Sharing my prefered mobile tools and relating it to learning

[Ignatia/Inge de Waard]

Hi all, I thought it would be a good thing to start this collaborative forum with all of us adding our own preferred mobile tools (i have an HTC Desire - most frequented but I have not given my mobile a name, a Nokia 6200 basic cellphone for in the field, an iPad2 which I do not use that frequently - I do not like the routing through iTunes, and a toshiba netbook, which is my trusted friend and which has a name 'Voyager' :-).

Just listing 7 mobile tools which I really use a lot:
email: I have all my accounts on my mobile... keeps me busy on my many commutes. The fact that I can learn simply by following my emails really makes it comfortable learning. Typing messages is a bit more difficult though.

Posterous: (http://www.posterous.com - I use the native app for Android) the mobile option I use almost daily to upload adventures with my son (if you have not tried out posterous, it is GREAT as a mobile tool. It offers blogging, dissemination features in a simple way). Setting up a mobile enabled blog is really simple, you do not even need a smartphone or tablet to follow what is going on. My mother follows all the content through email, and you can even upload information or content through email... so really nice. It also has collaborative options, so a team can upload information.

QRcode reader (in my case I use barcode scanner), I use it more for informational reasons.

Google analytics (because it is accessible on all my mobile devices), so I have the native app (an application specifically developed for a specific mobile tool) on my Android, and in the cloud access on my other devices. The analytics tool gives me insights on different accessibilities of users. so I learn from it.

RSS: a way to keep up with mobile news while on the move. The RSS is a feedreader, so grabbing news to locations I am following each time I am connected to the web. It came with my Android, so that was easy, and I use it on all my devices, but I do have a specific mobile RSS to keep it comfortable for my eyes if I read news on my Android.

Mini SDcard: I have two, so I can shift between these memory storage devices on my smartphone. this is essential for learning big chunks of content for me. For I am a bit of a scrootch, not willing to loose too much money while downloading content. So I download it via my computer (cheaper internet) and than I synchronize it to my smartphone. I do this, because it is easier for me to take out my smartphone than my other devices. But, I do admit I mainly listen to podcasts and movies/videos as content on my smartphone, no text for that strains my eyes.

Multimedia tool on smartphone: I LOVE watching documentaries on my Android. This is in relation to the miniSDcard, but wow, I love learning from documentaries. My current favorite is 'Through the wormhole' with Morgan Freeman. OOOOOH, loving it!

[Lutz Siemer]

My stuff:

Gadjets:
iPhone 4s, iPad 2, Windows Laptop

Tools/Apps
Tweetbot for the usual Twitter stuff ... To stay up to date with the topics I'm interested in
Flipboard for the "nice" RSS and Twitter Feeds ( awsome Layout if tweets come with Fotos) ... For a more convenient reading
iOS calendar+Email synct with gmail and lotus inotes ... To get notifications i.e. about new paper.li (Mobile Learning Daily)
Evernote for notetaking, and the evernote extension for chrome on the laptop... for my reserach and as to-do-list
Wordpress for blogging , with the press-this extension for chrome
iBooks ... For reading and storing books and PDFs
Pocket Casts ... for my favourite Podcasts i.e. Mobile Reach or Google Educast
Barcoo ... QR and barcode Code scanner with price compare (Retail Stores don't like the way you learn about prices with that :-)

[Carolyn Nandozi]

Oh people have lots of gadgets- hope put to good use... I just have a laptop and normal mobile phone for text. But thinking of galaxy or ipad but not sure how to use it differently from what i have... well except for the free internet that comes with it

[Apostolos Koutropoulos]

I guess we will be using Google Groups instead of PHPbb? :)

Here is my list of invaluable mLearning tools:

My learning tools are:

Goodreader: PDF viewer and annotator (use this all the time when I am preparing to write a paper and do my literature review)

Goodreads: social network for book readers, and it also helps me keep track of my reading

Pages (on the iPad): for writing

PerfectRSS: for following educational blogs

Twitter: for following educational "gurus" and interacting with them

Pocket: to read webpages later (offline) when I am on the train ;-)

By the way, if you want to use mobile in the classroom, a nice tool that I came across this past summer was NearPod: http://www.nearpod.com

[Jo Colley]

This is great, thanks everybody for your tips. 

I use Echofon for twitter on my iPhone though just twitter on the iPad.

