robust form of mobile learning and it has identified the potential of portable game consoles as a platform to help with the development of numeracy skills.
Adele Botha & Madelein van der Berg from Pretoria & Steve Voston, John Kuner from Stanford University present examples of their students’ work. Students created videos that reflected the culture of the country & city they lived in to share with another group of students living in a different country. Student work was archived in Vox.
Many of the poster sessions were of interest too. Of note were :-
Canberra Primary School a ‘future school’in Singapore in a project led by Nadiah Abdul Hamed in making use of mobile learning via UMPC / netbook tablets to extend learning opportunities for their students. The teaching & learning framework includes preparing students to be attuned, global & discovery learners who are able to integrate their skills & use these in a ethical manner. This is a laudable goal supported by sound pedagogy & research. It will be interesting to visit this school in the next couple of years as they implement their project right across the school.
Of the various companies / advertisements etc. that were displayed, the following will need to be further investigated.
Using playstations in education was a brochure I picked up. There was a session on the Friday morning which I was unable to attend. The brochure highlighted learning objects available on the playstation that would be useful in education. The playstation supports audio, internet access, has video & photo capabilities, text messaging & is able to access a wide range of file types including word, excel, html & txt files.
James Cook from the London Metropolitan University on ‘appropriation of mobile phones for learners’ which was on how mobile phones are made used of by people to assist them in their daily lives. The paper uses socio-cultural frameworks & will have relevance to my work on mportfolios.
Jackie Haigh & Chris Dearnley from the University of Bradford are about to undertake a survey to identifying the student attributes that impact on mobile learning. They plan to find out what aspects of the student profiles & learning practices promote or discourage sustained use of a mobile device as a learning tool both in work based and university settings.
Andy Pulman from Bournemouth University reports on an evaluation of using Nintendo DS along with software around ‘brain training’. Findings include that mobile devices are ‘personal’ and help to develop familiarity, expertise and confidence in users. Using a Nintendo DS has proved to be a reliable & robust form of mobile learning and it has identified the potential of portable game consoles as a platform to help with the development of numeracy skills.
Adele Botha & Madelein van der Berg from Pretoria & Steve Voston, John Kuner from Stanford University present examples of their students’ work. Students created videos that reflected the culture of the country & city they lived in to share with another group of students living in a different country. Student work was archived in Vox.
Many of the poster sessions were of interest too. Of note were :-
Canberra Primary School a ‘future school’in Singapore in a project led by Nadiah Abdul Hamed in making use of mobile learning via UMPC / netbook tablets to extend learning opportunities for their students. The teaching & learning framework includes preparing students to be attuned, global & discovery learners who are able to integrate their skills & use these in a ethical manner. This is a laudable goal supported by sound pedagogy & research. It will be interesting to visit this school in the next couple of years as they implement their project right across the school.
Of the various companies / advertisements etc. that were displayed, the following will need to be further investigated.
Using playstations in education was a brochure I picked up. There was a session on the Friday morning which I was unable to attend. The brochure highlighted learning objects available on the playstation that would be useful in education. The playstation supports audio, internet access, has video & photo capabilities, text messaging & is able to access a wide range of file types including word, excel, html & txt files.
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