Trends in Mobile Tools & Applications for Libraries

Megan Fox, Simmons College presenting.
web.simmons.edu/~fox/mobile

Mobile tools are part of daily life for our patrons - how can we be part of our patrons' info-seeking lives? It's not a "librarian" v. "handheld" dichotomy... it's how to be part of that handheld life.

Ubiquity of mobile devices: 3 billion mobile phones v. 1 billion PCs. 80% of teens use text messing regularly. They say that email is only for "business." More users are being equipped to do more and more with their mobile devices! She shows us a lot of nice phones with qwerty keyboards, new interfaces for input, like thumbpads and sliders. Points out the larger screens to better use multimedia content and video/pic capabilities. Oooh, iPhone: the holy grail of mobile messaging. Of course, I noted earlier in the conference that attendees with iPhones were ultra-mobile and constantly connected... totally unlike those of us struggling for a wifi connection. She's pointing out the multi-touch interface and orientation both horiz and vert. She calls them "gesture devices?" Nokia's 810 is similar but also have a slide-out keyboard. Verizon Voyager has that same look but has a clamshell full qwerty keyboard. Centro by Nokia is a mass-market version of the same for only $100.

Handheld computers - UMPC Ultra Mobile Personal Computers. 7" or smaller display... Samsung Q1 ultra has keyboards on both sides of the screen so you don't take up that real estate with a screen-based keyboard input device.

Mobile web demands a different sort of information coming their way... shorter text, simplified pages, etc. All quite logical.

Strategies for facilitating our info stream to mobile users:
.mobi domains and Zinadoo
Search engine: Find.mobi

ILS vendors offering mobile optimized catalogs... all the major players getting into this. Making library staff LIS modules with barcode reader attachments like the ones we're testing now. Pocket circ mentioned. Wireless workstation = Innovative.

Answers.com has released a mobile interface. Mobifusion has partnered with traditional pubs like Worldbook and etc. to provide content. This is of high interest to schools, I should think. Why purchase sets of encyclopedias when kids can get stuff on mobile devices in the classroom?

Transcoding: Squeezer.net the big player. Services are seen by originators as bastarding their content?!? They strip out stuff like javascript and things that might slow down the data transfer. (i can't find a good link; I may be misspelling this)

Databases are addressing mobile interfaces - and talking about doing it out-of-house by licensing someone like Squeezer. Other content is being mobilized through iPods, SparkNotes, and etc. Test prep also popular. Britannica is available for iPod!!! I can see us having to help patrons convert content for vacations, etc. if they want some of our info to be mobile. We will need to look at how we offer different versions of our info - 5 years from now we will def. need to offer "standard" and "mobile" versions of database logins, etc.

90% of all music downloads in Japan are to mobile phones.

Wifi is increasingly popular for downloading content. Spoken word study materials are gaining popularity. iTunesU is big in universities. Shows us the iPod Touch - basically a non-phone iPhone. I can see that lending devices or having a "Device lab" for patrons may become an important thing for those wanting to see what our content will be like on different platforms.

Museum411, OnCellsystems, etc. are using your own device to give you a tour of a facility. Great for libraries! She mentions Google SMS use. HarperCollins Australia are sending book extracts to phones for promotions this way.

Simmons can now send citations to students' phones via text! This would make the catalog very handy for us... mentions Teleflip and GizmoSMS. I know we're heading in the right direction this way. Wake Forest is integrating a whole host of campus services via cell and text. Clicker systems offer a great way for a classroom to quickly assess students' "temp" in class.

(Note: this is an excellent .edu presentation. It should have been adapted for the Internet@Schools track.)

So what's next? Companies are working to "push" ads to your mobile device. They're offering small discounts in exchange for watching or listening to ads. As in Asia, they're moving towards only carrying the cell to pay for purchases, etc... libraries will have to find a way to roll our cards into these devices too. Google Checkout now has a mobile version! Gpay is a new service, coming up. Projectors are being built into cell phones for sharing - SUPER HOT. Glasses that project from a mobile device are also being developed. Gyroscopic interfaces being developed as well for mobile devices so that you can tilt and flick to quickly read things without lots of buttons, etc.

India Calling

So our state provides a subscription to Tutor.com as part of our "homework suite" of services - in-person, online, and virtual reference. When I tried to get caught up on my reading today this article on offshore tutor services caught my eye. I mean, I knew this was going on but I guess I was in denial about how much it cost, etc. $99 a month for unlimited sessions... That's a pretty good deal but how many families can afford an expense like that? It drives home the point that we are a highly stratified society in which the "haves" can shell out $40-$60 an hour or $99 a month for extra tutoring for their kids and the "have-nots" can't even think of doing something like that. I've heard teachers get a pretty sweet deal occasionally when NCLB requirements have them tutor a kid after school and they pick up an extra $30 or so an hour for that.