Various checklist type apps help to keep me a bit less chaotic - eg Remember the Milk, paperless

I use Kindle App for iPad for books and have almost stopped using the Kindle now :-( #wasteofmoney

Pages and Flipboard on the iPad and something called Blippar, a code reader which I was conned into by a magazine - don't bother, unless you are really into Justin Bieber. 

[Apostolos Koutropoulos]

It might be time to sell the kindle ;-)

I have a philosophical problem with buying a single use digital device (one exception: a good still-shot camera). Since there are alternatives to the kindle (i.e. real books), I never bought one.  I still see many people on the train using them, but I don't generally buy that type of book, I borrow it from the library :)

[Alice Bedard-Voorhees]

Greetings!

Ignatia, I thought the frame for your question was great--that tools for mlearning include devices, devices, services, and apps. 

I combined the reply to this question with a long post that includes thoughts about Bijay's webinar to day as well.

http://constantlearningorg.blogspot.com/2012/09/mobimooc-week-2-am-i-wonderful.html.

In responding here, I now recognize that Lutz posted also--we were both in today's webinar :).

Cheers, Alice

[Sylvia Moessinger]

Hallo everybody,

similar to Karolyn I own a laptop and a mobile that belongs to stone age. However, after pondering already for a year and longer I intend to buy myself a new iPad. I would have opted for an iPad 2, but they are only available with 16 GB, which seems not much storage space. Oh, I forgot, I have a Kindle to read ebooks. Here is a list of my mobile learning tools

1. emails are still my main use of communication in all areas of my life
2. Skype is a great tool for synchronous communication via chat or call. I used it a lot during my study and now to stay in contact with fellow students and friends
3. Wordpress - although I was reluctant starting a blog and did not believe in any educational value I become an almost addicted blogger ;-). It is a great tool for reflection.
   
4. Twitter - great information tool next to
   
5. Google Reader - helps me with my personal learning environment (PLE)
6. Dropbox - access to my files everywhere

Bye the way Jane Hart still collects votes for the Top Tools for Learning 2012. You might want to share your Top Ten list of tools with her.

Sylvia

[Nick Kearney]

Hi,

Mobile technology...

I drive a car, which takes me places. I learn from visiting these places, and I learn things from the journey. My car gives me access to things I could not experience otherwise.

I have a little note pad and a pen. I use it to take notes,day to day, in the places I go. The notes emerge form my experience in the context, and the aspects that seem important to me. I take it everywhere.

I could mention planes, trains, bicycles, all the technologies that give me mobile access to places where I can learn. I could mention more or less antediluvian recording technologies. I could mention telephone boxes...

We have always had technology. A stick is technology and so is a school. The difference between those I mention and the mobile technologies that we understand as "mobile" is principally about the degree of agility they afford, and secondly about convergence, though the number of devices we seem to use indicates that convergence to one device is some way off. But I make the point as part of the battle against technodeterminism. The new technology may provide different or even improved affordances, but the basics of learning don´t change, it still needs to be social, it still requires agency, it still requires motivation.

The issue of what is mobile seems still to escape definition; the debate last week seems unfinished, we are left with approximations and the sense that we see mobile out of the corner of the eye, if you look too hard, the concept can easily dissolve.

This suggests to me that the issue is not about mobility at all. It might be about formal vs informal, or agility of access, but perhaps it is simply about the possibility of the integration of learning into daily life. For many years learning has been considered separate from "real life", the advent of smart devices perhaps breaks down this distinction, often in subtle ways, and that maybe is the key issue. The different factors we have debated come together to pose a challenge to our understanding of the locus and duration of "learning". The term "lifelong learning" suddenly acquires meaning, Though "lifewide" might be more apposite.

But I digress:)

Here is a list of the "mobile" things I use for real (as opposed to exploring them because I am interested in what others think and do) I will focus on the ones I use on my Samsung Nexus.
Gmail
RSSDemon
Evernote
Get It Done
Skype
Whatsapp
SMS
The phone itself
Aldiko
Dropbox
Youtube
Tweetdeck
Tapentalk
Shazam
Bidi
Layar
Google Maps
Firefox
Lightning Bug

[Rebecca]

Before you sell the kindle, if you like to read before bed, consider how the backlit device affects sleep patterns. I've gone back to reading on my kindle before sleeping, and I seems to make a huge difference. It never occurred to me that my iPad or iPod touch might be the source of sleeping issues!

