Since starting at JISC infoNet in April 2010 I’ve worked on a OER infoKit and a learning and teaching upgrade to the Digital Repositories infoKit, both with the talented Lou McGill. Back in July I wrote a successful proposal to embark on a mobile and wireless technologies review for the JISC e-Learning programme. It grew to be a much larger piece of work than I envisaged, probably because I enjoyed researching and writing it so much! I’ve interviewed, met and read about wonderful people doing fantastic things in mobile learning.

I’ve now finished that review and it stands at about the same length as my MA dissertation. Wow. You can access various versions of the mobile and wireless technologies review via http://mobilereview.jiscpress.org or directly below (click to enlarge):

In addition, here’s a presentation I’m making to a JISC Review Board meeting today about my findings (you might want to view it on Slideshare with the notes on!)

I’d love to hear your feedback on the review, either here or at the JISCPress site.

(if you’re on an iPad or non-Flash device click here for images)

Introduction

I’m sure schools exist in some kind of parallel dimension to the rest of the world. To be successful in them, whether you’re a member of staff or a student, you need to work much harder than the rest of the world to jump through hoops that others care about only in passing. Having been on both sides of the fence I’m aware of two things: that most teachers don’t understand the world of business and that, more importantly, business doesn’t really understand the world of education.

Let me explain. Practices (i.e. the everyday life of the classroom) are predicated upon the affordances of an objects, devices and other 3rd-party props:

An affordance is a quality of an object, or an environment, that allows an individual to perform an action.

In my experience, affordances are usually the result of the confluence of two or more features. For example, stored maps + GPS + touchscreen + voice synthesiser = satnav. The affordance is the ability to get to your destination. Affordances, in turn, are predicated upon specifications.

Unfortunately, and I’ve expressed my frustration about this before, a focus on ‘functional specifications‘ therefore misses the point. It’s what the user does with an object, device or prop (towards a larger learning goal) rather than its specifications that is important. Most educators get this; most business people don’t. There’s been a lot of talk about the iPad this year, and for good reason. Apple have focused on the affordances of the device to such an extreme level that the average user has no idea about its specifications. As Jonathan Ive explains, this makes it feel, in a way, magical.

Review

I’m not particularly interested in the specifications of the Dell Latitude 2110; I’m interested in what it allows users to do and how it fits in with the classroom environment. I’ve had some success with the Asus Eee 1000H because of two main affordances: reliability (long battery life and well-built) and portability (lightweight and relatively small). I’m going to take the Asus Eee 1000H as my reference point for the rest of this review.

Is the Dell Latitude 2110 better than the Asus Eee 1000H? Yes. In fact, it would be my recommendation for any educational institution looking at rolling out portable devices with keyboards. Let me explain why from an affordances point of view; if you want a full technical run-down head over to Expert Reviews or (better still) Notebook Check.

First of all, the screen that came with my review sample was high resolution (1366×768) and glossy. Perhaps not great for outdoors work (because of the reflectiveness) but great for making things look fantastic indoors. That’s why Apple put glossy screens on their MacBooks, after all.

Secondly, the processor (1.83Ghz Intel Atom), coupled with 1Ghz RAM allows for quick browsing, especially when you swap out Internet Explorer for Google Chrome. Whilst I found that students are willing to be more forgiving of the relative performance drop when working with netbooks (a trade-off of convenience) there isn’t really likely to be a problem here. It’s nippy. Windows 7 is a much better operating system for netbooks than Windows XP (which, after all, is almost 10 years old). My review sample came with Windows 7 Professional but this comes at an additional cost. If you just need cloud-based wifi access I’d forgo this and use something like Ubuntu Netbook Edition.

Full HD video is 1080p. Attempting to play a 1080p preview of the film Kick-Ass downloaded from Filmous almost worked. That is to say that the audio was fine but the video stuttered with graphically-intensive scenes. Playing YouTube videos and embedded media, however, is no problem. Perhaps the ultimate test, though, for a netbook is Google Earth. It’s a tool used widely in schools – and not just in Geography lessons. It requires a decent machine for a smooth experience. How did the Dell Latitude 2110 fare? A similar story to the video clip, really: whilst you can certainly navigate your way around, it’s a little jerky and 3D buildings are a no-no.

Not all classrooms have speakers to couple with the obligatory interactive whiteboard. A daft omission, to be sure, but a fact of life. Many is the time I’ve been shunted into a classroom at the last moment only for the video clip I’ve prepared as part of the lesson be inaudible. Even without amplification the Dell Latitude 2110 is surprisingly loud. In fact, I was shocked how distortion-free and powerful the built-in speakers were. A definite plus point.

