e-Learning Stuff Podcast #014: Half-Term Meanderings

James, Ron and Lilian just chat about a range of different stuff, basically they meander…

This is the fourteenth e-Learning Stuff Podcast, Half-Term Meanderings.

Download the podcast in mp3 format: Half-Term Meanderings

Subscribe to the podcast in iTunes.

James is joined by Lilian Soon and Ron Mitchell.

Shownotes

• The iPhone.
• David and James’s Podcast on the iPhone.
• Lilian Soon’s original blog post on the iPhone.
• The Skype deal James mentions in the podcast only covers landlines and does not cover mobiles.
• The Three Skype Phone doesn’t appear to be available on the Three website, but is available from Amazon.
• Ambrosia’s Wire Tap Anywhere which James uses to record Skype.
• Levelator levels your podcast recording.
• James uses Instant Presenter for the MoLeNET Online Conferences, but is considering using Ustream instead, but would need a Tricaster (available from PlanetDV in the UK) to do this.
• Ron said have a look at Adobe’s OnLocation.
• James uses the Sony HDR-SR10E HDD Camcorder to record video for his blog and for the JISC Online Conference Blog. He then uses iMovie to allow him to crop the HD video

done

• Geoff Minshull runs DirectLearn and uses WebEx for running online conferences. At the last JISC Conference they also used Elluminate for live presentations.
• Gabbly can be used to discuss a website.
• Feedburner from Google allows you to create a better RSS feed.
• Feeder allows you a lot more control over your RSS Feed.

Lots of dongles

BBC reports on how the use of 3G for data is increasing really fast.

This graph from 3 shows how fast 3G data usage is rising.

Why is this, well according to Rory Cellan-Jones of the BBC, the reason is simple.

So what’s behind the sudden explosion of data use? One word: dongles, those plug-and-play devices that give your laptop mobile broadband wherever you go.

3, T-Mobile and Vodafone have been pushing their 3G USB dongles hard over the last few months, and the monthly cost of such services has dropped considerably.

When I first used 3G in June 2004, I was paying £100 per month, now you can get 3G for just £10 per month, and as part of a phone plan it can be as little as £5 per month!

Also we are seeing an explosion in speed (just don’t tell O2 who are still stuck on 128Kbps), back in 2004, I was lucky to get 384Kbps, today with my Vodafone 3G dongle I can achieve 7.2Mbps (well I can in London, less so in Gloucester).

These fast speeds start to make 3G a viable option for many people.

With more people using 3G dongles and laptops, suddenly they will be able to access media-rich learning content where they like, mobile learning starts to become more real and accessible.

Of course as noted in the BBC, problems start to arise if you exceed the fair use limits of these 3G services.