Okay. We appreciate the irony of a site on mobility being static for AGES! It’s true that we’ve been in hibernation for a long time — at least here. But we’ve been busy elsewhere, so we’re heading off in a couple of new directions. We’d like to invite you to join us on two new sites:

For news, discussion, and information about what’s going on at ACU, dial in to our Connected Blog.

For a global discussion community focused on research (and also on best practices) in mobile learning, check out the site for the Consortium on Innovation and Research in Converged Learning (CIRCL).

Thanks to everyone who has read us over the years, and we hope these two active sites will give a much richer experience than we were ever able to muster here at iThinkEd.

Here at iThinkEd HQ (deep in the bowels of an undisclosed academic library, hidden in the unanimity of the bound periodicals section), we’re pretty excited about the new iPhone OS Apple premiered the other day. Boasting over a thousand new APIs, we think this is going to be big–especially for a device that’s already captured more than 33% of worldwide smartphone traffic (and almost 50% of US traffic). Here are a few features we think are going to rock higher ed and here’s why:

Incremental Purchase: Okay. This may seem irrelevant at first, but we think that allowing people to buy additional content from within an app is going to unlock text production for the iPhone and iPod touch in a big way. Apple already offers media content in a remarkably convenient format, and we think this will make printed material just as convenient. While people may quibble with the iPhone as an eBook reader, many people are already consuming their eBooks on the device, and making it easy to add new content is going to drive that even further.

Cut/Copy/Paste/Find: People have been clamoring for these features since before the iPhone or iPod touch even went on the market, so it’s not surprising that we’re pleased to see these features finally appear in 3.0. For educational use, this means these devices can finally move from being a platform primarily for consumption of information to a platform for production and collaboration. Now I can have my students go out, find a few URLs and send them to a class blog, or I can have them edit and organize information more readily on these devices. While there were work-arounds before, building in these basic features is going to give me a new way to leverage these devices for learning.

Peer-to-peer: The new built-in BlueTooth auto-detection feature means not only that iPhones can now recognize one another and make ad-hoc networks, but also that I can now use those networks for teaching and learning. Want a quick way to form workgroups or teams? Have students go stand near each other. Voila. What could be easier? And with the new file sharing capabilities, students in those groups could now share documents for collaboration and interactions. If the iPhone and iPod touch were compelling before, this feature makes them even moreso, and we can’t wait to see what developers will end up doing with this one…

As you likely know, mobile technology is dramatically shaping the nature of teaching, learning and social interaction at Abilene Christian University. This past fall, ACU became the first university to distribute Apple iPhones and iPod Touches to the incoming freshman class. This strategy has enabled all freshmen and their teachers to integrate technology and learning both in and out of the classroom. Along with this mass distribution of Apple devices, ACU introduced a portal, ACU Mobile, to help connect students to the campus through news and calendars, course documents and media, in-class surveys and polls.

This spring ACU will host the ConnectEd mobile learning summit (Feb. 26th and 27th) for campuses deploying iPhone and iPod Touch focused applications, portals, and initiatives in higher education. Whether you’ve just started thinking about mLearning or are a leader in the field, ACU is inviting you to join colleagues from across the academy for a summit focusing on integrating iPhones and iPod touches into your institution.

The goal of this summit is to help faculty, technologists and administrators make connections with peers at other institutions to facilitate practical, hands-on solutions. Featuring communal vision sessions and targeted breakouts in key areas of infrastructure, theory and deployment (see the list below–and feel free to add others), the ConnectEd summit is focused around a set of “bring-your-own-work workshops.” Participants will work with others in the field to outline key challenges and determine best practices, leaving with a core of useful materials and approaches. And ACU will be providing code, working documents, user materials and procedures to help jump-start your program. The summit will also feature selected corporate developers who can help provide end-to-end solutions tailored to your specific needs.

To find out more and express interest in attending, visit ACU Connected

The Wireless Foundation, Qualcomm’s Wireless Reach initiative and Digital Millennial Consulting will be hosting the first annual International Mobile Learning Conference at Capital Hilton, Washington, DC—February 16 & 17. This is an excellent opportunity to join the discussion concerning mobile wireless technology in education with worldwide representatives from primary, secondary and postsecondary education institutions, policy makers and executives from the wireless and education technology industries.

