The Affordances Of Mobile Technologies

The Affordances of Mobile Technologies Ease of use and accessibility Neil Milliken Head of Mobile Development Iansyst Ltd

Overview
Why Mobile?
Issues with Mobile Devices
Addressing the Issues
Different Strokes – iPhone vs Windows Mobile vs S60 vs Blackberry vs Android
Strategies for Use
Tools available for mobile

Why Mobiles Are Important
Global Mobile Phone Penetration passed 50% in 2007 and is still growing.
UK has 110% penetration (more active SIMs than members of the population).
This outstrips by far the ownership and use of personal computers.
People engage with their phones and even people who are afraid of technology own and use them
Mobile phones were identified in the Horizon Report (2009) as the technologies with the highest likelihood of entry into the mainstream of learning-focused institutions within the next year.
http://wp.nmc.org/horizon2009/

The Changing Nature of Mobile Devices – The Birth of Truly Mobile Computing
Whilst growth of low end handsets has slowed the “Smart-Phone” segment of the market has continued to grow despite world wide recession.
Most of these devices have a 400Mhz or higher processor.
Toshiba have just launched the TG01 which has a 1Ghz processor and 512Mb RAM – More powerful than my 1 st Speech Recognition PC!

Perceived Barriers to Use The Physical
Small Screen
Lack of Keyboard and Mouse
Fiddly Buttons
Durability
Cost:
Price of handsets
Price of contracts

Perceived Barriers to Use The Pedagogical
Scepticism from some education practitioners who consider them distracting
Mobile Learning is just the latest fad:
Gordon Shukwit director of IT & Learning Apple world wide “everyone gets excited at first and then people get bogged down in the implementation and getting to grips with new ways of working. Until someone finds a way to augment the technology and add value.”
Blurring of formal & personal environments
Diverse range of platforms and standards:
Hinders deployment
Makes development more costly and complex

Addressing the Issues Small Screens
Devices are coming with larger screens e.g.: iPhone, Touch HD, Touch Pro 2 & Toshiba TG01
Programmes that automatically Reflow Text make reading easier
Text to Speech – no screen needed
Pico Projection

Addressing the Issues Input & Control
Improved touch screen interfaces remove the need for a physical keyboard & mouse and many physical buttons also have software keys
Many phones have slide out QWERTY keyboards
Alternative methods of controlling interfaces such as voice and gesture:
Voice command & limited speech recognition programmes are available and improving steadily
Windows Mobile 7 will include gesture control via front facing camera

Addressing the Issues Cost & Durability
Phones sold without contracts are expensive BUT look what you get:
Phone
Camera
GPS
Email
Internet
Media Player
Mobile Office Applications
Contracts subsidise the cost of handsets and costs are falling due to market & regulatory pressure
“ Mobile phones have proved to be more durable than netbooks like the eeepc and repair turn around is quicker when they do break” Bristol CLC

Different Strokes for Different Folks Which Operating System Suits You?
iPhone 3GS/ OSX The pros
Ultra cool with a nice intuitive interface “sexy”
Good for media
Lots of applications & developers
iTunes University lots of great content
Lots of memory
iPhone / OSX The Cons
Expensive & Tied to O2 contract
Unable to run multiple programmes simultaneously
Currently only 1 handset
Not as durable as other devices (screens easy to crack)
Not great for larger fingers

iPhone 3GS New Features
Recording Application
Spotlight Search
Cut Copy & Paste (finally)
Improved 3 Mp Camera with Autofocus and Geotagging
Voice Control & Voice Over
Zoom & High Contrast
Compass

Windows Mobile the Pros
Familiarity – looks like windows
Reasonable Cameras
Wide range of handsets to suit all needs
Lots of Educational developers on Windows Platform
Spell Checking built in
Ability to run multiple programmes at once
Comes with Office
Windows Mobile the Cons
It’s Windows – suffers from stability issues & need to reboot often
Clunkier interface than some other platforms
Manufacturers & Network operators customise the interface – inconsistency
Not “sexy”
Long wait for Windows Mobile 7

Blackberry The Pros
Great for Text & Email
Popular in the work environment
Good Cameras
Good support for developers – expect more applications
Blackberry The Cons
Small Screen (most devices)
Small Keys
Less Education focussed

Nokia / Symbian S60 The Pros
Stable Platform
Great Cameras
Wide Range
High number of users world wide
Nokia / Symbian S60 The Cons
Seen as lagging behind the competition
Had been prone to viruses
Less 3 rd party developers

Google Android The Pros
Open Source
Links with other Google apps
Google Android The Cons
Open Source
Limited handsets currently
Limited availability
Limited applications currently
It is too early to judge what impact Android will have on the mobile world

Strategies Benefiting from what’s available to empower learning and aid organisation
Using Outlook / Exchange server
Text to Speech Readers
Dictionaries
Calculators
Using The Camera
GPS
Mobile internet
Using inbuilt recording
Portable storage
Mobile Mentoring
Voice Control / Speech Input

Using Email Outlook & Exchange server
Pocket outlook and exchange server synchronisation to enable people to learn and work effectively.
Tasks
Reminders
Time Management
OneNote
It is always on unlike a PC or laptop
Distribution of documents via e-mail, web, and SMS to mobile devices.
Access to information away from the computer
Access to information earlier in the cycle and giving participants time to understand and digest information.