It makes me wonder if offering free services like we do through our libraries are devalued. Not because they are of less quality, but because they are explicitly free and therefore are seen as having no value by parents who are used to seeing big price quotes. Maybe we look cheap or shabby? Must muse more on this subject.

Kelly's portion of the SL presentation

Kelly tells us that there is a huge room for growth in-world. There are not very many libraries participating in TeenSL so we have opportunities that are worth checking out to provide services and expose the kids to this new technology.

Question from the audience on standards... teachers and librarians are all very concerned about how any activity fits into existing standards. Remarked that in the Midwest, not many teens are in-world. Linden Labs are v. careful with background checks for anyone over 18 who wants to be part of TSL.

We are in-world. Teens have created a machine that will convert their Linden dollars to pay off fines and fees! Sweet! Kelly is paying her fines right now in front of us... it converts USD to Linden. V. nice. She remarks that the teens are super inventive and they are able to invent and create in infinite variety. The fine and fee machine is just one example. She's not sure how many kids from her library are online. Gets 2-3 requests a week for info on what they're doing, but she doesn't know if the're following through. BlueWings Hayek = Kelly's avatar in SL

Related: Eye4You Alliance blog.

Teens have many roles. Greeters, etc. The Eye4You logo is teen-created and has an eye in an open book ;) lol!!! Kids from all over the world participate? Greece, UK, etc. One teen wants to see if TSL will help launch bands like MySpace did. Kelly's super wrong - they are more than innovative, they are totally constructing their own reality here. V. teen centered.

This opens up the library to teach classes on scripting and other skills used in-world. Kelly says it creates new conversations that builds off web2.0 and other participatory culture. SL takes it all to another level by allowing contact and construction not available to them in RL.

Other resources from Kelly:
tinyurl.com/2sk6e3
tinyurl.com/23k2h5
tinyurl.com/2lma2g

Teen Services in Second Life

Finally... live blogging!!! Internet works in the regular sessions. Kelly Czarnecki and David Lee King are presenting.

David's avatar actually looks like him. I'm jealous... He's talking about how Jean Gardner from TSCPL was actually supposed to present, and how she got excited about the possibilities to reach teens through SL. They want to ultimately support teens and schools and educational goals... to support KS state standards in literature and technology. They hooked up with Hope Street Academy... hoped they would read a book and then create an environment that they read about. But they ran into some obstacles... Linden Labs (they people behind SL) haven't billed them for their island or touched base with them. They did background checks with staff and 18+ participants. It took a lot of lead time to get everything set up and to get everyone trained, etc. Changes were afoot! They switched gears and then planned a new landscape for the school using SL as a modeling device.

Lessons learned: The classroom teachers need training and in-world experience beforehand. Same with the teens - they need to know the basics before going to the next level. One semester is not long enough for a project of this sort. They ultimately completed three projects, in got more than 20 kids exposed to the new world, and had 2 older kids open up main grid accounts... AND some were working on their SL outside of class, a major accomplishment in an alt school. So far: they have 65 teens complete the project, 2 SLMS', and 5 middle and high schools wanting in on the action. They have gotten more interest in collaborating with other schools even out of the area! Hard to keep money straight as the banks in SL aren't like banks in RL ;) Lots of tech expertise needed to get it all straight on the computers.

It appears like this has been a great partnership with the schools thus far with lots of room to grow. An excellent outreach partnership that promises more progress and involvement. Next up: Kelly's portion of the presentation where we go into TeenSL and see what's going on.

Addl thoughts during Berger's keynote

Michael Wesch's Managing Information video. I just love it more each time I see it.

Epiphany during video: if we're changing the power of hierarchy in a metaphorical sense, are we not also challenging the hierarchy and authority of the entire power structure of education? We are, more often, moving towards becoming facilitators of learning. It implies an active learner and a responsive facilitator of of learning. Learning is becoming more reciprocal – how will this mesh with a system that defines itself as a highly controlled atmosphere? What does this mean for the concept of in loco parentis? How is that even possible in a world of information that constantly changes? What should this mean for the textbook industry? For the whole industry of education (for it is an industry, make no mistake)? The future of learning may not even include PLACE as a concept. I have already seen teens in the library who are attending school virtually, and they have NOT chosen any physically local program in the area. They have used the internet, they have shopped around, and they have NO LOYALTY to locality. Which means we need to simultaneously give them a reason(s) to participate fully in the community in which they're physically located.

