I’ve recently read a number of articles about the iphone, google phone and other pda’s which are apparently going to change the way that we think about out internet usage. These super fast devices are going to let us browse on the move, check email, get GPS positions and a whole host of other applications. Whilst reading the articles I thought back to my first mobile phone purchase: the size, the cost and the weight of the thing! Just when did mobile phones become so widely adopted in our society?

In 1993 I had access to a shared mobile (more of a breeze block than a mobile device) which was used mainly for incoming calls. It was pretty impractical and the thought of carrying it around let alone using it to check emails seemed a tad ridiculous. 5 years later I had my own mobile phone along with most of my friends. Along came flashing aerials, text messages, address books, using it overseas; it all became common place without anyone realising it.

When will I look back and think about how obvious it is to use my mobile phone to provide a gps of my position, which then pings me traffic news, food options, relevant shops and loads of other information via some kind of information burner. I can imagine a scenario where I am overseas trying to book some train tickets but need somehelp. My position is sent to my personal web profile, I’m then sent a series of learning packs to help me, a short podcast, time information, cultural information, perhaps a translation to show the assistant….or my profile generates a personal bar code which I pass over the ticket machine. My online ticket account is debited and the train ticket uploaded to my pda.

At Real Projects we’ve recently been invited to look at a number of touchscreen projects for clients. I looked at the possibilities of touchscreens in 1996, since then the technology has moved on a lot. the technology is now being used in many devices from information points in shopping centres to mobile phones. On the blog one of my first posts was about microsoft sphere. A few weeks before I came across sphere I was at Norwich University College of the Arts and some of the students and technicians had created a very cool table top touch screen to showcase the work of the computer games degree.

It was a very clever use of technology and displayed the students work in a really elegant and clever way. I then read last week about a project in Scotland (http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2008/sep/17/itforschools.elearning) where an interactive desk has been developed. The desk and its possibilities look fantastic. The Guardian article discusses how they could be used in the classroom but I can think of many commercial applications from designers to architects. There are also many custom e-learning applications that could be developed for these touchscreen tables.

After being invited to come up with some design concepts for touchscreens we started to wonder where they were currently being used…we all went out on a march across the city to see where the technology was in use.

• Pubs
• Betting shops!
• The tube
• Shopping Malls
• Train Stations
• Police Information Points
• Mobile Phones
• PDA
• Remote Controls

It was really interesting to see that the technology is already being used in many places and its become part of our technical landscape. I spend a bit of time travelling to clients in London and regularly look at how travellers engage with the video screens in tube stations. I wonder how long it will be before we see interactive adverts using touchscreens. (not on the escalators!)

Last week I went to a great event hosted by the Norfolk Network. At the event James Duez from the feedback company spoke about his experiences of running a succesful e-learning business and also his current project: The Customer Feedback Company.

James and his team demonstrated a great piece of technology that captures instant feedback sent via a mobile and displayed via a dashboard. The possibilities for this technology are vast, from feedback to workplace assessment. I enjoyed the session so much that James has agreed to come and speak at the next e-learning forum.

Mobile technologies and handheld learning are developing radidly with Africa being the fastest growth area for Mobile Phone ownership. The Guardian also ran an article about parents wanting to receive more information about their children’s performance via mobile phone. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2007/sep/18/link.link17)

We are currently finalising the details of the event which will be on the 23rd October. The norfolk elearning website will be updated with details of the event in the next couple of days so look out for the booking details.

For more information:

http://www.thefeedbackcompany.com/

http://www.realprojects.co.uk/about.php

http://www.norfolkelearningforum.co.uk/

Ever since a trip to Italy last year I’ve been trying to find the ‘perfect’ receipe for pizza dough. After much experimentation and comparing results with my friend Jay (http://www.thechilliking.com/) I’ve stumbled upon something I think works:

• 80g tipo 00 italian flour
• 20g strong bread flour
• 20g semolina flour
• 7g yeast
• 3 fluid ounces of water
• pinch of salt
• brown sugar

I only added the strong bread flour after running out of tipo. After kneading the dough and leaving it for an hour I was really pleased with the results. A quick compare with Jay over email confirmed a few things and we’ve agreed to continue to share notes.

