1. The various interviewees in the paper – Interviewee A, B, C, etc. – whose account do you find most interesting, or most relevant to your own personal or professional life, and why? You could start at the section headed ‘Interview data’ about half-way through the paper.
- Interviewee E’s experiences are quite similar to my own when I had just bought my Smartphone: I used to look up specific pages for my phone. Nowadays, pages automatically switch over to so called PDA sites, so you don’t have to look for them anymore.
- Interviewee B and his PDA: I am never without it. I think Smart phones have replaced PDA’S at the moment. I am never without my smart phone. I have all my data stored in it: agenda, meetings, lesson planning, music, email addresses, phone numbers, addresses...
- I was also interested in interviewee I (teacher of Spanish) and his idea to integrate a school trip into his lesson by using mobile phones and text messages.
At the moment I don’t use any mobile devices as a learning tool unless Senteo counts as a mobile device (it can only be used with Smart Boards though, so I guess it doesn’t count as one)
2. Where would you place your own use of mobile devices in comparison with those of the alumni in the paper above? I don’t mean, ‘Do you do more than them, or less?’ After all, they varied considerably. But what are the similarities and differences, and is this connected with the fact that the data for the paper was gathered in 2005?
I do believe that some percentages may have varied lately in comparison with the research. Mobile phone companies have certainly changed their contracts. Flatrates, sms-bundles, data bundles etc. It has become cheaper to access the internet and I have to say with a reasonable speed. I use my smartphone (A Nokia E90) for almost everything: access the internet, using the OU forum and put my tweets on twitter, text messaging and even blogging.
So there might be a difference in usage at this moment. Even the use of laptops might have decreased. I know that I use my netbook more often (as it is lighter and easier to carry).
3. Which areas would you explore if you were carrying out research into mobile practices now?
- Use of Mobile Devices for accessing social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook. Are people purchasing mobile devices because they offer the possibility to access social network applications and this is seen to be "cool", or are people purchasing them because the really do want to use them for this purpose?
- Is the netbook really replacing the laptop and has it potential to become a standardised learning tool?
Cheers,
Eugene