Keitai

A few days back, Alex Hayes posed some interesting thoughts and comments about mobile learning on the Teach and Learn Online group. In particular, this caught my eye…

Please tell me I’m wrong and that there are trials underway in 2006 that are examining and IMPLEMENTING curriculum using student generated re-purposed content - stuff that’s theirs, about them - all delivered episodically or on demand via wireless handhelds?

As a content developer, I thought i’d offer some comments. One of the biggest problems right now with mobile content is the astronomically high barrier to entry for small content producers (never mind schools or students.) I sat in on a mobile industry presentation this week where "kids and family content" was on the list as one of the ‘ things on the radar’ for 2006. Judging by the company names mentioned in passing (Disney, Sony, Fox et al.) this would likely be on-deck or on portal stuff (i.e. - heavily branded, DRM filled, advertising ridden, java games, pop-culture themed ebooks or videos; downloadable only from your carrier or content provider, and in a non-shareable format.) Just what education needs!

Alex speaks of "student generated re-purposed content" and i’m sure some companies are starting to pitch "solutions" to education in this vein but the bottom line is that, making mobile content right now is cost-prohibitive and available only to those with large budgets. Testing costs alone are ridiculous and usually involve creating variants of your content for dozens (if not hundreds) of handsets. And then we have distribution. Unless the content is likely to yield high returns and fits into one of their portal schemes; carriers don’t seem to want it on their networks.

What we need is an open network (the internet,) some open platforms and formats (HTML, CSS, JavaScript,) an ability to bypass carriers in the publishing and distribution process (publish on the web and/or share using MMC cards or bluetooth,) and an authoring process that mere mortals can beginning to participate in. Until that day speaking of personal publishing and content re-purposing for phones is sadly just not realistic.

And all that said—things are looking up and people are starting to talk about content for ‘the mobile web.’ We finally have a variety of portable devices that support wi-fi (i.e. an ability to by-pass the carrier-controlled data services), mobile browsers that are standards compliant (makes content creation and testing way easier) and all sorts of hybrid devices (PDA, iPod, Nokia 770, PSP..) and services (photo sharing , [mo]blogging, [mobile]RSS…) that students actively use and enable basic content creation and/or sharing. This mixture of devices, lack of complete dependency on carriers, and ability to publish and share your own stuff is where the user-generated mobile (learning) content will likely start—and where it will continue to flourish (all-be-it slowly.)

At the moment, it’s a bit of a hodge-podge, but by stringing all these "small pieces loosely joined" together, it is possible for students to begin to participate in mobile publishing.

• Making and sharing content for the iPod or other portable media device (podcasts or enhanced podcasts, sharing ‘iPod notes’ based mini-books or stories, video—shared via email, bluetooth, memory card, the web or P2P)
• Making mini-sites using XHTML, CSS and JavaScript for access via mobile browsers
• Sharing content through feeds and moblogs

(just a few examples…)

For a great series of articles that outline some of the technologies that will make this possible visit this site:

• Mobile web 2.0: Web 2.0 and its impact on the mobility and digital convergence
• Mobile web 2.0: AJAX for mobile devices – why mobile AJAX will replace both J2ME and XHTML as the preferred platform for mobile applications development