The inclusion of a 3G WWAN port is a curious decision. If this is an education-focused product, then a 3G connection presents somewhat of a security problem. Schools have internet filtering in place and, in some cases, this is rather restrictive – leading to students finding creative ways of bypassing it. I have no doubt that students would find a way to put a SIM card in the slot behind the battery, ‘necessity’ being the mother of invention. Whilst I think that mobile broadband, especially for field trips and the like, is of great value, network managers and IT technicians might beg to differ. It does, however, make it attractive to another market – business travellers.

One of the great things about early netbooks is that they almost all came with Solid State Devices (SSDs) instead of Hard Disk Drives (HDDs). The difference is that whilst the latter have moving parts, the former do not and, in fact, are a lot quicker. You get less storage space for your money but they’re much more robust. Bizarrely, perhaps because some people are opting to use netbooks as their primary devices (think teenagers with burgeoning music/video collections) SSDs are being slowly replaced by HDDs. The review sample I received came with a 160GB HDD which is a shame, really. The HDD of my father’s Asus Eee 1000H, bought last year on my recommendation, has just died. In a device like the Dell Latitude 2110, ostensibly built to be robust, not including an SSD by default is a mistake.

Whilst an upgrade to a SSD instead of a HDD is one I’d recommend, I’d advise against a touchscreen. Whilst my review sample did not come with one, I’ve used them on laptops and netbooks before. Touchscreens on devices with one-way hinges don’t really work: pressing with anything more with a glancing touch moves the whole screen (frustrating!).

My only misgiving, really, about the review sample I was sent is a degree of uncertainty about the battery life. The standard battery pack (an extended battery pack is available) is quoted at 4.5 hours which isn’t the 7 hours of the Asus Eee 1000H. I’d want to be able to rely on it lasting all the school day. Although I should imagine with strategic use it would be fine, it’s a niggling doubt.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, how does it feel? It is something you find yourself just picking up and using? Well… yes, it is. The keyboard is as close to full-size as you’ll get with a netbook and, in fact, I touch-typed this whole review on it. It’s comfortable and rests on the knees or upon any nearby surface. Although I think the corners could be a little better protected, the ruggedized coating means, for example, I’ve had no problem in giving it to my 3 year-old to carry around an play CBeebies games on it.

Do I recommend the Dell Latitude 2110? Yes. In fact, as I alluded to earlier, if I was back in my role as Director of E-Learning I’d be using this as my new benchmark for portable devices with keyboards. I’d probably look at getting Ubuntu Netbook Edition on there and, with the money saved, plumping for the extended battery pack. I reckon 9.5 hours is enough for anybody!

Disclaimer: I was sent this unsolicited sample on behalf of Dell on the understanding that I was able to do a ‘full, frank’ review of it. No money has changed hands and I expect to have to return it eventually.

When it arrived last Monday, my wife – in that way that only I would notice – looked at me semi-accusingly. “Another book, eh?” she seemed to say, “I thought got your books via your Kindle now?” I swear that the reason old people don’t tend to say much is because they know what the other person’s thinking.

The Mobile Learning Edge: Tools and Technologies for Developing Your Teams winged its way from Canada to the UK courtesy of my responding to a tweet from Gary calling for reviewers. As I’m currently writing a JISC Mobile and Wireless Technologies Review, it seemed rather serendipitous.

The Conclusion

In ancient times, people cut to the chase. Take St. Paul’s letters, for example. He states who he is first and only then greets the elders at the church to which he is writing. It’s always puzzled me that people only indicate who the letter is from at the very end; at least with emails you know who it’s from straight away by virtue of their email address.

So, my conclusion? The Mobile Learning Edge (hereafter MLE) is worth reading by those interested in mobile learning in a formal educational context. Whilst it (presumably due to encouragement by McGraw-Hill, the publisher) tries to be all things to all men, it nevertheless has value to those working in and with educational institutions. Woodill expertly collates and synthesizes information, presenting it in an engaging and convincing way.

Every book has its weaknesses. There is, for example, at times an uneasy glossing and assumed-similarity between the needs of those in formal learning situations and those within businesses. In addition the way in which the book is written seems to purposely align the author with initiatives in which he played no part.

But to overly-criticize MLE would be churlish. It is a readable, reasonably-comprehensive and up-to-date overview of the current state of play in the mobile learning arena. If it were available for the Kindle for £10 (as it should be) I’d recommend it without reservation. As it is, it comes recommended.

The Overview

I have to admit to chuckling a little when I read the opening pages of MLE. Only the day before I had commented about the paucity of metaphors that I come across in educational contexts. It was only after reading the whole of the introduction to MLE that I realised Woodill was setting up – quite cleverly, I thought – the rest of the book to call for a return to authentic learning. He indicates, and purports to show, that mobile learning is our natural way of learning: sitting in classrooms is something alien to us.