Text to Speech Readers
Text to Speech gives people access to comprehension of work / study documents on their mobile
The quality of the voice is really key - if you are listening to long documents you want a natural sounding voice and to be able to control the speed - too fast can't keep up, too slow and it damages comprehension but everyone has a different speed
Need for privacy – use a headset most smart phones come with wired headsets but if you want Bluetooth to work you will need to make sure that it is A2DP
It is important to make a distinction between the tools designed for the blind and those designed for those with specific learning difficulties

Dictionaries & Calculator
Most phone have inbuilt calculators
Most phones have a T9 dictionary & predictive text – This is a mixed blessing as you can teach it to misspell
Windows Mobile has a spellchecker in Word & Outlook
Lots of dictionaries available to download:
English Language
Dual Language
Medical etc

Using the Camera
It’s not just for posting pictures on Facebook, Flikr or Picasa – Pictures tap into the power of your visual memory:
Use Photo Contacts
Take pictures of what’s on the whiteboard or of what’s going on in lectures or meetings
Use it to capture information and OCR it
Use Geo tagging to time, date & location stamp where you took a picture.

GPS
Not only can you Geotag your Photos but you can use the GPS to help you to find your way around – Just remember to tell the software that you are using that you are walking not driving or you will go the long way round.
Companies are building applications that use the GPS to serve location specific information to users

Mobile internet
Access to Search
Access to VLEs - Moodle etc
Access to download apps
Access to news & information
Access speeds can be slow depending on your network, tariff and location

Using inbuilt recording
Ability to record voice memos on most smart phones
You can use windows mobile devices and iPhones to record meetings and lectures – saves carrying a separate voice recorder
Using an adaptor you can plug in a decent microphone
Transfer your voice recordings (of yourself) to your pc and use Dragon to transcribe them – requires you to navigate the file & folder structure
No index marking

Portable storage
Most smart phones come with or have the capacity to add massive amounts of storage. Use your mobile as a portable document store – one less thing to carry and forget
You can use the phone as a portable external hard drive – don’t synchronise just drag and drop your files (recordings, pictures, word documents, notes etc) onto your desktop.

Mobile Mentoring
It’s a phone – you can use it to stay in touch this means that support is only a call away wherever you are
Easier to get hold of people both for the student and the teaching staff

Voice Control / Speech Input
Command & Control is well established and can be used for limited control of programmes and voice dialling but the experience is patchy:
Depends on consistency of speaker
Background noise
Which package you use
True Speech Recognition is not available yet:
There is limited dictation of SMS for some S60 phones
There are a number of Server based SR solutions where you send your recording over the air to have it transcribed. E.g. Tellme & Spinvox

Mobile TTS & OCR Applications
Capturatalk V2
Windows Mobile
Designed for Dyslexia and literacy issues – not VI does not screen read
Has inbuilt Oxford English Dictionary
Abbyy Fine reader OCR
Simple always available menu
Reads large documents
Affordable (£359 ex VAT with Phone)
High quality voice (Acapela Lucy)
Highlights during readback
Will read PDF and Epub in v 2.1

Mobile TTS & Screen Readers
K Reader
Runs on Nokia N82
US English
Is designed for VI
Helps users focus camera
Can screen read if you buy it with Nuance Talks
Highlights during readback
Expensive Around £1000

Mobile TTS & Screen Readers
Talks – Nuance voices not available on Windows mobile or iPhone
Smartread – Will read files but poor interface and the voice is not very natural
MobileSpeak – Will do screen reading but the voice is not great and it completely froze my device
Fonix – Small application footprint but generally not pleasant to listen to.
Voiceover now included with the iPhone – voice is not very natural.

Note taking & Memos Notes iPhone & Windows Mobile MS One note Microsoft Recite Evernote Multiplatform Web based

Geotagging Applications
Hand-e-pix from Handheld PCs takes advantage of all the technology in today's Smartphone's to enable your mobile workers to capture images, (time and date stamped) along with additional data and a GPS location. This information is then updated in real time to a secure website via the cellular network which is then presented in a database form or in a GIS system of your choice such as Google Maps!
Geotagging built in to new iPhone

Geotagging Applications

Conclusion
Make use of what you have
Work to styles that suit you
Using a mixture of the strategies & technologies mentioned today should bring benefits

The Affordances Of Mobile Technologies

by Neil Milliken on Jun 11, 2009

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The Affordances Of Mobile Technologies — Presentation Transcript