Nokia buys Symbian ... and then gives it away!

Nokia has just bought out the rest of the Symbian partners, giving it 100% ownership of the Symbian operating system, which it plans to "give away"!

According to the The Register:

Nokia has bought up the bits of Symbian it didn't already own and is chucking the OS into an open-source foundation along with the S60 UI layer, accompanied by Sony Ericsson and DoCoMo, who are throwing in UIQ and MOAP(S) respectively.

The BBC adds

Nokia, which already owns 48% of the UK-based firm, intends to develop its software to compete with Google's planned Android operating system.

...

The Symbian foundation will bring together Nokia, AT&T, LG, Motorola, NTT Docomo, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, STMicroelectronics, Texas Instruments and Vodafone in collaboration on a new, royalty-free open software platform for mobile phones.

Here on MobLearn we have always been Android fans, as much for the open ethos as for the technology itself, and this news certainly adds an exciting new chapter, especially given the Android delays, and the very solid userbase that Symbian already has in the market.

small "ps": although technically "open", access to the Symbian source code is not free. You need to pay $1500 to be in the foundation. But relative to the costs of having your own OS, this must seem minor.

Geoff (with thanks to James for spotting this)

m-learning in South Africa

Tribal's m-learning team were invited to Cape Town to talk about innovations in learning technologies in the UK. We were part of a delegation sponsored by the DTI / TVET to build bridges between the UK, and South African education businesses

The event: CCC (a collection of FE colleges specialising in vocational training)

Our message: in innovations in learning went down very well - though with some incredulity as the the budgets spent on individual students in the UK. The local minister of  education was in attendance and spent some time discussing how we might be able to help them.

Some of the slides are on our Slideshare

The mood: bizarre! There has been a swathe of investment in South African Education, though it seems to have passed the FE sector by, so they really struggle to attract and maintain talented staff. Because of this, all sorts of seemingly innocent comments by the UK delegation triggered passionate responses - with many lecturers standing up and asking the speakers for jobs!

The backdrop: South Africa is in a very difficult time at the moment, with foreigners and refugees being beaten, and hounded out of all the poorer areas. I was lucky enough to be invited to several refugee centres, and to spend some time with the fascinating, but seriously concerned Zimbabweans, Malawians, Nigerians and Somalis. We wish them all well, and hope the South Africa remembers it is the Rainbow Nation!

The OLPC (X0) does windows!

Shocking news from New York Times is that the passionately open-source team behind the hundred dollar laptop have done a deal with Microsoft, so that the X0 laptop can run Windows as well as Linux.

After-shocks are flowing throughout the community, with several leading OLPC developers resigning and much angst being aired in the blogospere - as well as some misleading "microsoft buys OLPC" headlines.

So what really happened?

OLPC has agreed to make a few modifications, so that the XO has more power, can support larger memory cards, and can therefore run Windows (as well as Linux). Total cost to the punter: around $10 more.

Why is this a big deal?

For Microsoft: Corporate market share.

They are trying very hard to be big in education, to be big in the 3rd world, and to be big on small-devices (pardon the pun). The success of initiatives like OLPC was proving that they were failing in this ambition - but now they are back in with a chance. The big compromise they have made is to accept the OLPC can be "dual boot", supporting Linux/Sugar as well.

For OLPC: Fundamental clash!

Many of the teams working on OLPC were doing it for free, for a passionate belief in Open Source, and the power of the collective mind to solve world problems. They were not in it for the money. This is starkly at odds with Microsoft's image, which is why this news is generating such a lot of fall-out.

And what is likely to happen next?

OLPC has been suffering quite a few pains recently. All the tricky bits of deploying and distributing thousands of devices to hard-to-reach places. There have also been several high-profile splits and departures in the senior teams. At the worst, this news could drive away many of the remaining enthusiasts, leaving a chronically depleted team. At best, this could drive significant new sales, and re-energise OLPC, helping them become more successful.

For a well thought through essay on the OLPC problems, from the inside, see Ivan Krstić's post

The bad news: this calls into question the roots of our belief in the power of open source to solve big problems. Sadly, power and politics always seems to get in the way.