[Paz Barceló]

     
 Rebecca, interesting what you say about sleep patterns and the use of screens.

Applications that particularly like:
Evernote (or links I can save pages to read later)

Google Reader.
Wordpress for mobile.
Twitter.
Google maps.
Calendar and dropbox.
Google Alerts

Those that are are leisure (but apparently) and also serve to learning:
Spotify.
Facebook. Google sky...

[Helen Farley]

And Kindles are heaps lighter. Ipads are too heavy for bed and break when you roll over!

[Rebecca]

Thought I'd chime in with some of my favourite iPad and mobile apps:

If you like to blog from your iPad, I recommend Posts. I've tried Wordpress, Blogger, and Posts. I've lost data several times with both Wordpress and Blogger. Wordpress really doesn't like to work offline. Unfortunately, I do a lot of the travel blogging for http://goingeast.ca while I'm travelling, which means my Internet access is spotty at best. I found that Blogger had issues when you tried to load too many pictures (which again required you to be online). I found it crashed if I tried to load more than 5 or 6 photos in a post, which I did rather often. So far, the only issue I have with Posts is some bad markup - which is easily resolved by adding a paragraph, changing to html and adding paragraph tags, then going back into visual mode. Once it knows you want paragraph tags, it seems to do the mark-up well.

So, for blogging from the iPad, I recommend Posts.

For annotating PDFs, I use iAnnotate. I also have PDF Expert but haven't tried it in a long time. When I first tried it about a year ago, it crashed on complex PDFs, but that was a long time ago, so it is likely comperable. I have a note to try PDFPen which comes highly recommended by MacSparky (http://macsparky.com). If you want to see how I use iAnnotate, check out http://rjh.goingeast.ca/2012/09/21/workflows-annotating-pdf-articles-2/

For staying organized, I've bought into the Omnifocus system. It intergrated with all my apple products (so my new iPhone4S, my iPad, my MacBook Air, and my MacMini). What I really like about it is the way it turns my project plans into to do lists - or more clearly that it allows me to organize my to do lists into projects with various levels of hierarchy. Again, this was a great recommendation from MacSparky (http://macsparky.com).

My notes live in Evernote. I have a premium subscription so that I have access to my most important notes when I'm offline (so all my travel notes and maps of Helsinki will be available even if I don't have Internet!). It also does an amazing job of indexing for search. I can take a picture of a handwritten document, and a day later, that handwritten text will show up in my search results. They also index your audio files. It is truly amazing. Oh ya, and I must not forget that it syncs across all my devices - Mac, PC, iOS, and Android - I think it even does Blackberry.

All my working files go in Dropbox. That way I never need to worry about loosing information as it is backed up on the web and previous versions are stored - for those times when I make a stupid mistake and go down a path I didn't want to - I can revert to a previous saved version (I think it keeps 4 or 5 versions) just by logging into the web version of Dropbox and selecting revert. This is very handy.

On my phone, I also use the tumblr app, as I have mobile blog at http://rjhmo.tumblr.com. I like to use this to take pictures when I'm travelling or even when I'm just going for a walk in the woods. Mostly I use it for that, but there are a few recipes hidden in there too.

I've had my phone for just over 24-hours and I LOVE Siri. This was one feature I had on my Android using the Flex9 keyboard (by the same folks that make Dragon). I'm amazed at how much faster Siri converts my words from speach to text. Since I got in the habit of only dictating a paragraph at a time (a limitation with the version of Dragon I had), I haven't yet had the opportunity to fully test out the features.

Well that's about all I can think of for now, and alas, it is time for me to sleep (and hence turn off my iPad).

Goodnight all.

[Rebecca]

[Alice Bedard-Voorhees]

Thank you for your recommendation of Posts

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[nilgün keskin]

İ also use worldscan which works well to scan any document. Whatsapp is the nice app to send any text and multi messages.

Thanks rebbecca for good recommendation

Nilgun

22 Eylül 2012 Cumartesi tarihinde Alice Bedard-Voorhees adlı kullanıcı şöyle yazdı:

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[Sylvia Moessinger]

Hallo Rebecca,

thanks for your recommendations and the brief description about the tools what they do for you. I will look into some of them. Thanks.

Sylvia