Handhelds`

Assignment: Have you or someone you know utilized handheld or wireless devices to work on a project, collaborate with others, etc? In your blog, describe the type of hardware or device that was used. Also, discuss why it was used with the project or assignment (i.e., its purpose), the advantages/disadvantages of using it, and how it assisted in the communication and collaboration process.

I'm sorry, but I have never used, nor do I know anyone who has used a wireless device in the classroom. Once, my office mate was seduced using a wireless device, but this probably has little, if any, educational value. One day, his girlfriend began sending him text messages during class, while he was teaching, and with his phone on vibrate, each time he received a message, he would glance at the screen on his phone. A whole narrative began to take shape. It may have gone something like this:

"Do u want to meet for lunch?"

"I'd like to . . . "

"Cuz there's sumthing I need to show u"

And so on . . .

I'd continue, but I might blush.

After class, he met his girlfriend for lunch, and desert, and I jealously heard the whole play-by-play later that afternoon. I guess I did learn something from the whole affair -- my life is boring!

I guess I'm not really creative enough to see a viable purpose for a handheld wireless device in my own practice. I guess we might use handhelds to send messages to one another, maybe I could assign each student different roles, and have them lobby each other trying to persuade as many as possible to their position, and then we could analyze the rhetoric of the transcripts. That would be cool. I could make one student a lobbyist for the timber industry, another a DNR agent, a farmer whose land borders a protected forest, the cafe owner in town whose business thrives because of the loggers who pass through town, and so on.

I'd be interested to see if anyone else in class has had experience with wireless or handheld use in classes, and how it was used. I took a class in educational technology at UMN in 2000, but I don't think wireless was even near the agenda at that time. It seems this is a fairly new technology, new on the horizon.

vZones

Internet enthusiasts have created many visual virtual worlds in which users acquire virtual characters and then interact with each other. Examples include “Active Worlds, Worlds.com, Whyville, and vZones.com.” Explore one of these worlds. In your blog, provide the name and URL (if not one of the above) for the world, explain how it works, and describe what is engaging and/or not appealing about it. How real is the interaction in the virtual world? Describe how it feels to interact through the use of a virtual character.

I explored two worlds: vZones and Active Worlds. vZones is celebreating their 10th anniversary, or at least the server I was on within vZones, "Dreamscape," is.

When I entered vZones Dreamscape, I was given a choice of avatars, and then shuffled thru a very brief orientation. After orientation, I was spit out in the welcome center where a little rabbit greeted me and gave me some additional debriefing. The little rabbit was a real person, and led me around to find some real people to chat with.

I logged on at 11am CST, and there were not a great deal of people logged on. I met one other person, Doodles, but the phone rang so she had to catch that.

The world itself is brightly colored, like a comic book, and from what I saw, layed out like a city. I walked down a street, past a fountain where a number of avatars were sitting, their owners away from the keyboard. I continued down the street until I found the Caribe bar. I entered, expecting to find some action, but the bar was empty.

Frustrated at not finding anyone to chat with, I logged out.

I've used these sorts of chat programs before. I used to use The Palace, which was a precursor to the 3-d virtual worlds.

What is engaging about these worlds is possibility, on many different levels. There is the possibility of creating a whole new persona for yourself. The opportunity to meet people castly different than yourself. And, although this sort of annoys me, the chance to buy virtual commodities. That is, you can upgrade your avatar with expensive clothes, a BMW, Bolle sunglasses, and so on. This commercialism is sad, but it also creates a far more realistic virtual world, one in which people are still defined in part by their possessions. It seems that humans need to divide and classify, and even in a virtual world, we'll find some way to do so.

One can dance and date and travel in the virtual world. One can do the things they wish to do in real life but are inhibited from for some reason.

One thing that is a barrier though is the fact that communication seems to occur in soundbite fashion. Your text, what you say, appears in a bubble above your head, and conversations are generally quick, shallow, and develop based on hsort bursts of text. It's not convenient, and I think even frowned upon, to "say" something a few paragraphs long and take up the netire screen with your words. Maybe that's just my impression, but I have a hard time saying anything really meaningful.

Although, in the end, these worlds, like a popular bar on Friday night, give users the opportunity to socialize in a new venue, one devoid of clouds of smoke, loud music, and the inevitable drunk chauvinist.

Podcasting -- Technology and Learning

Warlick divides the advantages of podcasting for learning into two elements: listening and production.

In terms of listening, there is a growing number of podcasts available on the web dealing with academic subject matter. Originally, podcasts were dominated by computer tech issues, but the choice of subject matter is exapnding daily, literally. One example, cited by Warlick, is Professor Bob Packett's daily podcast dealing with historical issues and anecdotes, which can be found at http://www.summahistorica.com/.

The second advantageous aspect to podcasting in education is production. Warlick details Bob Sprankle's use of podcasting in his 3rd and 4th grade classes. Sprankle assigns students a topic relevant to their current study, breaks them into groups, asks them to research the topic, write script, and record a podcast embodying the fruits of these labors. Warlicks conludes podcasting is "an opportunity to make students better learners by turning them into teachers" (2005).

Podcasts: New Twist

From Wired News -- http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,65237,00.html

I'm not entirely sure what RSS and Atom technologies are, but I think it's analogous to a personal mailman; a user subscribes to blogs or web pages, and when new content is added, it is "pushed", or delivered, to your desktop. Podcasting is developing similar technologies where audio files are delivered to your content player as they become available.

Terdiman likens this development in podcasting to Tivo in television. With Tivo, a user may subscribe to certain shows of interest, and each time those shows are broadcast, Tivo records them for the user and the user may then watch them at their convenience, and, I might add, with the ability to bypass advertisements! This allows users to choose content, as well as choose a convenient time to view the content.

Terdiman notes that podcasting content is growing exponentially, revealing that according to Doc Searls, in the span of less than one day, the number og google results for "podcasting" grew from 5950 results to 8900, in less than 24 hours!