Figure 5.5 on page 184 of MLE features an engraving from eighteenth century Europe showing one of the most crowded, although admittedly neatest, classrooms you will ever see. Context is one of the strengths of the book: Woodill is a master at putting things in their historical place, charting the development of technologies and pointing out significances. Granted, in some cases such generalizations could be contested and rely on the tried-and-tested metaphors of hunter-gatherer communities and the industrial revolution, but they are, on the whole, sound.

Of the ten chapters that make up MLE, around seven will be of immediate interest and utility to educators not directly involved with the overall strategy of their organization. Those who do occupy such senior positions will find enlightening the chapter contributed by David Fell, interim CEO of a broadband corporation. In it, Fell discusses of the importance of ‘co-opetition’, a term that will become increasingly familiar to those in charge of schools, colleges and universities.

Easily the best part of Fell’s chapter, however, is his inclusion of and discussion around the following diagram from Ambient Insight:

Whilst usually skeptical of diagrams that look designed-for-Powerpoint this one nicely summarizes why now, in the current context, is a great time for institutions to be pursuing mobile learning initiatives.

The second contributed chapter comes from Sheryl Herle, a corporate learning consultant. This, unsurprisingly, deals with Return On Investment (ROI) and business-focused strategy. The chapter does, however, contain some gems that I’ve saved for future use, including the advice that you should be focusing on what you don’t want people to do rather than narrowly defining what you do want them to do; that IT Services/Support’s job is to deal with security threats and network stability – which is why they often oppose ‘innovation’; and that whilst it’s possible to come up with ROI figures for mobile learning initiatives they’re unlikely to be comprehensive or realistic.

Returning to the main author, Gary Woodill’s contribution to MLE, it is clear – and indeed he tells us – that he used to be a teacher. Not only that, but his doctorate (like mine) is an Ed.D. For all the discussion of ‘corporate learning’ and ‘employees’, Woodill’s pedagogical background pervades MLE. Take, for example, the structure of the chapter ‘Learning by Communicating, Interacting, and Networking’:

• Quotation
• High-level overview setting the scene
• Problem (disruption of mobile)
• Some truths (we are social beings)
• Examples
• Case study
• Theory supporting examples
• Recommendations

The above, fleshed out, could form a lesson plan. This structure and method of presentation makes MLE a satisfying read.

This, as the author would admit, is a book of its time. It’s relevance in a few years’ time will be less powerful but, for now, the appendices, featuring links to relevant blogs and academic articles are a goldmine. Woodill indicates on his companion site to the book, mobilelearningedge.com that there will be a second edition of MLE and that he will use the related site to keep the content fresh.

I hope this is the case.

Here’s what I learned:

1. Thinking is slow

[T]hinking is slow. Your visual system instantly takes in a complex scene… Your thinking system does not instantly calculate the answer to a problem the way your visual system immiediately takes in a visual scene… [I]f we can get away with it, we don’t think. Instead we rely on memory. Most of the problems we face are ones we’ve solved before, so we just do what we’ve done in the past. (p.5)

2. Curiosity is fragile (p.7-10)

Solving problems brings pleasure… There is a sense of satisfaction, of fulfillment, in successful thinking… It’s notable too that the pleasure is in the solving of the problem. Working on a problem with no sense that you’re making progress is not pleasurable. In fact, it’s frustrating… Mental work appeals to us because it offers the opportunity for that pleasant feeling when it succeeds.

…

[W]hen does curiosity have staying power? The answer may lie in the difficulty of the problem. If we get a little burst of pleasure from solving a problem, then there’s no point in working on a problem that is too easy – there’ll be no pleasure when it’s solved because it didn’t feel like much of a problem in the first place. Then too, when you size up a problem as very difficult, you are judging that you’re unlikely to solve it, and are therefore unlikely to get the satisfaction that comes with the solution.

…

[C]uriosity prompts people to explore new ideas and problems, but when we do, we quickly evaluate how much mental work it will take to solve the problem. If it’s too much or too little, we stop working on the problem if we can. (p.8-10)

3. Cognitive limits should be respected

When trying to develop effective mental challenges for your students, bear in mind [their] cognitive limitations… For example, suppose you began a history lesson with a question: “You’ve all heard of the Boston Tea Party; why do you suppose the colonists dressed as Indians and dumped tea into the Boston harbor?” Do your students have the necessary background knowledge in memory to consider this question? If students lack the background knowledge to engage with a problem, save it for another time when they have that knowledge. (p.15)

4. Background knowledge is necessary for cognitive skills

Not only does background knowledge make you a better reader, but it also is necessary to be a good thinker. The processes we most hope to engender in our students – thinking critically and logically – are not possible without background knowledge.

