This week, I started my search for articles related to mobile devices for the annotated bibliography assignments. I first conducted a broad search in Google and found an interesting site titled: Learning with mobile devices: a book of papers. This “book of papers” contains 27 articles based on presentations conducted by researchers, developers, and practitioners in education and commerce at a London conference on mobile learning in 2003. These articles are not considered peer-reviewed, however I have been granted permission by Dr. Newberry to use an article from this resource as an annotated bibliography. I highly recommend checking out the link above for further consideration. I also retrieved from the ERIC database a few articles related to mobile devices and learning/development for the annotated bibliography assignment.
I doodled with a Palm Pilot and an iPhone this week as well (this particular iPhone had many educational applications installed). I have a friend that owns (and lives) on his Palm Pilot. During a round of golf, I asked permission to explore his PDA. His Palm Pilot had a Windows Mobile OS with very few applications installed. I used the Stylus to write instead of type. I really like this feature because of its simplicity and speed in placing the letters in typed format into the Internet search field. It was also easier for writing notes and for writing a text message. I did find a book reading application on the PDA that my buddy didn’t realize he had.
The iPhone that I explored had many educational apps installed. I even played the Oregon Trail app. This was my first time playing it. I didn’t play very long. The graphics were great, but I got bored with it. I spent more time playing the very educational app “The Moron Test”. Attention to detail is very important to succeed in this app. I think this app is really in the entertainment category, rather than the educational. The game was so simple, yet so frustratingly enjoyable. I did play other educational games, and the more I played, the more interested I became in developing an iPhone/iTouch app.
Interesting post! I hope I’m not the only one in the class that enjoys these first hand reports on using mobile devices.
I love the feature where you can write on the Palm and it translates it into typed text. If anyone knows of a way to do that on the iPhone please let me know! I also like Windows Mobile OS better than Apple’s iPhone OS but the only Windows Mobile competitor to the iPhone that I could find was the Palm Pre and I would have to change to Verizon.
I’m sure the iPhone/iTouch will soon be better than a PDA if they aren’t already, since besides getting all those neat little games, appointment and day scheduler type applications you have a phone. too. I haven’t really looked into that much about what my PDA can do until this class. When we got them, the trainer showed us all the applications that came installed and we played a little and that was it. The only really educational tools on it were three math programs unless you count Bookworm. However, you could do documents and excel on it if you wanted too. We could even record grades on ours. However, today I say they have a new office suite which includes power point capabilities and that sounds interesting to me. I’m thinking of ordering it and seeing what type of a power point I can do on it.
An even better Win Mobile competitor for the iPhone (also on Verizon) is the Samsung Omnia. I have had one for about 7 months and REALLY like it. Built in wi-fi, MUCH better camera than iPhone, and more