Sorry how much coffee…

For some reason how much coffee I drink is becoming something of an in-joke on Twitter. Personally I thought I don’t talk about coffee that much do I?

Well I was wrong.

According to my Tweetcloud it would appear that I do drink a lot of coffee!

Ah well time to talk about something else, anyone for a cup of tea?

Order your Starbucks by iPhone

Imagine going to Starbucks having already ordered your drink from your iPhone?

Engadget reports on an application for the iPhone which allows you to place an order for a drink so it’s ready when you get there.

Quickorder, as you can probably imagine, would enable iPod touch users to swing by their local Starbucks, order up their favorite drink and avoid a good deal of that always questionable human interaction.

Just demonstrates how useful/useless an application for a mobile device can be.

If you can order coffee, there must be ways in which you can use similar technologies for learning.

Using Jaiku (or Twitter) for learning in a coffee shop

I demonstrated Jaiku at ALT-C and then sent a good hour out of session taking to a English Literature lecturer who was very interested in using Jaiku (or Twitter) to enhance a session on discussing a book.

The book was set in a cafe, and he wanted the students to go to a cafe and then post their observations and discuss the book whilst drinking in a cafe.

Obviously you could do this face to face (difficult in a cafe to find enough chairs) likewise you could use a moodle discussion forum (such as this one), however one of the strengths of using something like Jaiku or Twitter was that the students wouldn’t need a wireless laptop, all they need is a phone capable of SMS and what student doesn’t have a phone these days?

Photo source.

Nice idea, but why McDonalds!

I read with interest (and disappointment) that a certain fast food company is going to offer free wireless in their restaurants. Now they use the word restaurant to describe their establishments, personally I think that breaks the Trade Descriptions Act!

The Register reports:

Proletarian fryhouse McDonald’s has announced it will offer free Wi-Fi in its 1,200 UK burger outlets by the end of the year. The move will make McDonald’s the country’s largest public hotspot provider, and pits it against Starbucks’ pay-as-you-go T-Mobile service for high street internet supremacy.

Now the thought of free wireless is always something that I love the concept of, for example: Caffe Gusto in Bristol (hasten to add only in some of their branches) has (or had) free wireless and if you popped in for a coffee you might only be in there for fifteen or twenty minutes, but enough time so you can quickly check your e-mail, do a Jaiku presence report, check a few websites and so on…

The problem with something like T-Mobile at Starbucks is that unless you have an account you can only purchase at a minimum a thirty minute slot, or even a full hour. This means you spend probably twice as much as you did on coffee to access the internet, and then you feel like you need to spend the full time in order to get your value for money.

Now the problem I have with that certain place that will offer free wireless is that I don’t like their coffee (is it too hot) and I don’t like their food (way too salty).

Please can other (nice) places start to offer free wireless, I would really appreciate it, please.

A warning to all coffee lovers out there

Found this interesting article on the BBC News website.

Girl overdoses on espresso coffee - A teenager was taken to hospital after overdosing on espresso coffee.

It would appear that she had seven double espresso coffees and as a result had overdosed on caffeine!

A warning to all coffee lovers out there, I know that a lot of teachers and lecturers seem to thrive on coffee, or they can only survive through the average day in FE by drinking coffee.

It would seem that extra caution is needed where I work as we now have Starbucks coffee available in our college cafes and I quite like the off Starbucks espresso now and again .