…

[P]eople draw on memory to solve problems more often than you might expect. For example, it appears that much of the difference among the world’s best chess players is not their ability to reason about the game or to plan the best move; rather, it is their memory for game positions.

…

Much of what experts tell us they do in the course of thinking about their field requires background knowledge, even if it’s not described that way… Unexpected outcomes indicate that their knowledge is incomplete and that this experiment contains hidden seeds of new knowledge. But for results to be unexpected, you must have an expectation! (p.28-32)

5. Memory is the residue of thought

Whatever you think about, that’s what you remember. Memory is the residue of thought. Once stated, this conclusion seems impossibly obvious… Your brain lays its bets this way: If you don’t think about something very much, then you probably won’t want to think about it again, so it need not be store. If you do think about something, then it’s likely that you’ll want to think about it in the same way in the future.

…

The obvious implication for teachers is that they must design lessons that will ensure that students are thinking about the meaning of the material.

…

Trying to make the material relevant to students’ interests doesn’t work… [A]ny material has different aspects of meaning. If the instructor used a math problem with cell phone minutes, isn’t there some chance that my daughter would think about cell phones rather than about the problem? And that thoughts about cell phones would lead to thoughts about the text message she received earlier, which would remind her to change her picture on her Facebook profile, which would make her think about the zit she has on her nose…? (p.47-50)

Willingham goes on to explain that we tend to focus on the ‘personality’ aspects of what makes a good teacher, which is only half the story. The other half is meaning. One of the best ways to convey meaning is to use story structures.

6. Understanding is remembering in disguise

[Students] understand new ideas (things they don’t know) by relating them to old ideas (things they do know).

…

[U]nderstanding new ideas is mostly a matter of getting the right old ideas into working memory and then rearranging them – making comparison we hadn’t made before, or thinking about a feature we had previously ignored.

…

Now you can see why I claim that understanding is remembering in disguise. No one can pour new ideas into a student’s head directly. Every new idea must build on ideas that the student already knows. (p.68-71)

7. Practising is better than drilling

Doing a lot of studying right before a test is commonly known as cramming… If you pack lots of studying into a short period, you’ll do okay on an immediate test, but you will forget the material quickly. If, on the other hand, you study in several sessions with delays between them, you may not do quite as well on the immediate test but, unlike the crammer, you’ll remember the material longer after the test.

…

[Y]ou can get away with less practice if you space it out than if you bunch it together. Spacing practice has another benefit. Practice… means continuing to work at something that you’ve already mastered. By definition, that sounds kind of boring, even though it brings cognitive benefits. It will be somewhat easier for a teacher to make such tasks interesting if they are spaced out in time. (p.90-91)

8. Experts have abstract knowledge of problem types

Experts don’t think in terms of surface features, as novices do; they think in terms of functions, or deep structure.

…

We can generalize by saying that experts think abstractly… Experts don’t have trouble understanding abstract idas, because they see the deep structure of problems.

…

[E]xperts save room in working memory through acquiring extensive, functional background knowledge, and by making mental procedures automatic. What do they do with that extra space in working memory? Well, one thing they do is talk to themselves.

…

What’s interesting about this self-talk is that the expert can draw implications from it… [E]xperts do not just narrate what they are doing. They also generate hypotheses, and so test their own understanding and think through the implications of possible solutions in progress. (p.101-104)

9. Learning styles theory is subject to ‘confirmation bias’

[T]he visual-auditory-kinesthetic theory seems right [because of] a psychological phenomenon called the confirmation bias. Once we believe something, we unconsciously interpret ambiguous situations as being consistent with what we already believe… The great novelist Tolstoy put it this way: “I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabrics of their life.” (p.121)

10. Beliefs about intelligence are important

In a classic study on the effect of praise, the experimenters asked fifth graders to work on some problems in which they were to find patterns. The first set of problems was fairly easy to that the students would solve most of them. The students were then praised for their success. All were told, “Wow, you did very well on these problems. You got [number of problems] right. That’s a really high score.” Some were then told, “You must be smart at these problems.” In other words, the were praised for their ability. Others were told, “You must have worked hard at these problems,” thus receiving praise for their effort. Each student was then interviewed by a different experimenter to learn what the students thought about intelligence. The results showed that those who had been praised for their ability (“you’re smart”) were more likely to describe a fixed view of intelligence than those who were praised for their effort (“you worked hard”), who were more likely to describe a malleable view of intelligence. Similar effects have been shown in many studies, including studies of children as young as four years old.

Conclusion

The two main things I took away were:

• Practice. Practice. Practice. Get and give feedback. Observe others. Ask questions. Be curious.
• Be careful with the language you use with students – both in terms of representing concepts and in terms of praise.