Whilst the latest pizza was in the oven it made me think about my own continual professional development. I’m learning at my own pace, experimenting, using a mixture of research techniques (video, internet, books, tv) and I’ve actually created my own informal learning plan.

I’ll tweak the dough here and there, but my next task is to get the dough into some kind of round shape as opposed to square/rectangle. I’ll go through the same process: research, reviews, testing and measurement. Social networks and blogs have all helped with the quest for perfect pizza. It really did get me thinking about how social networking sites, informal and formal are of benefit to the learning process. I could even post my receipe on a site and have others test it and get all their feedback, a community of testers - carrying out pizza dough research.

….I thought some more about how this would translate to an e-learning module. The receipe and creation would be suited to linear process but I’d want to include decision and thought points where you could review your work. Getting comments from others who have tried the receipe and have their own thoughts.

In a large company this pizza experiement could lend itself to range of topics from the restaurant/bar group looking for feedback on new dishes or getting staff feedback on how difficult it is to create the dish. In a research area people like Johnny Lee are already doing similar things to great effect.

Scott

Custom or bespoke? Which one to use? Hot on the heels of e-learning v elearning we have had another word based debate in the office.

We were preparing a new version of our company brochure when a debate started about custom or bespoke. Custom cars, bespoke suits: everyone knows about Saville Row, West Coast Custom, MTV’s Pimp My Ride…after hours of discussion we’ve settled on custom.

News reached me this week that Ryan (Games Degree Graduate) has got his dream job! Ryan worked with the Real Projects on a e-learning project in August. his input and new ideas were a huge help and everyone at RP is really pleased for him.

Ryan produced a great model of the forum using the Unreal engine for his final year project. A stunning piece of work.

Everyone wishes Ryan good luck as he starts his career in the games industry.

Which one? Capital E, lower case e, hypen, no hyphen, lower case e and upper case L?

Over the past few weeks we’ve been re-designing the Real Projects website and have a few other things designed. A constant conversation that came up in the office was elearning or e-learning?

We looked on google trends, looked across the web, read forums and I still can’t really work out what is being adopted. I read a forum this morning where they were going for elearning, then I read in the thread the word email….this then made me think about where the hyphen went! I can recall using e-mail many years ago.

How long has e-learning got left? What about eLearning.

We have used a mix of both in the past but we have just decided to go for e-learning but we will be keeping an eye on elearning!

A few days I logged into my Basecamp account to be greeted by a new page…bascially they are stopping support for IE6! Ok, so more and more people are on IE7, Safari, Firefox with Chrome coming soon but I was still surprised.

I had read a few articles recently where users had come across websites which no longer supported IE6. Ill still be able to view Basecamp via another browser but it got me thinking about a lot of our customers. Many of the organisations we work with still use IE 6, if they are in big companies IT roll-outs can take time.

I understand why people aren’t continuing to support IE6…I have it on my machine as I’m the company IE 6 tester…but it did get me thinking about how websites could fail to be supported on a browser in a matter of months. Could we reach a situtation where developers are coding sites for specific versions of browsers with the user selecting their browser before they enter the website? I’ll be watching what happens with code standards and the increasing number of browsers coming online.

phew…after what seems like months of writing, designing and coding we have managed to upload our new website. We’ve added a lot more content about what we do and improved the layout of the pages. 

This is the third version of the site and we’d welcome any comments about the site.

I’d forgot how tricky it is to get everything together for a new site!

so you agreed the spec, got the contracts right, got the team in place and then you’ve started work. Everything is going well but you know that you have the first review coming up. How do you manage the process? What is going to be documented? How will you make sure everything is done?

We’ve started using a really simple excel sheet for logging all change and test requests. Each entry gets a unique ID and we record:

The problem, the requested change, browser type, operating system, wider impact of the change, who requested it, screen grab (with a reference),who did the work (in our office), any url or reference and any additional notes.

We’ve found this to be really useful when we manage changes. Giving everything a unique ID and sharing the sheet across the development team means that we can track a change and also have something to refer to. Instead of saying has the menu been changed we can ask about 1.1-12. It might seem a bit long winded, especially when you start but if you’ve got lots of requests to manage it is really helpful.

Scott