Ten Trends 2012: Ubiquitous Computing

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Annually, CORE Education explores ten emerging ICT trends that will impact upon the education landscape for New Zealand and beyond. These are known as CORE Education's Ten Trends. Each month we will post an in-depth article about each trend by a champion from CORE staff.

If we take the definition of Ubiquitous as 'existing or being everywhere, especially at the same time' then ubiquitous learning is not a new trend. Learning has always happened everywhere. As humans we are always learning regardless of the time and place. What is driving this trend is the idea of ubiquitous computing and how it is influencing learning.

So what is ubiquitous computing – known to its friends as ubicomp? A computer scientist from the Xerox PARC laboratory called Mark Weiser is credited as the father of the concept in the 80s & 90s. He spoke of three waves of computing:

  • Mainframes
  • Personal Computers
  • Ubiquitous Computing

In the first two waves the users have to go to the computers in order to interact, and the technology takes centre stage. In the third wave technology recedes into the background and becomes an almost invisible part of everyday life.

He defined four key concepts of ubicomp:

  • The purpose of a computer is to help do something else
  • The best computer is a quite and invisible servant
  • Computers should extend the unconcious
  • Technology should create calm, ie. inform but not demand focus of attention

Finally Weiser described three levels of ubicomp devices:

  • Tabs – centimetre sized wearable devices
  • Pads – handheld size devices
  • Boards – metre sized interactive boards

The thing that is now driving the trend of ubiquitous technology is the arrival of the devices that Weiser envisioned. We now have the embeddable wearable chips, the iPad has pushed into the limelight the concept of the handheld Pad, and interactive boards and tabletops are also available.

A second driver, which comes back to the idea of ubiquity being 'everywhere at the same time' is cloud computing, which allows us to access the same data from any location, on multiple devices, at the same time. Google docs is a good example of this, with multiple people anywhere in the world, using a variety of devices can all edit the same document at the same time. 

The impact of this for teaching and learning is that the need to go to the technology to do 'computer stuff' is rapidly disappearing. Mobile devices like iPads and smart phones mean that technology can be more easily integrated into the learning process, anytime and any place. Technology is becoming that quiet invisible servant that informs but does not demand attention.

The two key implications for schools are:

  • Infrastructure provision needs to focus on robust wireless networks to facilitate the widespread use of ubiquitous computing devices, particularly student owned devices
  • All teaching content and student generated data needs to be cloud based to allow for access from anywhere on any device

For the last couple of centuries we have got into the mindset that in order to learn you have to turn up at a certain place and stay there for a set number of hours each day. Hopefully, more than anything, what ubicomp will do is push learning back to what it has always been, a ubiquitous process.

Can you already see ubiquitous computing impacting on your classroom?

What steps is your school taking to be ready for the rise of ubicomp?

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Falling off the Applecart

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iOS vs Android

I recently had to loan my Apple iPhone 4 to a colleague while we looked at getting his broken iPhone 3Gs repaired. I thought this would be a great opportunity to try out one of the cheaper Android handsets that are currently flooding the market. Why?

  • First,, to see if a relatively cheap smart phone can provide the level of functionality I have become accustomed to with my iPhone 4.
  • Secondly, to think about how these cheap smartphones might impact on teaching and learning in schools

Which Android handset to try?

With more android handsets than you can shake a stick at, it is hard to know which one to choose. To narrow things down I looked for:

  • Something under $500NZD – I wanted it to be more in the price range of your average teenager than a new iPhone
  • Had to have GPS
  • Must be able to use Wi-Fi as well as 3G connections
  • Needed to have a Wi-Fi hotspot function to allow sharing out of the 3G connection
  • The processor needed to be a reasonable speed
  • Built-in camera had to be 5MP at least, with some level of video capability.

After reading a number of reviews, it was obvious that to get all of the above in a new Phone, it currently needs to be in the $400NZD price bracket. It didn’t take too much more looking around to settle on an HTC Wildfire S, which I managed to pick up from a parallel importer for $425. Full specs for this phone are available here.

How does the Wildfire stack up?

HTC Wildfire S

Having used the Wildfire for approximately a month I have to say that I could easily survive with it as my permanent smartphone. It is by no means an iPhone 4 equivalent. I miss that crystal clear retina display, but for checking email, basic web surfing, the odd twitter update, an occasional snapshot, and some help from Google Maps to get to places, this handset more than adequately performs.