I’d recommend Willingham’s book wholeheartedly. The nine principles he puts in a table towards the end of the book are worth the price of the book alone. They should be jazzed-up and given to all teachers, everywhere!

Why Don’t Students Like School: a cognitive scientist answers questions about how the mind works and what it means for the classroom

I knew it was an action movie. I knew there’d be violence, guns, explosions and perhaps even some wooden acting. But The Expendables is truly a film to avoid.

Why?

Let me explain.

1. Cameos

The trailer is basically a list of the name of the people who are in it. The trouble is that Arnold Schwarzenegger appears for about 30 seconds and Bruce Willis for about one minute. The main guys are Sylvester Stallone (also director/co-writer) and Jason Statham. Jet Li plays a smaller role; Steve Austin, Mickey Rourke, et al. appear even less.

2. Not-quite-tongue-in-cheek violence

People’s heads are blown off. In some films this is funny and you’re meant to laugh. You’re not quite sure in this one and the fighting moves are somewhere between realistic and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Lame.

3. Two-dimensional characters

Fair enough, it’s an action film so I wouldn’t expect marvellous character development. Having said that, the characters’ motivations are weak and its portrayal of women takes us back about 30 years.

4. Lack of plot

1. Former FBI man likes money
2. Pays general of small country
3. Daughter of general enlists help
4. Action
5. General ‘turns’ against FBI man
6. Explosions
7. Heroes win

5. It’s hypocritical

By going to see films like this we’re ostensibly against ‘The Man’. But are we? We’re sitting there, having paid £7 or so to watch explosions and actors who should perhaps be starring in different films, making way for newer talent. Communism (and by extension, given this is an American film, socialism) is given short shrift with faux-Cuban reference points and stereotypical posturing. We’re supposed to be on the side of the heroes, but even they struggle to find what they actually stand for.

Conclusion

Avoid. At 103 minutes, it’s mercifully short, but it’s part of your life you won’t get back. For an action movie, it’s lacking. And for any other type of movie it’s, quite frankly, laughable.

I usually concur with the average rating on IMDB. For example, 9.1 for Inception is spot-on. At the time of writing, it’s 8.5 for The Expendables. You could reverse those two numbers and I’d still say it was a bit generous.

Usually new mobile phones are known about well in advance of their launch. Everything from specs to early reviews are made available in order to create a buzz around the product. For example, a couple of years ago I was sent an LG Shine and encouraged (although not instructed) to take photos of it and blog about it. With the Dell Streak, however, apart from a great video at jkkmobile I stumbled across on the night before it was released in the UK, I’d heard nothing about it!

Full specs of the device can be found here, but the highlights are that it’s an Android tablet/smartphone hybrid with a 5″ screen. Yes, five inch! :-p

Let’s just get past the two (related) questions I’ve been asked most frequently over the last couple of weeks:

1. Is it too big?
2. Don’t you feel a bit stupid putting it to your ear to, you know, make phone calls?

My responses:

1. It’s certainly on the upper limit of what counts as a phone size wise. Some, undoubtedly, will find it too big. But given that I tended to use my iPhone more for Twitter and other internet based activities than for phone calls, I don’t!
2. It’s not Dom Joly size and I don’t really suffer from self esteem issues anyway. As for people who think that phones should only be able to make phone calls, get back in your cave please…

Things I really like:

• The whole experience and speed of the device makes it über-slick
• Spotify, Dropbox and other official apps are better (to my mind) than their iPhone counterparts
• The size of the screen makes everything… just better
• It’s really quite thin
• Several virtual desktops means you can organize your stuff
• I don’t have to jail break it to set it up the way I want it
• Widgets provide real-time updates
• The camera is legendary and the in-phone editing functions are actually useful
• It’s got a ‘gorilla glass’ screen – check out this video showing it being torture-tested!

Things I’m not so keen on:

• The placement of headphone socket
• Volume buttons alter up or down depending on orientation (confusing!)
• You can’t delete things (e.g. emails) by swiping
• It’s not running the latest version of Android (v1.6)
• Proprietary power/ sync cable
• Current lack of third party support (eg cases, speakers, other add ons)
• The quality of sound recording when shooting video isn’t gerat

Stuff other reviews might not tell you:

• As with the iPhone, music stops playing when you remove the headphones
• Sometimes tasks don’t shut by themselves and drain your battery (a force close app is pretty much essential)
• It’s not really possible to use the Streak with one hand whilst walking for texting, etc.
• With Android apps you’ve got 24 hours to get a refund if you don’t like it or it didn’t perform as you expected
• The power cable is similar to the iPhone’s in that the USB end plugs into the power cable

10 apps that are awesome on the Streak:

I’m happy to answer any questions you’ve got – including making another video, so ask away!

