Much faster Wi-Fi coming soon — from CNN by David Goldman
A new, faster version of Wi-Fi was officially rubber-stamped Wednesday.

Excerpt:

The latest Wi-Fi technology, called “802.11ac,” offers speeds of up to 1.3 Gigabits per second. That’s fast enough to transfer an entire high-definition movie to a tablet in under 4 minutes, share photo albums with friends in a matter of seconds or stream three HD videos at the same time. It’s more than double the top speed of the previous standard, known as 802.11n.

Those speeds are theoretical maximums — very few people have anything close to 1 Gigabit speeds from their home broadband connection. Average speeds are less than 1% of that. But the faster speeds mean the new Wi-Fi standard will offer a much bigger pipeline for all those videos, songs and games that a growing number of people are streaming on multiple devices simultaneously.

 

Also see:

  • Apple adopts 802.11ac wireless standard quickly as new study forecasts the next standard to follow in 2015 — from patentlyapple.com
    Excerpt:
    According to a new report that was just released, the growth of 802.11ac and 802.11ad will occur in very different ways over the next few years. The adoption of 802.11ac is expected to explode into devices including smartphones right out of the gate this year while 802.11ad will see a more modest and staggered growth pace. 802.11ac is being pushed into smartphones by key carriers’ device requirements that are in sync with 802.11ac hotspot plans for more robust Wi-Fi offloading.
  • Wireless witch: Should you buy an 802.11ac router? — from pcmag.com by Samara Lynn
    802.11ac is all the rage among networking vendors, with all their 802.11ac routers touting incredible speeds. But is 802.11ac worth the investment?
    To Buy or not to Buy?
    So, what’s the short answer on upgrading to an 802.11ac router right now? If you’re an early tech adopter and Wi-Fi enthusiast, definitely check out 11ac. Everyone else is better off waiting until the technology matures. What if your old router dies and you’re not upgrading so much as replacing hardware? The same applies: if you’re comfortable with tweaking settings to get the most out of your router, by all means check out the 802.11ac routers on the market. At the the very least, you shouldn’t lose performance; in certain cases, you might see improvements. If you’re more of a plug and play user, however, stick with 802.11n, for now.

Augmented reality is going mobile–and coming to a classroom near you — from thejournal.com by Jennifer Demski

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iPad with different images hovering above

This article, with an exclusive video interview,
originally appeared in T.H.E. Journal’s April 2013 digital edition.

10 developer tips to build a responsive website [infographic] — from readwrite.com by Dan Rowinski

Excerpt:

Responsive design is a concept where you build your website once and then format it so it can adapt to any screen size that accesses it. Designers use HTML5 and CSS to build the sites and set parameters so the content will resize itself whether the user is in vertical or horizontal viewing mode, on a tablet, desktop or smartphone or even a screen as large as a television.

 

Also see:

 

Tagged with:  

Teens and Technology 2013 — from pewinternet.org by Mary Madden, Amanda Lenhart, Maeve Duggan, Sandra Cortesi, Urs Gasser

Excerpt:

“The nature of teens’ internet use has transformed dramatically — from stationary connections tied to shared desktops in the home to always-on connections that move with them throughout the day,” said Mary Madden, Senior Researcher for the Pew Research Center’s Internet Project and co-author of the report. “In many ways, teens represent the leading edge of mobile connectivity, and the patterns of their technology use often signal future changes in the adult population.”

From DSC:
The worlds of K-12, higher education, and corporate training/development are all seeking solid solutions to the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) or the Bring Your Own Technology (BYOT) solution.  (The way I see it, it would sure be helpful it Apple worked with the other relevant vendors to establish better wireless networking protocols.)  Anyway, below are some items on this topic:


 

How to BYOT for Learning? – from shift2future.com by Brian Kuhn

Responding to the “Shift to the Future” — from seanrtech.blogspot.com by Sean Robinson

BYOD: 7 reasons to leave them to their own devices — from Donald Clark Plan B

Ten reasons the iPad is an awesome tool for classrooms and education — from isource.com with thanks to Krista Spahr, Senior Instructional Designer at Calvin College, for this resource

The 4 easiest ways to mirror the iPad (comparison chart) — from edudemic.com by Seth Hansen; working off of a similar posting from Tony Vincent 

Strategies for taking flight with BYOT  — from byotnetwork.com

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

The Partnership for 21st Century Skills identified 4 critical areas of learning for students that include creativity, critical thinking, communication and collaboration.  In Forsyth County Schools, we’ve been working hard with parents, teachers and students to embrace learning with student-owned technologies; something we call Bring Your Own Technology (BYOT).  What we know for sure is that BYOT is really more like Bring Your Own Learning because we’ve discovered that it is NOT about the technology – it IS about the learning.