DAY 2 – Pam Berger Keynote

Phoebe Bechir in SL – www.infosearcher.com

Learning and Literacy in a Digital World

Last night she went to animoto and made a music video-style presentation on yesterday's session! Fun!

Internet as transformative technology. What is digital literacy? What does it mean to be a learner in a digital environment? What are some of the key survival skills learners need?

Native or immigrant? I was yes to 7 of 8 questions.
Y, Y, Y, N, Y, Y, Y, Y

Today's student: They would answer 8 of 8

Tells a story about a modern-day student and how she uses technology in her life. Very integrated into all her life – connected 24/7. They're collaborative. They share. They connect. The internet has become the computer. 55% of online teens have social profiles but only 20% of adults.

OMG – all I can think about is a class I took about the Bloomsbury group – EM Forster's quote “only connect” seems to have actually happened! Musings on the anxiety of technological change on society...

Paul Gilster's book Digital Literacy: 1997 “ability to understand and use information in multiple formats from a wide variety of sources when presented via computers.” Kathleen Tyner's book Literacy in a Digital World – two literacies: tool literacies and literacies of representation.

Ppl. Are required to use a growing variety of technical, cognitive and social skills... literacy advances the ability to effectively and creatively use and communicate information. But it's always CHANGING.

We come to Web 2.0... now memory is less of an issue as the programs and platforms reside “on the web” - the idea of collective intelligence. Can get and create content. Web 2.0 characteristics: Interactivity, user participation, collective intelligence, self service, convergence of media.

Matches what we want to see in schools. Collaborative, active, independent learners. Indeed!

Graphic literacy: being able to “Read” graphical displays so that they can function at a high level – photo-visual literacy. Navigation next – need to construct knowledge from large quantities of non-linear information. A new sort of spatial orientation!

Kids 7-12 worked on the International Children's Digital Library: designed the interface to orient the reader. The question of finding and presenting information stymied the adults. Kids voted to search for the color of the book too!

Students need to develop a sense of context so that they can use information in intelligent ways.

Focus: digital environments tend to fragment the attention. Encouraging reflection and deep thinking. Learning to organize information to facilitate quick retrieval. Tagging will encourage this process-- folksonomy may be more personally relevant.

My observation: Tagging evolution follows this order: confusion/randomosity, epiphany, folksonomy. I want to incorporate this into the cyber 6 wiki!!!

Diigo is one of her favorites. She started a best practices web 2.0 tools tag

Confronting the Challenge of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21^st Century – Henry Jenkins is a must read.

Developing these new literacies requires passion on a personal level – and a ton of these skills are learned outside of the traditional school system. It's not about web 2.0 – it's about giving students the tools they need to learn. The services they need to make it happen – and the platform for Inquiry 2.0 = student learning.

New IST standards released at NECC: moving towards habits of mind rather than concrete skills: OERCommons.org

Wesch's video

Just in case any new readers haven't seen Michael Wesch's videos... this is his latest and greatest. He's a winner on many counts: from KSU, awesome thinker, and all about information.

Additional thoughts from Aaron's presentation

Aaron's presentation was really good, and I just thought of something I forgot in the last post. He referenced the recent articles on churches who are using Halo to draw in young men who would otherwise have no excuse to attend. And then he noted - surely SCHOOLS and PUB LIBS can use Halo and other "violent" games if churches are using them in this way. I think he has a point there... the number ONE game guys always ask me about is if we're doing Halo tournaments. And then they get pretty much disinterested when I have to say "no, no Halo" and "no, you can't bring your own controllers and games in.."

Get Your Game On

presented by Aaron Schmidt -- librarian@gmail.com – XxagentcooperXX

Line Rider – YouTube video of INCREDIBLE set up

Eleven BILLION dollars – gaming industry is bigger than books, movies, music – everything.

Games as content and as service – games and learning. Presentation on walking paper after the fact.

Strengths of libraries are to create community. But what about kids electing to be in the library voluntarily? Wii for retirement homes – fun for many generations. 18-35 is core gamer age group. Average gamers – but trending older too.

MMORPGs

• Like Runescape and WoW

• They are navigating HUGE amounts of info at once – reading, constantly changing landscape.

Participatory Culture: Media Education in the 21^st Century

lots of good pdfs to read

Play: the capacity to interact with one's surrounds to do problem solving?

Research Quest: ACRL studying gaming and matching mapping standards for Halo and Fantasy Football?

Wired article about Yahoo exec who used his WoW accomplishments as his resume.