The good news: OLPC wasn't all about software and equipment anyway - it is really all about learning. Using learning-centred technology to support 3rd world kids, and leapfrogging their life chances with education. This hasn't changed ... all that has happened is that their devices have got a bit more powerful (and possibly, expensive)

I say we focus on the learning - and make sure the OLPC keeps its learner centred ethos, regardless of the technologies

m-learning interview ...

Getting started with m-learning?

Interested in what works?

Jo and I were recently interviewed about all the work we have been doing in m-learning, trying to summarise what works, and what doesn't.

If you have 10 minutes to spare, sit back and have a look.





message to the m-veterans: please send us your comments and thoughts to the blog!

OLPC review: is the $100 laptop good enough?

In theory - we all love the One Laptop Per Child initiative (OLPC). But what is it really really like?

We were lucky enough to get one from Seb at ALT-C. There are so many competing views and agendas around this little green machine that we felt the best way to review it would be collaboratively.

the entire Tribal learning technologies team got in on the act, including animators, UI designers, teachers, academics and programmers.

We also enlisted the real experts: our kids! (aged 6, 9 and 11).

So what is it really like?

In super simple summary, we think the OLPC X0-1:

• is inspirational, embedding good educational ideas and collaboration;
• solves several big technology challenges;
• is great fun, but pretty slow;
• is full of first-generation quirks;
• has an amazingly rich seam of support info on the OLPC wiki;
• leads the field in several key directions, but might be superceded quite quickly?

For a more detailed review check out our posting on Fortnightly Mailing

Many of the first generation quirks we spotted seem to be echoed in the justifications for the shock-double-news that the OLPC president is resigning from OLPC, and that future versions may even support Windows OS!!

Shock horror. This is sending even more ripples around the OLPC community than the news that Intel was pulling out last year, and the competing commercial devices (like classmate and eeepc) that are currently hitting the market.

I kind of agree about the quirkiness of the Sugar interface, and that the users experience could be improved ... but the shock waves are greater than this. They are probably because, until now, the Open Source philosophy has been one of the strongest glues that has held all the OLPC developers together, and adoption of Windows as a platform calls that into question.

Watch this space to see what happens....

My vote?
- OLPC will remain all open source, and will keep championing "freedom for users"
- Other, commercial devices will build on what OLPC has created, offering more and more features for less and less money
- whichever way you look, learners win, so long live the OLPC !!!

G

Linux "goes large" in Brazilian schools

Brazil has been stealthily growing an amazing sounding project called ProInfo

They are rolling out infrastructure, technology and software to reach 36million students by the end of this year, with more to come!

The software is Linux (KDE desktop), The technology comes as an instant "computer lab", in a couple of different flavours:

• an inner city one (more seats per single, shared server)
• a rural one (simpler / lower power usage)
• a presenting one (one piece of kit with integrated projector, cpu, bundled content and DVD player)
• an accessible one (huge screen, and extra accessibility devices connected)

I had heard rumours of this, but with no idea of the scale, or the fact that the roll-out includes open content as well.

ProInfo is not about mobility, but a parallel project UCA (One Computer per Student) is. They are about to launch a second phase, buying 150 000 portable machines. Possibly ClassMates, or OLPC.

Wow! The numbers are staggering. The vision bold. The open source world excited. We wait, with baited breath ...

$10 million from Google for cool mobile apps

The Android Developer Challenge: Google has offered $10 million to developers for the coolest, most interesting, creative applications that will run on their new mobile operating system.

Android is the google sponsored operating system that they hope will run on all future phones, and with true google flair, they are offering some no-strings-attached funding to encourage developers to get involved.

If you want some of this money, you will need to move fast, though. They have split it into two packages:

Android Developer Challenge I: Happening now. You need to apply before March 3, 2008.

The top 50 entries each get $25K to fund their work, and then they also get the chance to apply for further grants (ten $275K awards and ten $100K awards)

Android Developer Challenge II: This part will only happen once the first android handsets become available - so we are talking the second half of 2008


As always - a breath of fresh air. Lets hope that some of those winning apps are good for learning!

If you want to find out more, visit the android site

Intel pulls out of OLPC !!

The news of the week must surely be that Intel, that giant of processors, has pulled out from the One Laptop Per Child project (OLPC).

There is not much information out about why, but it seems like Intel were being pressurised into stopping their own, alternative projects which they were unhappy about. or at least that is how Intel tells it.