This week I have been mostly…

Planning for planning

I was asked to help put together the agenda for our upcoming quarterly planning meeting. This will be my first experience of the two-day events. I’ve proposed session titles including really bad puns – e.g. ‘Getting JISC-y with it’ and ‘Plone Ranger’ (Plone powers our website…)

Being trained

It’s not what you know, it’s who you know. A friend of a friend, Ben Mawhinney, came to give us some training on Google Analytics at my invitation on Friday. It was really kind of him to share what he knows and help us to better focus on our core audience!

Making the most of my flexi-time

With the sunny weather and spending all week in the office, I’ve been leaving at 15.30 and using up some of my flexi-time. What. A. Great. System!

Getting the go-ahead

My proposal for a review of mobile and wireless technologies was accepted, so I’ll be spending from next week until about the end of October on a review which will inform an upcoming JISC publication.

Returning my Dell Streak

It would appear that for everyone who knows me (however slightly) my decision to return the Dell Streak on Friday after a week was entirely predictable. What can I say? I’m a sucker for well-designed tools that increase my productivity. Like the iPhone 4…

1. No multitouch. I didn’t realise until it was pointed out in an Android forum that this makes typing a whole lot easier.
2. Lack of apps I use often. Having to use the National Rail website instead of it’s £4.99 app may seem trivial but it’s important to me. Apps pretty much always come out for the iPhone first because of the huge, standardized, user base.
3. Lack of accessories. I could walk into almost any shop on the high street and purchase cases, speakers and other accessories for my iPhone 3G. How many cases did I have to choose from for the Dell Streak? One. And that was fugly.
4. Unintuitive annoyances. Holding down the camera button should bring up the camera app. The device should charge if the power cable’s plugged in – even if it is in ‘aeroplane mode’ whilst I’m asleep.
5. Email. Having GMail, Exchange and IMAP accounts means 3 different apps on Android. #fail
6. Position of headphone socket. Why put it on top of the screen? Hold it landscape and the wire gets in the way. Put it in your pocket and it’s sticking out the side. Oh, and the volume up/down switch should do the same thing in landscape and portrait. #confusing
7. Lack of website support. If you go to popular websites on the iPhone then you get a decent browsing experience because they’ve made sure it’s optimised for that platform. Navigating some websites on the Dell Streak was clunky, despite the lovely Opera web browser I installed.
8. Apps that don’t work. The number of times I purchased apps only for me to have them refunded within 24 hours was ridiculous. I had to force-close so many I lost count.
9. Lack of ‘magnifying glass’ function. If you’ve made a mistake in a text, tweet or email you to half-guess where to tap to get the cursor to go into the correct position. There’s no ability to ‘zoom in’. This leads to frustration.
10. It’s not an iPhone. Close as I was to keeping it, the fact that I was indecisive about it kind of sealed it’s fate. I would have been tied into a 24-month contract with the Dell Streak. And that’s a long time for something you only like very much rather than love!

The Dell Streak is, technically, a wonderful phone, music player and internet device. It’s almost perfect for me. I loved the ‘Rooms’ (virtual desktops) feature and the ability to add widgets to these. Spotify was amazing on the big screen and Google Navigation is better than any Sat-Nav I’ve used. The Shapewriter app made text entry fun and the camera is top-notch.

It’s just that nowadays a phone has to be much more than the sum of it’s parts. And unfortunately the Dell Streak only consists of great parts reasonably well put-together… :-p

I realised this week that I never posted the completed review. So here it is, for what it’s worth, in full!

The Hyperlinked Society: Questioning Connections in the Digital Age

Joseph Turow and Lokman Tsui, Editors (2008)

Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press

ISBN 0-472-05043-5 (pbk)

319 Pages.

Reviewer: Doug Belshaw, Durham University

In the introduction to The Hyperlinked Society, editor Joseph Turow explains how the book became a follow-up to a 2006 conference that ‘came together to address the social implications of instant digital linking’. ‘We did not intend to solve any particular problem at the meeting,’ he writes. ‘Instead, the goal was to shed light on a remarkable social phenomenon that people in business and the academy usually take for granted.’ The stated aim of the resulting book? ‘[N]ot to drill deeply into particular research projects [but], rather, to write expansively, provocatively – even controversially – about the extent to which and ways in which hyperlinks are changing our worlds and why.’ The book, therefore, is published explicitly as a platform upon which others ‘will launch their own research projects and policy analyses.’ (p.5)

Given this stated aim, it is easier to forgive The Hyperlinked Society‘s unconventional structure and somewhat eclectic nature. There are three main sections to the book. The first, ‘Hyperlinks and the Organization of Attention’ is almost entirely descriptive, ostensibly to set the scene for the rest of the book. The second ‘Hyperlinks and the Business of Media’ appears incongruous in an academic book; the essays and articles it contains feature few references and assertions abound. The final section is the most rewarding for researchers and academics in the field of new literacies and internet culture. It features an abundance of analysis – everything from the moral nature of hyperlinks to what constitutes the ‘online public sphere’. This final section is worth the price of admission alone.