Questions - asking about violence-free games and games with no competition – one person claims that band concerts are an example of non-competitive collaboration (but nobody speaks up to note that you compete fiercely beforehand to get a better chair!!!!) How much technical expertise does it take to do a LAN party? We want to know what ratings the games are BUT of course no internet so we can't find out in real time. This is SOOOOOO frustrating!!!!!

(**this is my epiphany that NOBODY has wifi** We are all typing on wordpad or similar programs. I don't think anybody is online!!!)

Nintendo DS games – Cooking, Trauma Center under the knife, Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney, Hotel Dusk acts like interactive e-book to read and move around to solve mystery.

AZ state game called Quarantined! Started off as a paper board game where you are a student using information resources to save the campus from a virus.

Talks about hosting a gaming event. People have really basic questions about the games themselves, gaming platforms, logistics like how many boxes to have, etc. Public libraries should be collaborating with school libraries to share gaming equipment if they need it.

Conference Notes So Far

Well, the keynote was pretty great. We immediately ran into snags accessing wifi and THEN, to my horror, I discovered that the room for Internet@Schools West has NO internet access. As Carolyn says in her blog, I felt like I was missing a limb. So far, I was glad to hear that schools have bought into Helene Blowers' Learning 2.0 program as I was planning to reference that in my Cyber 6 Pack presentations anyway. Excellent reinforcement - I feel as though I have been told "you are headed in the right direction here."

Practical Mashups

Robert Lackie and Robert Terrio presenting :University folks: Presentation online at http://tinyurl.com/2w2j2g

robertlackie.pbwiki.com; infomaniac

Article in last Internet at Schools mag, references and other stuff full text via database

About 30 people in room, no wifi, squeaky mikes

Useful collab tools used by new folks being mashers

Tumblr examples: musiclibrarian.tumblr.com

Non-editorial style, more faceted. What do you want to share?

Looks like just another style/strategy for blogging? How is this better than embedding a UT video in your existing blog? Must investigate. He references the Gray Album – Danger Mouse-- being the epitome of mashup.

randrtumblerama.tumblr.com

Shares with his wife: Looks like a myspace style sort of approach on his template. Has a painting demo mashed with a song by the artist being depicted. Learn to photoshop while listening: Foxytunes. Yackpack for your PBWiki. Like meebo but with VOIP. Would this be allowed in school districts rather than text chat?!?!?!?! Our embedded Meebo modules are blocked. I ask this question: allowing certain things through, like specific video clips and stuff. Yackpack walkie-talkie widget not blocked at any of his schools yet. Video has been blocked widely. Yackpack on a wiki worked and with high quality. Would we have to train reference staff?

Google docs API scripting – lit-trips and stuff

World Geography quiz like the ones we put on Facebook

The Route 66 google maps mashup – YES but NOW I want to know strategies in how to teach kids to code this themselves. They can CONSUME this stuff but ultimately with the new AASL standards they are going to have to learn how to DO it themselves – with the mandate to CREATE information products.. “create new knowledge.” Standard 3.1.4: “Use technology and other information tools to organize and display knowledge and understanding in ways that others can view, use, and assess.”

The EPA report on the Superfund sites – incorporating a Google map onto the page identifying the locations of superfund sites. Yay toxic waste!

AFTER THE SESSION: We realize that a woman with an iPhone has internet access and has been creating a Tumblr about the session! I ask her to email me the link, so I will post it when I get it.

IL2007 picks

I'm finishing up my preliminary schedule for IL. There are too many good sessions I want in on!!!

Monday:

• AM: Keynote: 2.0 and the Internet World. Will outline typologies of internet users, future forecasting, and user types in the library environment. Then, Practical Mashups. Practical mashups for educational environments. Now I need to pick from several academic studies on student users. Yargh!
  
• lunch!
• PM: Successful Web 2.0 initiatives with Students and Teachers. Duck into Erica's session quickly, then run back to 21C Libraries - Getting your Administrator on Board. If it's not useful, then I will hit MySpace and Facebook Pros/Cons. Following that, School Library Learning 2.0 from the CLA and The Future of Blogs OR Multimedia Search OR User-Generated Content. I think I need a clone.
• Hopefully dinner. And editing all the notes I will have taken during the day!
  

Tuesday:

• AM: Learning and Literacy in a Digital World I@S Keynote. I can't wait to hear Pam Berger talk. She will be fresh from Reno and can hopefully illuminate some of the new AASL standards. (Which I am already impressed with!) Then we have scheduled exhibit time, and Educational Gaming in Libraries. KidsClick Redesign project, aaaaaaand lunch.
• PM: Exploratorium OR Getting Their Attention: Training and SN Tools. Stroll by the Creative Commons Cybertour... RSS@Schools next, then "Gary's Latest Web Research Update." Duck into Kelly C's session on 2nd Life for Teens to say hello.
  