Is this significant?

Well, yes, given that Intel dominate the current laptop market, though early versions of XO, the mean, green, OLPC machine were not using an Intel chip anyway, so this may not be a problem in the short term.

Still - it is one step backwards for joint working and co-development.

If you didn't already know, OLPC is the amazing group of people championing super-green, ruggedized, cheap laptops for learning. (See the BBC's technology factfile for the low down)


Geoff2008 (the new improved model)

Tribal's m-learning resources spread across the UK

We are very pleased to announce that all of our mobile learning tools and resources are being made available to all of the MoLeNET winners!

 

32 projects, covering nearly 100 FE colleges across England will be sharing the £6m LSC funding. They are trying out a wide range of different approaches to m-learning. Some are about consolidating lessons already learned, and others about pushing new boundaries.

 

Any learners and tutors across those projects, who want to, will be able to make use of the full suite of Tribal's m-learning tools and resources:

Mobile content: http://www.m-learning.org/products/pocket-pc-learning-resources.htm

Authoring tools: http://www.m-learning.org/products/mylearning-author-for-pocket-pc.htm

mediaBoard: http://www.m-learning.org/products/mediaboard.htm

SMS Quiz:  http://www.m-learning.org/products/sms-quiz-author.htm

 

We wish them all well, as well as the newly formed "Mentors and Champions" - a group of rapidly-becoming-experts, employed by MoLeNET to support and inspire the different projects, and share best practice. Included in their numbers are:

• James Clay (Gloucestershire College)
• Elaine Coates (Learning2Go, Wolverhampton City Council)
• Jill Purcell  (Learning2Go, Wolverhampton City Council)
• Nigel Davies
• Di Dawson
• Bill Lockitt
• Ron Mitchell (Tower Hamlets College)
• Mick Mullane (York Coast College)
• Lillian Soon
• David Sugden
• John Whalley

Good luck mentors!

m-learning authoring: we're in the guardian!

Hey! We got a mention in the guardian!

Tribal CTAD has a long pedigree of supporting adult literacy with new technologies, and its latest authoring environment, MyLearning Author for Pocket PC, aims to make it simple to develop learning content for mobile devices. The software has performed well in recent trials within the FE and adult education sectors.

http://education.guardian.co.uk/link/story/0,,2221069,00.html



We have been beetling away behind the scenes upgrading our authoring tool, in response to very valuable input from key partners across the UK (you know who you are!) and will be releasing a significant upgrade in a couple of days.

If you are a current user, chat to us about upgrading. You will get a range of new features including podcasts, new types of activity, audio integration with most existing content, optional online tracking of progress, as well as some major upgrades to the authoring interface.

If you haven't had a go yet ... you don't know what you are missing! I will post some screen dumps and walkthroughs when we go live.

G

MoLeNET winners go public!

Thanks to the LSN, we have just seen the first, complete list of Colleges and FE Consortia that won slices of the £6m MoLeNET fund.

Congratulations all and good luck with your projects! We look forward to seeing how they turn out

They are:

Aylesbury College	Handheld Pathways – mobile applications for the LLDD provision
Bolton Community College	EISL Project - Extending, Inspiring and Supporting Learning through the use of Mobile Technologies
Boston College	Assessing the impact of m-learning with Work Based Learners undertaking Apprenticeships across Rural Lincolnshire
Bournville College of Further Education	M-learning 4 those who care.
Brockenhurst College	brock.mobi - mLog
Cardinal Newman College	Teaching & Learning : Technology Driven - Quality Driven
Chichester College	Any time, any place, anywhere.
City of Wolverhampton College	Wolverhampton Learning to Go Further!
Cornwall College	Mobile Learning Network across Cornwall
Coulsdon College	Mobile learning for literacy (level 1) students
East Berkshire College	Mobile Learning at East Berkshire College
Eccles College	Mobile IN Salford
Gateshead College	Supporting Science in the Field (SSIF)
Gloucestershire College	Glossy - Mobile Learning in Gloucestershire
Havering Sixth Form College	Using Mobile Technologies in the Classroom, at Home and in the Field to support Minority Teaching Groups (MoLeMINT)
Huddersfield Technical College	m4m Project - m-Learning 4 m-People
Kingston College	KAMPUS: Kingston Access to Mobile Personalisation using Ultra-portable Services
Lewisham College	Wireless Blended Learning for Work Based Learners (WBL 4 WBL)
Lowestoft College	Widening participation Through Mobile Learning
Matthew Boulton College of F&HE	m-strategy in Birmingham (msb)
New College Swindon	Mypodcast Developing innovative approaches to personalised learning.
Norwich City College of Further and Higher Education	Harnessing Technology Towards Personalisation (HTTP)
Oaklands College	The MoLeMentors project
Regent College	Improved Learner engagement for 14-19 year olds in the foundation tier and NEET groups using mobile technology
South Thames College	Mobile Inclusion: using mobile technology to fight gang and gun culture
Stockport College	Learning on the Go (LoG) (inc stockport ALS learners)
Stratford-upon-Avon College	MobTec in Action
Tower Hamlets College	Adding m to the mix
Weston College	Wider Weston
Worcester College of Technology	Herefordshire and Worcestershire Vodcasting and Podcasting Consortium

