Communities Dominate Brands: Putting 2.7 billion in context: Mobile phone users:
"Now we have context. 800 million cars, 850 million personal computers, 1.3 B fixed landline phones, 1.4 billion credit cards, 1.5 billion TV sets. How many mobile phones in use today? In use today, yes, 2.7 billion (technically 2.7 billion in January, not December). They sold 950 million phones last year and the total worldwide mobile subscriber base grew from 2.1 billion to 2.7 billion. Three times as many mobile phones as automobiles or personal computers. About twice as many mobile phone owners as those of fixed landline phones or credit cards. And almost twice as many mobile phones in use as TV sets.
Phones are very aspirational. We project our personalities via the interchangeable covers, various decorations, stickers, and the massive industry of ringing tones. We customize our phone services further with ringback (waiting) tones, welcoming tones and background tones. Young people assign the same kinds of value to their emerging personality, their own perceived coolness etc, through their mobile phone, like older generations did with their first car."
This isn't surprising to me. My daughter will be getting a hand held learning device made by leapfrog this Christmas which will undoubtedly begin her lifelong relationship with hand held devices... which, at some point in the future will all meld into one device: phone + PC.
What is being done right now in education for the mobile phone or hand held device? Just recently my campus instated a text messaging program for emergencies on campus. The program allows you to register your cellphone and receive a text message if there is a campus shooting or fire, etc...
I've recorded lectures and provided them as mp3's for my students to listen to on their iPods. And now most holiday phone commercials tout the ability to play mp3's on the device. (Sidenote: the lecture's I provided were recorded live from the classroom, hence longer in length. I would not recommend this. Instead, cut the lecture down to 5 short minutes of important points. Or better yet, provide a podcast of supplementary material for the lecture. The students will be more likely to take advantage of these rather than a 20-30 minute lecture.)
I have a friend who recently graduated with a degree in Video Game Design. His first three interviews were for gaming companies developing games for the mobile phone platform. I was also excited to see that last February, Comverse Technology cracked a mobile phone to run Second Life.
It will only be a matter of time before my students are using Facebook from their phones (some already are) instead of their laptops and my the wiki textbook for my class will be carried in their pockets (disguised as a phone no less!).
Monday, November 12, 2007
Thursday, November 8, 2007
Academia 2.0
Again... very convincing, yet so generalizing. To make the assumption that thousands of students from all across america, from different racial, ethnic, class, genders, etc... are all the same and are all going to learn the same is just too far fetched.
Everyone is different! Yes, things are changing. Yes, we as educators have to change too. Yet we have to accommodate for those students who still come to class with a pencil and notepad and CAN listen to a lecture for 90 minutes and those that come with a laptop and can reduce your lecture to a 200 word blog post.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Santa gets cheap
Some students may be able to afford their own holiday gifts this year as Wal Mart will be offering a $199 Linux desktop (no monitor) with an 80GB hard drive. Of course, to me this seems like a typical Wal Mart product... buy it cheap, throw it away in a year (wasteful, right?). But even still, you have to admit it's a solution that wasn't there last year. I'm not sure if it will be capable of running Second Life, but with all the tools you need for classes being free or online (Open Office, Google Docs)... this computer rivals the cost of some textbooks.
Speaking of textbooks, I've been waiting since the 1980's for my hand held digital book. Finally, it seems like Amazon has one that will be affordable ($50) and (most importantly) real! The Kindle was supposedly going to hit the shelves last week but has been delayed until the end of the year. Why am I looking forward to an digital bookreader? All selfish reasons, of course. Bedtime reading is tough with a laptop... which is also too heavy to hold like a book. Comics. I want to read/make/distribute comics digitally. Wikis. My students have made a 2D Foundations wiki textbook... now I want that textbook to be downloadable onto a bookreader.
The problems so far I'm foreseeing with the Kindle: 256mb? I have a 2gb micro sd card the size of my fingernail. I think Sony can do better than 256mb. Just words? I need pictures too. PDFs as well. And why can't it play music while we're at it. Also, is it durable? Can I drop it on the floor after I fall asleep reading? Apparently I will be able to buy and download books straight to the Kindle... Can I rent books? Free? Like I do from the library? They can tell me Harry Potter drinks Coca Cola if they let me download the books for free.
In fact, if somebody combined the above two products... I'd pay $100 for one. A flat, hand held bookreader, web browser, IM chat tool, that could download and play music, video, and pictures but NOT be bogged down by all the other apps my laptop has to run. That's what I want Santa to bring me. Can the elves make that?
Speaking of textbooks, I've been waiting since the 1980's for my hand held digital book. Finally, it seems like Amazon has one that will be affordable ($50) and (most importantly) real! The Kindle was supposedly going to hit the shelves last week but has been delayed until the end of the year. Why am I looking forward to an digital bookreader? All selfish reasons, of course. Bedtime reading is tough with a laptop... which is also too heavy to hold like a book. Comics. I want to read/make/distribute comics digitally. Wikis. My students have made a 2D Foundations wiki textbook... now I want that textbook to be downloadable onto a bookreader.