What I really like about it is:

  • It has a much smaller profile than the iPhone 4, fits nicely in the palm of the hand, and so, combined with the cheaper price tag is less impact on the pocket in more ways than one.
  • With Swype installed, the smaller keyboard performs better than the larger iPhone 4 keyboard.
  • The Wi-Fi hotspot also seems to perform much better than the iPhone equivalent.

Will cheap smartphones impact on education?

The arrival of these cheap Android handsets means that smartphones are going to have a much faster impact on schools than if this technology stayed at the $1000 price level of the iPhones and higher-end Android devices. While a student is not going to spend the day working on an HTC Wildfire, this and other devices like it provide a highly usable communication, research and data gathering tool. As ownership of this level of device increases, schools need to be asking the following questions:

  • Do current policies on the use of cell phones in classes need to be revisited in order to make use of the potential of these devices?
  • Does the school have the wireless infrastructure and policies in place to allow connection of these devices? If students are also bringing a laptop, then, for a school of 1000 students your infrastructure needs to be able to cope with at least 2000 connected devices.
  • You may have filtering in place to prevent inappropriate use of your school Internet connection, but do you have policies and education programmes in place to cope with the fact that a student can share out an unfiltered 3G connection? Currently, 3G traffic prices are too high to allow this to be a widescale problem, but there will be students willing to pay the monthly data charges to have uncontrolled access to Facebook, etc., on the school grounds.

What do you think?

I am sure there are many other questions that schools and teachers need to be asking about the potential uses of these devices, along with any downsides. We would love to hear your comments if your school is currently grappling with this issue, or if you have forged ahead and are doing creative things with student-owned smartphones.

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From vision to reality

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Life-changer posts are generally about individuals, but here's a whole school that's changing the lives of its students.

Point England School

There is always a lot of debate about the value of ICT in education, and the impact that it can have on teaching and learning. When the amount of time, effort, and money that is expended by schools implementing, maintaining and then throwing out and replacing ICT, it is easy to become cynical and wonder if, perhaps, the money could be better spent elsewhere.

Point England students show engagement

But every now and then you get a glimpse of what is possible with a clear vision, and a boot-load of energy and commitment.

On a recent visit to Auckland we were lucky enough to get a tour around Point England Primary. This is a decile 1A school in one of New Zealand's poorest communities, but they have a 1 to 1 netbook programme in place that would put most decile 10 schools to shame.

It isn't the technology that stands out, though. It is the fact that they have integrated the ICT into the teaching and learning process with purpose and meaning, and they have the research and the statistics to show that it is working for their students. It is the vision that most CORE staff have for schools in New Zealand, but here it is in reality.

I am a technologist through and through, but it wasn't the Ubuntu-based netbooks that impressed me, or the community-wide wireless infrastructure they are putting in place. It's not even the cloud-based Google apps learning environment, or the individual student blogs. All of these things are great. But what really impressed me and my colleagues was the the high level of engagement the pupils displayed as we walked around the school, and the level of confidence with which the children talked to us about their learning.

If you want to see for yourself, take the time to watch some of their School TV episodes, or browse around the class and student blogs.

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To Office or not to Office—an answer to multiple doc versions?

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One thing we are keeping a close watch on here at CORE is the ongoing competition between the desktop Office Suites such as MS Office and Open Office, and the online alternatives from Google Apps and Microsoft.

Google Docs doesn’t quite do it all

Google Docs

We use Google Docs extensively for document collaboration, but find that when it comes to the final document production and formatting it still doesn’t quite cut the mustard, and resort to exporting to a desktop Office Suite for the final version.

The constant question then is, at what point is the document ready for the transfer? And once transferred do you end up with the age-old version problems, and then, do you still email copies around for comment…?

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SocialLearn

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The Open University’s SocialLearn platform is still moving along. They seem to be replicating a lot of things that are available already in elgg. I am sure they had good reasons to start from scratch , but it would be interesting to talk to the development team and find out why they haven’t picked up on an existing platform, rather than re-inventing the wheel on a number of counts.

It will be interesting to see if they release the platform open source, or if it will only be a cloud service – and if the second what the eligibility for access will be.

They have a walk through video available which gives a good idea of where they are heading with the platform.

SocialLearn video

Given our interest in online communities and social learning we will certainly be watching this space …

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