 


From DSC:
This aligns well with Alan November’s replacing “one-to-one” with “one-to-world.”

But whether we use the acronomyns BYOD, BYOT or BYOL (or whatever), it’s all about students being able to contribute content (hopefully that they created) and participate in the discussions.

 

A piece of the Next Generation Smart Classroom -- Daniel Christian -- June 2012

From June 2012

 

Vision of a Next Gen Smart Classroom from March 2010

 From October 2009:
Building off of Steelcase’s media:scape product line

The question of why (not) eLearning on iPads or tablets? — from upsidelearning.com by Amit Garg

Excerpt:

2012 saw the re-emergence of ‘Mobile learning’ or ‘mLearning’ as “new” (ok, not really new) buzzwords in L&D and Training circles around the world. But largely in the wrong context! Mobile Learning is being loosely attributed to any learning activity that is not location bound, which is very surprising! And even more surprising is, more often than not, it is not even referring to mLearning at all! But to things like, making an LMS available on an USB drive so you can track courses while on a plane! Certainly not mobile learning in my opinion.

I believe ‘real’ mobile learning is much more than just learning on a mobile device. I also believe that ”tablet” learning is neither mobile nor eLearning, but actually occupies a position between mLearning and eLearning. So let me lay out my argument for why I believe this!

 

Also see Amit’s presentation at LT13uk — the full presentation is available here:
http://www.slideshare.net/UpsideLearning/designing-elearning-for-ipads

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amit-garg-designingelearningforipads-2013

 

 

The new basis of competition and the superiority of ecosystem economics — from visionmobile.com by Michael Vakulenko

Also see:

The changing landscape of app discovery — from visionmobile.com by Andreas Pappas

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VisionMobile - The changing landscape of app discovery

 

Also see:

 

DeveloperEconomics-Feb2013

 



Also see the following infographic from
OnlinePhDPrograms.com

Making Money with iOS Education Apps

A new class of Knight News Challenge winners focuses on mobile in the developing world — from niemanlab.org by Joshua Benton
The common thread through several of the eight winners: turning underpowered phones into information engines.

Tagged with:  

Jan. 17, 10 a.m. EST:
The winners of the News Challenge: Mobile

Jan. 18, 12:30 p.m. EST :
Hear the winners talk about their projects via live webstream at www.knightfoundation.org/live.
The presentations are part of a gathering at Arizona State University on the future of mobile media.

To stay updated, follow @knightfdn and #newschallenge on Twitter.

 


 

The Knight News Challenge accelerates media innovation by funding the best breakthrough ideas in news and information. Winners receive a share of $5 million in funding – and support from Knight’s network of influential peers and advisors to help advance their ideas.Innovators from all industries and countries are invited to participate. Previously run once a year, the Challenge is running three times in 2012, to more closely mirror the pace of innovation. Each round has its own theme.

 


 

With a special thanks for the above resource going out to my sister, Sue Ellen Christian, Associate Professor of Journalism at Western Michigan University; and if I may put in a plug for her work, please see my sister’s latest book:

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A tale of two television strategies — from IEEE.org by Steven Cherry

Excerpt:

At the 2013 Consumer Electronics Show, back-to-back visits to LG and Panasonic reveal two very different approaches to selling, and maybe making, televisions. At LG the focus was on display technologies, picture quality, size, and form factors. Panasonic put its Smart TV features front and center.

I saw a voice-commanded Google search.

At yet another station, Panasonic showed a proof-of-concept of some friends all chatting by text message (like an old-style AOL chatroom), with the messages showing up on at the bottom portion of a television screen showing the program that everyone is watching.

LG had a few user scenarios—collaborative picture drawing between users of 5-inch tablets, for example—but they mostly weren’t very well developed, nor very smart.

 

 

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 Also see:

CES2013SamsungKeynote

Mobile connections to libraries — from PewInternet.org by Lee Rainie, Kathryn Zickuhr and Maeve Duggan

 

© 2024 | Daniel Christian