Handheld Learning - learning with mobile and ubiquitous technologies

Ok, I'm going to start this thread and please, please contribute!!!

I thought it would be fun to do some imagineering and for us to come up with the specification of our perfect handheld computer for use in education by school children, university students, graduates and, hey, us too!

So that we don't float too far off into fantasy world let's set a few guidelines to this game:

1) Specifications should be something we believe is reasonably possible by 2010
2) The device should retail for no more than UK £200, 300 Euro or US $400 (equivalent of in 2010)

Feel free (actually welcome) to pepper your responses with links to any supporting specs or reports of future tech that might become part of our future handhelds so that this thread can be a genuinely useful resource to any members trying to figure out where this is all headed.

This exercise is meant to be fun, there are no right or wrong answers just ideas so what are you waiting for?

prior to UI category, we may want to consider the experience and value the device (and service?) will need to deliver. 

Is it a wired, local radio or cellular device?  how rich and constant is/are the connection(s)?  this will be a major factor in the experience the device can deliver, right?

who is the audience?  students-only or also teachers and parents?  if this is a handheld device, it is mobile.  is it "general issue" and can the student take it home?  if so, can the parent easily use it?  same for teachers?  maybe it's role is a student/teacher/parent collaboration and accountability tool and well as a learning platform.  the UI must address the use cases, so just picking an arbitrary UI path based on whats predominant might be quite limiting.

let me suggest we massage the question of how rich and persistent the radio frequencies (RFs) requirements need to be, the robustness of the browser element and some adoption strategy. 

As an example... my take... if you want kids to pick it up and use it, my guess is the device needs to have a very solid messaging component, like a near desktop-like IM experience built-in as a base-line.  as a youth adoption hook.  if the kids buddies are in the device, they will pick it up and use it.  there just needs to be some sensable throttle in the implementation for school hours between the bells.   

so if we lead with experience delivery and adoption characteristics, we may stand a better chance of finding the holy grail and not find ourselves constrained downstream.

back to  Graham's fun stuff.  and it's all closer and related than I might make it sound.  My position is that the device needs to deliver a near desktop-like Browsing experience and we drive the UI off that requirement.  so the screen will need to be landscape, not profile and big enough to avoid horizontal scrolling. etc.

battery life is also jugular to this device. it must work all day and to and fro.  right?

So RF/connectivity, near desktop-like IM+Browser and battery life and three big ones from my angle to help drive the hardware concoction.

does any of this make sense?

Internal hard discs for handheld computers are taking a step forward according to Computer Business Review

On an increasing number of occasions I  consider applying  lighter fuel  to a PDA, in much the same way that Hendrix used to with guitars.

anyway, give these things a decent battery/fuel cell life and they may get their usefulness back!

I now find my PDA far __LESS___ useful than it used to be, as I actually have to worry if the battery will last the day, with the result that I use the device less and less and less and less.

When I could nip into a newsagents, get some batteries and be working again that was okay, and lets be honest you only had to do that every few WEEKS!. No it wasnt colour and couldnt play MP3's but I didnt care (and still dont...My mp3 player lasts > week on 1 AA battery which I can easily replace, which is convenient, rechargable batteries are not convenient)


<<<<<...Warning... Rant ahead>>>>
also ...anyone at Palm listening? PDAs are useless if you dont use them! or they crash a lot, or you cannot get power for them quickly!, or the applications take ages to start. How can you have taken such a simple device, given it a faster CPU and yet still make the simple, built in applications so slow to start...arghhhhhhhhhhhh!

Hi Merrily

Fair point, do we need a single function device for education such as a handheld thin-client device that, for example, just allows web-surfing and access to web applications or a swiss army knife style device?

Certainly on the projects that I have been working on in schools in the UK the multi-function capability of multimedia equipped handhelds such as the Palm Zire 72 or HP rx3715 has proved vital where students use camera, video and audio recording capability to record their work and also build digital scrapbooks. These facilities are invaluable for subject areas such as Design & Technology but also, we've discovered, pretty much across the curriculum.

So based on this I believe the inclusion of camera and audio facilities to be an essential of handheld learning appliance. That doesn't mean, of course, we couldn't have a cheaper version of such a device that doesn't have these features but the reality is that with the mass volume of these components already going into mobile devices their exclusion will only result in very marginal cost reduction.

Does anybody else have a view on this?

Please add your thoughts to this thread!

 
Graham

surely you mean at Handheld Learning 2005 also!

 

Fuel cell technology (or the idea of it, at least) has got me quite sadly excited. If this is really a deliverable possibility, it will be fantastic! I carry around a variety and number of devices with me everyday, and packing chargers for them all just gets silly.

My vote definitely goes to fuel cell technology!

I'd like to see the needs expanded to incorporate more functionality for assistive technologies. I love the devices making my life more manageable for sure (god knows some of us need more help than others!!)...but we too often design with looking in the mirror. Effective voice recognition into Word for handhelds would be a great start. Try watching students with MS lug heavy laptops section to section where they try to dictate quietly into a miked headphone...we simply HAVE to do better to assist more needs.