NokMote - Wii style interface with your Nokia !!

Here at moblearn we love people who challenge the way we use our technology, and challenge our assumptions about interfaces.

The iPhone / iPod Touch did that for me with its web browsing. Tactile zooming. Automatic rotation.

But did you know some of the same magic is available for Nokia N95?

Like the iPhone, it has an accelerometer inside, but until now it wasn't used for much.

Until, that was, a french programmer called Samir got hold of it ... and produced NokMote. Check out the video - and be sure to watch the end bit, where he uses the phone as a remote control. Amazing!

gPhone anyone?

Finally, some tangible news about the gPhone, or "Google phone"!

It turns out there isn’t going to be a physical device at all, but rather a heavy-weight alliance (the open handset alliance ) who are getting together to create an open source platform for mobile devices.

Loads of big names are involved: Google, HTC, LG, Motorola, Samsung, T-mobile, Intel….

Notable absences: Nokia and Vodafone

The platform is currently called "Android", and if you have ever tried developing software for phones, you will love all the promises that seem custom-made to make battle-weary J2ME and Symbian developers smile once again:

Android does not differentiate between the phone's core applications and third-party applications. They can all be built to have equal access to phone's capabilities

Android is built on the open Linux Kernel

With Android, a developer could build an application that enables users to view the location of their friends and be alerted when they are in the vicinity giving them a chance to connect.

which means I really really can use the phone features

There will be a publicly accessible repository, similar to how the Linux kernel is managed.

which means I can un-install those default apps I don't want

To find out more, look at the Official Google Blog: Where's my Gphone?


Great news all round. Now, lets hold our m-breaths to see if it really can offer what it claims, and if those phone manufacturers really do deliver.



ps: thanks to Bob and Juan who got me onto this

iPod touch - does it have a future for learning?

We love our iPod Touch.


We love that it challenges assumptions on user interface, and takes a few steps towards the hallowed ideal of ubiquitous computing where the interface becomes intuitive (and invisible).

We love that we are not locked into a ridiculous phone contract with Orange for 18 months at £30pm, but we still have all the other features of an iPhone

What we really do NOT love is:

- No flash support. Come on apple, you are using the Safari browser, and an OSX base platform. Why block flash from your browser? (there have been rumours for some time that Flash support will be added but nothing firm)

- No 3rd party apps. I know I know, the hot news of the day is that Apple WILL allow third party developers access, but we will need to wait till next year. In the world of m-learning I am impatient, and want to offer my learners something NOW.

- Mac-only content formats, uploaded via mac-only tools (iTunes). Why not be open?

But life moves fast, and here are some of the growing initiatives that are tying to turn the tide of propriety control over mobile devices:

- MediaMonkey offers a far more flexible alternative to iTunes for synching your media files

- OpenMoko are building an open alternative to smart phone operating systems, as are the MobileAndEmbedded team at Ubuntu


We wait with baited breath for an open iPod Touch ...

Give up your beard for charity!

Not at all mobile learning related, but I am donating my beard to charity, and wanted to offer any blog readers the chance to see it on it's way!

If you have a beard to donate (or some loose change for a laugh) visit us on www.justgiving.com/giveupyourbeard

The team at www.m-learning.org work for Tribal, and have been included in a company wide "Give it Up" week, which happens next week.