• 6 pm - Learning 2.0 dine around
• 7:30 - Session with Delft librarians and Aaron Schmidt. Special documentary screening!

Wednesday:

• AM: Keynote on Future of Search. Search Engine and Handheld sessions all AM, but also cybertours on eBooks and eInk, RSS, and Citation Managers.
  
• lunch.
• PM: User-based tagging, then Tech Tools for Outreach, and Visual Information Retrieval.
• Exhaustion :D
  

Killing Creativity?

(link courtesy of Albert Ip from Random Walk in Learning)
(want more inspiration? Try the TED website.)

Pay particular attention to the spot about 3/4 of the way through where Sir Ken starts talking about epiphany. This is what I obsess about every day at work (and in the shower, on my drive in, etc). I want our library to be a powerful and invisible conduit for young people so they can reach their epiphany. Every time we extend our services to a different demographic, simplify a process, or try to identify easier ways to connect PATRONS with IDEAS, we are speeding their interaction with their true and ultimate destiny. We're all here to find what it is we are MEANT to do, meant to share with others. The library is either going to be a part of that process in the 21st century or it will very well go extinct.

In the 19th century, we were a civilizing force. A method of sharing the proscribed, acceptable, and palatable mores of society (as it were). But libraries gradually changed over time from the exclusive club for scholars and those striving to attain middle class "values" into something radically different. The moment we unlocked the books and let patrons have open stacks, we were admitting something: you know what you want and need better than we do. And instead of gatekeepers we became lamplighters; fellow travelers who'd been down the road once or twice with friends and who would gladly walk along with you as well.

And in the self-service life of the 21st century, we're the ones handing you maps to adjacent lands and interesting detours... librarians are the people who want you to consume with abandon-- glut yourself in our stacks!-- and then we'll be there when you're ready to make sense of everything you've found. If you need us, we'll be your Motel 6 and leave a virtual light on for you.

Nowhere is this concept more important than in education. We must prepare for an imminent seismic shift in our educational system that empowers the individual learner to pursue passions and to take intellectual side-trips wherever they may lead... and an entire community must be ready for that. We'll need both for and non-profit businesses, we'll need mentors both artisanal and scientific, and most of all we'll need libraries. We will need massive collections of ideas that people can spark against one another like stone and flint. Libraries will serve as the agora for citizen-learners, throwing off isolation and embracing community in ways that haven't even yet been invented.

The Five Laws of Digital Education

I'm working on an article and a presentation based around web tools for classrooms... (Adapted from Ranganathan's 5 Laws of Library Science)

1. The web is for use. Let your students make use of the incredible educational world that is out there! Don't allow fear to eliminate the possibilities for digital learning.
   
2. Every learner deserves access. And I'm not talking about the very limited surfing that you can do in a typical school... there is a fluency that must be gained for efficient and intelligent use of the internet, and students who have no or limited access at home are not gaining the skills they need to be successful as adults in a digital world. They are not "learning the language" of the web.
3. Access benefits learners. Students who are exposed to a variety of sites will begin to develop a more sophisticated visual literacy than those of their peers who are left to surf alone. Educational guidance is needed to create responsible and empowered digital citizens of tomorrow. And when you give your students your trust to begin blogging and researching responsibly, you will help them to develop netiquette that can extend into their off-line lives, too.
   
4. Expand the world of the learner. Why can't your students correspond with their counterparts in the next town over? Or even a world away? Why on earth would you simply study China in a book when you could swap pictures of your hometowns with other kids your age in Bejing? Imagine students being able to contribute to a class project while at home, or on vacation. Imagine your students' parents being able to contribute to a dialogue about their learning. Imagine fewer boundaries and more possibilities.
5. The web is a growing organism (with our help). Don't let the web grow without your students. Conversely, your students have a great chance to grow alongside it. Imagine replacing the mute and dusty pictures of students long graduated in your school's gymnasium with living, breathing digital projects that expand year upon year. Or being able to log on ten or more years in the future to hear the voices of kids long past, to absorb their projects and passions, and to build on the ideas and exploration that they started. The future of digitally-based education depends on educators and students of today-- so let's get started!
   

Why a new blog?

I've been blogging about education sporadically on my personal blog - one I share with friends, where I post randomly about my life and funny stuff and most often of all, LOLcats. This blog is an attempt to separate thoughts and notes about learning from all the rest of that.

Since I'm headed off to Internet Librarian (specifically Internet@Schools West), I figure this is the perfect place to try a little liveblogging and thought-collecting re: education. It's an experiment.