Conference speakers include: Dr. Irwin Mark Jacobs, Chairman of the Board, Qualcomm; Marc Prensky, Founder and CEO, Games2Train; Dr. Elliot Soloway Professor, University of Michigan; David Whyley, Project Director, Learning2Go; Julie Evans, CEO, Project Tomorrow; Bruce Wilcox,
Education Consultant; Stacie Hudgens, President, PsyMes Consulting; Dr. Ann Flynn,Director, Education Technology, National School Boards Association; Stephen Weimar, Director of The Math Forum @ Drexel University;Dr. Linda Roberts, Former Director, Office of Education Technology, US Department of Education; Timothy Magner, Director of Office of Education Technology US Department of Education; Julie Dodd-Thomas; Andrew Seybold (Invited) President and CEO of Andrew Seybold, Inc.

By bringing various stakeholders together the Mobile Learning Conference hopes to promote the development of mobile learning, foster new innovative practices in mobile learning, address key concerns of policy makers and educators regarding mobile technologies, stimulate a critical debate on theories, approaches, principles and applications of mobile learning, share local and international developments, experiences and lessons learned, promote collaborative efforts between the public and private sectors in mobile learning, and encourage the study and implementation of mobile applications in teaching and learning.

For more information and registration, visit http://www.mobilelearning09.org/about.html

Doug Gale recently contributed a word of warning concerning the usage of smartphones in higher education to Campus Technology. Gale suggests that while many universities have educated faculty and staff to the dangers of traveling with a laptop containing sensitive information—e.g., Social Security numbers or a faculty member’s latest patentable research, not much discussion has taken place concerning the security risks of smart phones. He asserts that we need to teach users be as skeptical of e-mail attachments, unexpected connections, and update confirmations on their smart phones as they are on their computers. Some precautions he recommends include:

• Enable any password protection features that the phone provides. Smart phones are small and easily lost. Using a password gives the owner some protection from call charges and the lose of sensitive data.

• Enable any data encryption features that the phone provides. If the device does not include data encryption options, consider add-on packages, such as Pointsec Mobile. Some users may want to consider PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) schemes such as PGP Mobile.

• If you lose a smart phone call the provider immediately to avoid call charges, record information about the call and get confirmation in writing that your phone has been disabled. File a police report. It probably won’t help getting the phone back but it provides an official record.

• Smart phones get viruses too. Vendors such as Kaspersky are now marketing anti-virus software for Symbian and Windows Mobile platforms.

For more, be sure to check out Gale’s full article at Campus Technology.

Much has changed since I first wrote about using the iPhone as a tool for reviewing Greek flash cards (Fall 2007).  The App Store makes available a number of flash card programs and specialized card sets, downloadable straight to the iPhone. I have been using iFlipr recently.  It has a simple, online interface that lets you create flash card decks, edit cards, and—if you like—share them with the world. iFlipr boasts over 1,000,000 user-created cards already available. Although the decks are stored online at iFlipr.com, the phone app keeps them synced with your device so that you can easily practice anywhere offline. The program is fairly simple but does have some smart features to aid learning. Also, cards can have graphic (jpg, gif, pdf, png) or audio content (mp3, wav), instead of just text content.

Back to Greek. Since the iPhone has no trouble displaying Greek text properly and consistently, creating Greek flash cards is a snap. Simply log into the iFlipr site and set up a free user account, create a deck, and begin typing the card information into the editor.  I have been creating decks of cards classified according to the words’ frequency of occurrence in the Greek New Testament, to help students of Koine Greek drill vocabulary anywhere they happen to be. They can practice using the iPhone, or they may do so on their computers through the online interface.  The cards display very nicely on the iPhone.  Students are able to control card order and to drill both Greek-to-English and English-to-Greek by changing the flip order. As they practice, they can track mastery levels by indicating whether their answers are correct. (more…)

TUAW reports that the Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition, is now available for the iPhone and iPod touch. Webster’s dictionary, converted to Apple’s handheld platforms by Paragon Technologie GmbH, now gives teachers, writers, and students a fully searchable reference at their fingertips.