• We give something up, and raise funds.
• Tribal doubles the contribution.
• The money all gets sent to a couple of charities in Africa, in beautiful Botswana and the magical kingdom of Swaziland.

Go on ... you know you want to!

Handheld learning 07

Tribal is offering a discount code to celebrate the launch of their latest release of authoring tools. Come and visit us on our stand to see them in action.


To get 15% off the entrance price, just make sure you use the code hl07ctad when you register.


Feel free to use it, and to pass it on.


Geoff

Gadget review: Toshiba G900 Protege

The great folks at Toshiba let us get our hands on one of the first production G900's to hit our shores, and we leapt on it eagerly, to see how our resources run on it.

The spec is fantastic, and ought to make it a good choice for learning:

• Wide, high res screen
• Windows Mobile 6
• Thumbprint recognition (and scrolling)
• One of the fastest processors around
• Reasonable camera (2 mega pixel - but with a great lens)
• sleek lines

BUT (and this is a big but), both our devices were increadibly slow.

• Video playback was slow
• All apps were slow
• Browsing the folders was slow
• Email was slow
• Even using the phone was slow.

We don't know why, and I have delayed posting this blog for three weeks while we wait to hear back from Toshiba. They took our concerns very seriously and are checking them out in their labs, but as yet I have no answer.

Is the problem Windows Mobile 6? Might be, but other WM6 devices seem OK. And all our earlier OS devices were running way faster ... even with less than half the processing power of the G900!

I will update when I hear back from Uncle Tosh ...

m-learning on your iPhone !

It looks like the rumours are true, and we will be using the iPhones for mobile learning by the end of the year!

Apple has just announced the iPod Touch, which is just like a slightly thinner iPhone ... but without the phone.

It has the same touch screen, the same apps, the same Touch OS X operating system, WiFi and a Safari browser.

Apple haven't opened the OS up for us developers to write code for it yet, but access to the browser is a great start and the team at www.m-learning.org are champing at the bit to get their hands on one. Amazon in the US is already listing it

We want our MyLearning Authoring tool to export to as many mobile devices as possible, so even though the attached picture is a simulation, as soon as we can get our hands on one we will post some real samples.

(btw: if you like this, check out our previous postings about PSP where our materials are running within the PSP browser just fine!)

G

ps: thanks to James Clay for spotting this release at midnight last night!

See you at Alt-C ?

If you are going to be at ALT-C this year, I will be presenting some of our mobile authoring tools on wednesday afternoon at 13:30.

Details of the talk are on the conference site. I will be showcasing some of the great things that our partners and clients have been doing with our authoring tools. Highlights include:

- The Unite project and specifically some great mobile learning activities in the two UK schools

- The ALPs project with Leeds Met University who used the mediaBoard as an e-portfolio

- Some fantastic resources for 5 yr olds made in a Wolverhampton primary school, part of the Learning2Go group

- Work-based skills audits from the transport, catering and customer service industries



I would love to meet some of the blog readers - see you there?

Geoff

5 year olds need mobile, playful ICT instead of laptops!

Teaching ICT to primary aged children using tools designed for office-based adults isn't the best approach.

This is the result of a study recently completed at Stirling University in Scotland, which found that it was far more helpful to get them started with the technologies that fit more naturally into their lives: digital cameras, video cameras, electronic keyboard, barcode scanners and mobile phones.

The TES ran a great article on the study this week (pg 34?), and although the full version is not available on the university website just yet, it is expected shortly.

The Tribal m-learning team have had similar, very positive experiences with Key Stage One children using our resources. We recently visited a primary school in Wolverhampton, part of the Learning2Go initiative, and were bowled over by the inspirational mix of PDA activities, class-based learning, and paper-based worksheets.

Robin C, the class teacher, had used our MyLearning Autoring tool to build text based activities, using words from the Oxford Reading Tree scheme. He them made paper-based worksheets to extend these activities further. The mix of book, PDA, differentiated worksheets and class-interaction was very engaging. even the most hyperactive of his 5-6 year olds was totally absorbed in their task.

Kids with a 2 minute attention span were sitting, engrossed, for a good half-hour!

Robin, we think you and your class rock! Keep up the inspiration!