Puzzlingly, given the editor’s proud statement in the introduction that over 200 countries were represented at the conference that led to the book’s existence, the examples given are almost entirely taken from the USA. Moreover, the American political situation and how it reflects, and is reflected by, internet culture is a dominant theme. Indeed there is more than one reference to ‘our country’ and what ‘we’ need to do. This does not sit comfortably at times, making this (English) reviewer feel like an outsider.

But there is much to like and admire in The Hyperlinked Society even if, at times, the authors try and relate anything and everything to the concept of the hyperlink. The editors have discovered and successfully begun to fill a niche: that space between popular internet culture books such as Clay Shirky’s Here Comes Everybody and more traditional academic articles. The Hyperlinked Society successfully combines elements of both, especially in the third section and in particular Adamic’s The Social Hyperlink. This essay continues the collection’s dominant theme of political blogging, showing empirically that the ‘blogosphere’ is divided with hyperlinks mirroring political affiliations. Coupled with this, however, is a corrective to the possible conclusion that hyperlinks cause this ‘echo-chamber’ effect. An analysis of online communities in the USA, Kuwait and the UAE demonstrate the powerfully complex cultural and contextual factors at work. The reader is left fascinated, interested, and wanting more – especially given the ‘Do bloggers kill kittens?’ story with which Adamic ends the article. This, of course, fits hand-in-glove with the editor’s desire for others to use the collection as a starting point for their own research.

A second dominant theme in The Hyperlinked Society is whether hyperlinks constitute an inherently a ‘good’ or a ‘bad’ thing for society. Most deal with this in a cursory way, but Weinberger’s The Morality of Links confronts the issue head-on. In perhaps the most valuable and reflective essay in the collection, Weinberger analyses his personal belief that ‘Links are good’. His wide-ranging and knowledgeable philosophical treatment of the problem takes fully three pages of background, covering everything from a critique of Essentialism to the value of a funnel. Weinberger concludes that there are two reasons why ‘Links are good’. First, the Web is a huge potentiality – but not in the same way ‘a stick could potentially be used to prop up a car hood’ (p.189). Instead, ‘the potential is the sum of the relationships embodied in links’ which makes the Web ‘a potential that we’re actively creating and expanding’ (p.189). The second reason we’re better off with links, states Weinberger, is because ‘every time we click on a link, we take a step away from the selfish solipsism that characterizes our age – or, to be more exact, that characterizes how we talk about our age’ (p.189-90). The world, says Weinberger (quoting Ted Nelson) has never been so ‘intertwingled’.

The third and final dominant vein running through The Hyperlinked Society is the emancipatory nature of hyperlinks. Whilst several authors raise privacy concerns and implications , the general consensus is that through ‘mashups’, ‘countermapping’ and other online grassroots activities, traditional power structures are beginning to be challenged. Halavais, for instance, in The Hyperlink as Organizing Principle explains how the changing way hyperlinks are used represents ‘a kind of collective unconscious’ that represents ‘deep social and cultural structures’ (p.39). Halavais also points out, with some apparent glee, that researchers can passively track social relationships and connections through the aggregation of links – thus alleviating the ‘Hawthorne effect’ and bias inherent in self-reporting.

Finkelstein, in Google, Links and Popularity versus Authority highlights two important instances where technical issues relating to hyperlinks threatened to undermine their potential for emancipation and democracy. The first is what he deems ‘the commodificiation of social relations’. This is a result of ‘blurring the lines between business and friendship’ (p.115) that occurs online. A second, related, problem is that of search engine algorithms being based on inbound links. Google’s PageRank algorithm, for example, works a ‘weighted combination’ of factors centering around how popular the website is with other websites. Herein, of course, lies a problem. If you want to talk about the dangers of a racist hate site, making parents and teachers aware of the URL , linking to the site would be counter-productive. It would constitute an inbound link – and therefore improve the racist hate website’s Google PageRank. As a result, the ‘nofollow’ tag was invented to allow links in such cases without the attendant positive conferral of status (or ‘Google juice’ as it is commonly termed). This is an example of what The Hyperlinked Society does well as a collection, dealing with both the social and technical aspects of problems caused by Web-mediated communication.

