Moodle and Mahara mobile apps
1. Mahara app
MaharaDroid enables Android phones to share or upload content to a Mahara E-Portfolio instance. The app can be used by the learners in the field to upload either pre-existing content like photos, files, videos on their phones or to make use of the features like camera and video in their phone to take and upload new content on their portfolio account. With new Phones offering features like geo tagging of pictures and videos this evidence can be used in field based courses as evidence of the content gathering at particular location.
2. Moodle and Blackboard on Smart Phones - New Developments
More organisations are now exploring how mobiles phones can be utilised to deliver educational content to the learner. As VLEs are already a dominant source for educational content, it makes logical sense to have a mobile interface for an organisation's learning platform. This webinar looks at the Moodle and Blackboard VLE mobile interface approaches and different apps that are available in the market to provide such interfaces. The wecast also examines the open-source projects being developed in this regard.
Click on image above to view the presentation
Proximity Solutions
Proximity Solutions mobile technology gives you the ability to update your communication in real-time and on-the-fly to keep customers engaged with upto date information on the go. It make use of technologies like Bluetooth, NFC, QR Codes and other geo tagging and close field technologies to provide range of different information to users. You can view the following presentation from Adam Blackwood, E-Learning Advisor JISC RSC South East to see how it can be utilised by learning providers for the new age of learners.
Click on image above to view the presentation
3D Books & Augmented Prospectus
More and more learning providers and book makers are coming with ideas on utilising 3d animations with their books and also augmented content. Below is a video of an augmented reality 3D animated book on astronomy and also a video of the Augmented Info used by University College Suffolk in their new prospectus.
3D Astronomy Book
Augmented Prospectus
Socrative Mobile Assessment
Socrative is a smart student response system that empowers teachers to engage their classrooms through a series of educational exercises and games via smartphones, laptops, and tablets.
Click here to try a demo Assessment. the room no to enter is 29842. The Tutor needs to have the session running before you can try it.
Wattpad
Wattpad is an online Library for user uploaded text work. The site uploads user content in shapes of books and quite a lot of content from both undiscovered and published writers. Wattpad has allowed a new generations of writers to make their work available to the mass market and now Wattpad has over 100,000 of work on a wide array of topics.
Wattapad has apps on all the major handheld operating systems like Android, iOS, Blackberry, Windows 7 and symbian which enables it offer a reading experience on pretyy much all handheld devices.
Wattpad is also being used by lecturers and tutors to make their notes and curriculumn material available to students. Gary Crawford from City College Southampton is just one of the practioners from the SouthEast region using Wattpad to support the college's City Horizons early years students.
Mobeedo Geo Tagging
Mobeedo is a geo tagging application that allows you to tag information on any geographical location and when a user with the relevant app on the mobile passes that location, they are instantly displayed that information on their mobiles. Mobeedo is a free app available on all major smart phone operating systems like iOS, Android, WIndows and others.
There are a number of other applications available with some what similar capabilities like "Layar" but i have found adding geo tagging much simpler on Mobeedo and offers a range of other facilities that can be utilised in educational context. It is also a useful tool for field trips and treasure hunts type of activities as well as posting information about large campuses.
The video below shows ways in which Mobeedo can be used.
Mobile Working
File Storage and online document synchronisation among different devices has been an Achilles heel for those of us whose work lives are increasingly dependent on our mobile devices be it be mobile phones, tablets or range of other mobile devices. A number of companies have come up and are offering free cloud based storage facilities with cross platform synchronisation including industry leading DropBox who offer a free service with 2GB of data plus built in Collaboration tools for joint working on documents. Gaming enthusiasts would also be familiar with Palringo which started as a free rich messaging service but is increasingly used by mobile gamers to share images and documents. Google Docs is also very popular but the corporate battles between Google and other competitors is hampering its full range of features and experience to be available consistently across different platforms.
Box.net recently announced a free 50 GB cloud storage for anybody signing up to the service before 23rd of March and i must admit i absolutely love it. It's integration with notoriously complicated storage management of iPhone is a delight and i can even transfer files straight from my emails which helps in managing my low corporate email account storage. Box also integrates with your other cloud storage platforms like Google, Sales Force and Okta. Allowing sharing and simultaneous working on documents plus the ability to comment and discuss work on those documents takes the term Social Work flow to a newer level and the cherry on the top is the real time updates on the change in documents across all of your Apple, Android and Blackberry mobile devices.
Augmented Reality
Augmented reality (AR) is a live, direct or indirect, view of a physical, real-world environment whose elements are augmented by computer-generated sensory input such as sound, video, graphics or GPS data. It is related to a more general concept called mediated reality, in which a view of reality is modified (possibly even diminished rather than augmented) by a computer. As a result, the technology functions by enhancing one’s current perception of reality.
The webinar below from Nigel Davies provides a brief overview of Augmented Reality (AR) and explores some of the developments that have taken place in the past year. It focuses on desktop activities and includes practical examples of AR being used in marketing and design together with an overview of location tagging. The session concludes with a discussion on the potential for education use.
Click on image above to view the presentation
If you want to find more information on how Augmented Reality applications are used in educational sector please feel to browse JISC RSC South East moodle course on Augmented Reality.
Click on the above image to access the Augmented Reality Course
Creative Commons License
Mobile Learning & Working by Syed Munib Hadi is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported license.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available from Syed Munib Hadi.