This is a pocket version of the best-selling dictionary in the US, featuring over 225,000 defined words. Since it is a self-contained application and not a web front-end to an online dictionary, it can be used in situations where your device is in airplane mode.

Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary sells for US$24.99 in the App Store. But of course carrying this app on your iPhone is a lot lighter than lugging around the US$23.95, 3.6 lb. printed version.

The other major competition to this application, Webster’s New World Dictionary (click opens iTunes) from AcroDesign, is a bit less expensive at US$14.99, but is less complete with only 163,000 entries.

Here is a cool iPhone-in-education idea from OllieBray.com. Ollie discusses a number of features that make the iPhone a handy tool to help aid learning and data collection in fieldwork. The screenshots below show some of the iPhone Apps that Ollie identifies as useful for fieldwork.

He writes, “The Notes feature that comes with the iPhone is a fantastic free application that I have been using a lot since getting my phone. It could be used out in the field for students to record data and when you have finished typing a note, you can send it directly to an email address.

However, there are also a number of good free applications for the iPhone that allow you to up-load straight to a blog. I currently use both the Typepad and Wordpress Application. This means that students could set up a fieldwork blog before they leave the classroom and up-load their data from their iPhone straight onto their on-line space. One back in class the blog could be further edited and tidied up.”

He goes on to suggest that the camera that is built into the iPhone is a useful application for students to take photographs in the field. Photographs can be emailed back to the class or they attached to Wordpress or Typepad posts and up-loaded to a fieldwork blog.

AirMe is an application that allows you to up-load photographs directly to Flickr. You can also choose to geo-tag your photographs and add current weather data if you want to. This is useful because the geo-tagged photographs appear on a Yahoo map, which can be included as part of the fieldwork enquiry or embedded into your fieldwork blog.

Ollie also discusses how maps, GPS and Track Me, interviews and voice recording functionality, data gathering tools like the stopwatch and timer are all invaluable to fieldwork.

For more, be sure to check out OllieBray.com

If you’re planning on making your way to EDUCAUSE 2008 later this month in Orlando make sure to join Apple for three, ten minute sessions: The iPhone in Higher Education, Managing Your Macs and Podcast Producer and iTunes U. Apple’s iPhone and iPod touch devices are driving rapid mobile adoption and initiatives throughout education.

The sessions will cover MIT’s facilitation of innovation, creativity, communication, and collaboration to support iPhone deployments across its campus. The second session will detail how Apple customers leverage the power of Mac OS X, Mac OS X Server, and other tools to provide network-based policy management, remote client assistance, and more. The third session will demo Podcast Producer, an institution-wide, end-to-end solution for encoding, publishing, and distributing high-quality digital media content that is being used to automate and simplify content capture and distribution for the University of Arizona’s iTunes U site.

iPhone Atlas recently posted an article proclaiming Stanza the most robust eBook reader for the iPhone. Featuring a clean, well-organized interface, Stanza is expressly designed for reading digital publications, including electronic books, newspapers, PDFs, and general web content. The app gives special attention to details that are usually overlooked in other software readers such as hyphenation, text columnation, automatic text scrolling, and user-friendly page and chapter navigation. Lengthy content that can be tedious to read using a web browser or PDF viewer is easy and natural with Stanza.

Stanza features built-in support for HTML, PDF, Microsoft Word, and Rich Text Format reading, as well as all the major eBook standards: unprotected Amazon Kindle and Mobipocket, Microsoft LIT, Palm doc, and the International Digital Publishing Forum’s new epub Open eBook standard. In addition to supporting a plethora of formats, Stanza features an open API that allows developers to implement support for their own document formats.

Stanza also enables you to import your own eBooks using a computer based program currently in beta testing for Mac or Windows that is available from LexCycle. eBooks created in this fashion are shared wirelessly between your iPhone (iPod Touch) and computer.

For more, check out Stanza’s complete profile at Lexcycle.