The Hyperlinked Society is not an overly-edited collection. There are places where the same stories are told, the same studies cited, and similar ground covered. But given the and/and/and nature of hyperlinks and the Web, this is highly appropriate. Instead of fitting rigorously into a pre-determined order, the authors are free to explore their own interests in a way that suits them. Such a structure and approach works well, and serves to reinforce the themes outlined above: the case of political blogging, the nature of hyperlinks, and their emancipatory potential.

However, as a researcher into new literacies and 21st-century education practices, it was disappointing to see terms such as ‘link-literacy’, ‘savvy’ and ‘competence’ used uncritically. There is a wealth of research in this area towards which the individual authors or, at the very least, the editor could have directed the reader. Although Lankshear and Knobel’s Digital Literacies: Concepts, Policies and Practices was published in the same year as The Hyperlinked Society, their earlier volume New Literacies: Everyday Practices and Classroom Learning (2006) was available as a guide to the field.

Overall, The Hyperlinked Society is satisfying and informative when read in its totality, but also serves as an excellent reference point, with useful overviews to each section provided by the editors. It would be of most use to those running postgraduate courses exploring Web-related issues as it covers such a wide range of issues. The final section in particular is an object lesson on how to explore the wider implications of a very particular technology.

References

• Lankshear, C. & Knobel, M. (2006) New Literacies: Everyday Practices and Classroom Learning. Open University Press
• Lankshear, C. & Knobel, M. (2008) Digital Literacies: Concepts, Policies and Practices. Peter Lang Publishing
• Shirky, C. (2008) Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations. New York: Penguin Press

I’ve explained many times on this blog about how great running is for your whole system of productivity. The trouble with running, though, is that it used to difficult to set yourself goals and targets. With the advent of Nike+ and GPS-enabled devices, however, all that has changed.

I first started GPS-tracking my running with my Nokia N95 a few years ago. I still haven’t found anything better than the Nokia Sports Tracker for ease-of-use and useful feedback, if I’m honest.

Since switching to an iPhone, I’ve tried a number of applications that can GPS-track my runs. Most recently I’ve been using SportyPal which I found pretty good and at a nice price (free!)

A few months ago, Mike Schoeffler, the developer of a new iPhone running app called Roadbud started following me on Twitter and reading this blog. I ended up joining the mailing list for updates and a free copy of the app upon release. After some delays, it was available in the App Store earlier this week.

For reasons only known to Apple, the free codes Mike generated are only available in the US (see the end of this post to win one for yourself!) Mike very kindly reduced the price of the UK version from £5.99 to £0.59 so that he kept his promise. Very noble and much appreciated (but this review remains impartial!)

Review

Given that SportyPal, my previous iPhone running app of choice, is free and Roadbud Pro is £5.99 it had better do something special. Fortunately, it has go some unique features. Not least:

• Integration with iTunes music library
• StrongSong (Nike+ style motivational track you can nominate for one-button access)
• Audio feedback on distance covered, time and pace
• Google Maps integration as you run
• Weather information
• One-button access to phoning a friend or emergency services (if concerned about safety)
• Twitter integration (option to tweet your run straight after workout)
• Auto screen-lock

There is a free version (Roadbud Rookie), to be fair, but to my mind that version doesn’t offer anything over-and-above SportyPal. It’s six and two threes…

Whilst I can only give my opinion about Roadbud and my particular running regime, there’s some things I really liked and some things that I thought could probably do with some improvement.

The good:

1. Integration with iTunes music library is a real bonus.
2. I love the one-button access to my ‘StrongSong’ for when I need that extra boost.
3. The Google Maps implementation is seamless and shows at-a-glance whether your iPhone is locked-on to the GPS signal.
4. The audio feedback is useful for focusing on running instead of having to keep looking at the screen.
5. You can choose a workout length (time or distance) with your progress then being shown as a bar underneath time elapsed. Nice!

Room for improvement:

1. Track information of the song currently playing.
2. Feedback when you’ve lost GPS signal.
3. Lower power consumption (25 min run took 40% of my battery life on iPhone 3G)
4. A website, like SportyPal to develop more of a community.
5. The ability to export data to Google Earth.

From my contact with the Mike, the first three of the above are already in development for the next version of Roadbud.

Of course, people have different concerns and needs than me. For example, when my wife gets my iPhone in a couple of months, she’ll no doubt want to use it for running. I’ll then be really glad of Roadbud’s one-touch emergency call facility.

Conclusion + free codes

Would I recommend Roadbud? Yes.

Do I think it’s worth £5.99? At present, probably not.

I’d expect it to be more of a £2.99 app. I certainly think it’s got potential to be worth the higher price, though! I’m looking forward to seeing how it improves given that the developers keen to make it the best it can be.

Want a free version of Roadbud Pro? I’ve got 3 free copies* for those who reweet this post (using the button below) before midday on Sunday 2nd May 2010!

*US residents only, I’m afraid, for reasons given above…