How fast are those fingers on the keyboard?

Phil Gyford has produced a fantastic blog post, in which he's experimented with data input times on a range of devices, from an iPhone, to a Mac laptop keyboard, vintage Apple Newton message pad, and two flavours of Palm - a phone and a PDA.

His results are intriguing and not at all what one would expect.

The photo above comes from his blog entry and you can read all about his findings here.

Using the iPhone in connected learning

www.wired.com

A great story from Wired about an American university piloting the use of customised iPhones for student learning and collaboration.

The rise of connected mobile technologies for learner interaction, content access, and collaboration is likely to be one of the big buzzes of the next year or so.

You probably didn't read that here first, but if you're reading it on a smartphone then you're surfing along nicely on the Zeitgeist wave.

The Future Pace of Change?

A great video that highlights the incredible speed with which our world is being swamped by digital data, and the pace at which new communication technologies are reaching global market penetrations of 50 million users. The shrinking timelines are quite terrifying, and reminds me of Marshall McLuhan's coining of the phrase, 'The Global Village', back in the early 1970s. How true his observation has come to be, how swift the rate at which people all over the world can join real-time communities of shared interests and values.

There's mileage in using this video, I think, within teacher or student presentations that look at how the relationship between audiences and institutions are changing rapidly. There's also some use here if the video were to be incorporated into a presentation about issues surrounding Distribution.

If you use the video do let me know how. I'd be interested to hear from you.

The problem with technology....

The problem with technology is that it can take an age for it to become fully understood  and accepted by the majority of the public.

As this rather entertaining sketch shows, it's been a problem right the way back to Gutenberg.