The problems so far I'm foreseeing with the Kindle: 256mb? I have a 2gb micro sd card the size of my fingernail. I think Sony can do better than 256mb. Just words? I need pictures too. PDFs as well. And why can't it play music while we're at it. Also, is it durable? Can I drop it on the floor after I fall asleep reading? Apparently I will be able to buy and download books straight to the Kindle... Can I rent books? Free? Like I do from the library? They can tell me Harry Potter drinks Coca Cola if they let me download the books for free.
In fact, if somebody combined the above two products... I'd pay $100 for one. A flat, hand held bookreader, web browser, IM chat tool, that could download and play music, video, and pictures but NOT be bogged down by all the other apps my laptop has to run. That's what I want Santa to bring me. Can the elves make that?
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Friday, October 26, 2007
Synthetic worlds – real community, real money
Synthetic worlds – real community, real money
"The membrane is allowing not only economic factors to seep through, but social and cultural ones as well. People all over the world are connecting in new ways through the technology moving from a calculation model to one of communication. Our children will grow up knowing people in Africa, Asia and Europe and see it as the norm. They will lose sight of geographical distance and explore cultures and people my grandfather had no chance of meeting. The new world offers limitless expanses of both digital and analog connection and understanding, and brings the world closer together. New social connections can overcome geography, culture, and sometimes even language. Most companies find a team of 25 unruly on a project, but in WoW guilds take part in raids every night creating a sense of group connection and goal achievement. The identities that form in these communities allow people to explore and play with their own identities. The world might not recognize your leadership skills, but you can learn and mature them in a virtual world and then apply them to the real world. All this can create a close, strong bond of friendship and community."
I think it's about time that the media began to also cite the usefulness of virtual worlds, besides the usual hype and sensationalism (thanks Mark!).
Another article in my own campus newspaper also cites the usefulness of the Second Life virtual world in education.
Edward Castronova and Mark Bell
Exodus to the Virtual World: How Online Fun Is Changing Reality will be published shortly by Palgrave Macmillan.
Exodus to the Virtual World: How Online Fun Is Changing Reality will be published shortly by Palgrave Macmillan.
"The membrane is allowing not only economic factors to seep through, but social and cultural ones as well. People all over the world are connecting in new ways through the technology moving from a calculation model to one of communication. Our children will grow up knowing people in Africa, Asia and Europe and see it as the norm. They will lose sight of geographical distance and explore cultures and people my grandfather had no chance of meeting. The new world offers limitless expanses of both digital and analog connection and understanding, and brings the world closer together. New social connections can overcome geography, culture, and sometimes even language. Most companies find a team of 25 unruly on a project, but in WoW guilds take part in raids every night creating a sense of group connection and goal achievement. The identities that form in these communities allow people to explore and play with their own identities. The world might not recognize your leadership skills, but you can learn and mature them in a virtual world and then apply them to the real world. All this can create a close, strong bond of friendship and community."
I think it's about time that the media began to also cite the usefulness of virtual worlds, besides the usual hype and sensationalism (thanks Mark!).
Another article in my own campus newspaper also cites the usefulness of the Second Life virtual world in education.
Synthetic worlds – real community, real money
Synthetic worlds – real community, real money
"The membrane is allowing not only economic factors to seep through, but social and cultural ones as well. People all over the world are connecting in new ways through the technology moving from a calculation model to one of communication. Our children will grow up knowing people in Africa, Asia and Europe and see it as the norm. They will lose sight of geographical distance and explore cultures and people my grandfather had no chance of meeting. The new world offers limitless expanses of both digital and analog connection and understanding, and brings the world closer together. New social connections can overcome geography, culture, and sometimes even language. Most companies find a team of 25 unruly on a project, but in WoW guilds take part in raids every night creating a sense of group connection and goal achievement. The identities that form in these communities allow people to explore and play with their own identities. The world might not recognize your leadership skills, but you can learn and mature them in a virtual world and then apply them to the real world. All this can create a close, strong bond of friendship and community."
I think it's about time that the media began to also cite the usefulness of virtual worlds, besides the usual hype and sensationalism (thanks Mark!).
Another article in my own campus newspaper also cites the usefulness of the Second Life virtual world in education.
Edward Castronova and Mark Bell
Exodus to the Virtual World: How Online Fun Is Changing Reality will be published shortly by Palgrave Macmillan.
Exodus to the Virtual World: How Online Fun Is Changing Reality will be published shortly by Palgrave Macmillan.
"The membrane is allowing not only economic factors to seep through, but social and cultural ones as well. People all over the world are connecting in new ways through the technology moving from a calculation model to one of communication. Our children will grow up knowing people in Africa, Asia and Europe and see it as the norm. They will lose sight of geographical distance and explore cultures and people my grandfather had no chance of meeting. The new world offers limitless expanses of both digital and analog connection and understanding, and brings the world closer together. New social connections can overcome geography, culture, and sometimes even language. Most companies find a team of 25 unruly on a project, but in WoW guilds take part in raids every night creating a sense of group connection and goal achievement. The identities that form in these communities allow people to explore and play with their own identities. The world might not recognize your leadership skills, but you can learn and mature them in a virtual world and then apply them to the real world. All this can create a close, strong bond of friendship and community."
I think it's about time that the media began to also cite the usefulness of virtual worlds, besides the usual hype and sensationalism (thanks Mark!).
Another article in my own campus newspaper also cites the usefulness of the Second Life virtual world in education.
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