Introducing the Little Library 1.0

Finally, a full version of the Little Library is out in the wild! After extensive testing on multiple platforms in Beta 1 & 2 (and a lot of failure), the Little Library 1.0 is ready for a gig on the mainstage. Take it out for a spin. Expect automatic updates as feedback comes in.

Check out, fork, and modify the source code for the Little Library on Github.

You can also find out more about the Little Library at http://thelittlelibrary.com.

Mobile JWiki

On the side as of late I’ve been working with Tim Jore at Distant Shores Media to help them create ajaxy goodness for their MediaWiki-based site at http://door43.org that features free and open licensed contributed discipleship resources for everyone in every language, including an open Bible, open Bible School, open worship music, etc. Anyway, I’ve just released a new application for them that dynamically has the ability to turn their entire wiki into a mobile online/offline application.

So if you are using MediaWiki, or would like to mobilize someone else’s Web site or wiki, you can find the simple 1-2 pages of code here: https://github.com/rwadholm/Mobile-JWiki. The code can be put on any server anywhere (that supports PHP 5.3), and will create a mobile offline/online version of whatever site you point it  at (out of the box it works with MediaWiki) via PHP,  JQuery, JQuery Mobile, and HTML5 (and it works as well without javascript enabled, so for non-smartphones it’ll still serve up your mobile site just fine). Don’t tell anyone I told you this, but you could even use it to make your own mobile offline/online version of Wikipedia that’s hosted on your own server.

The real purpose, however, is to allow users of wikis in areas with spotty internet connectivity or expensive data plans to be able to learn on the go, using their phones, without a continually active internet connection.

The Little Library Beta 1 Release

The Beta 1 version of the Little Library application was release earlier today (to mild applause by my family). You can check it out here:

https://github.com/rwadholm/The-Little-Library-Beta

Follow the instructions on that page, and you too can be the proud owner of a test library! You’ll be doing the world a service by breaking things now so they don’t have to later. Please send any comments and feedback my way.

Some new features include syncing with other libraries (actually works now!), automatic creation of an online library, a three page End User License Agreement that quotes Patrick Henry, file validation (to avoid loading those pesky malware files onto your computer and in the cloud), optimized iOS page sizes, automatic thumbnails for any items that have images in them, and the ability to upload and view multiple files for every item in your library. This last feature allows you to use your library as a private Web server. You could host every file of a website you’ve made in one item, and when users click on the item–BING!! (not really “BING”, I actually prefer non-microsoft products), they’re at your hosted Web site. So you could share your library with them, they could make changes, share with you, and you can have a dynamic Website between friends. How lovely.

Beyond Web sites, you could include all of the Word documents, books, videos, audio and images you wanted to all in the same library item, so that you can serve up a college course, a series of videos, a compilation of songs, etc. all packaged together nicely. You’ve just got to make sure the content is owned by you (as in, you created it, or you found it with a Creative Commons license that allows you to share it). That’s because the End User License Agreement requires you to only upload and share Creative Commons or Public Domain or other similarly licensed content.

So you can think of the Little Library not as a file repository, but as a multi-device, peer-to-peer, distributed online/offline open content bazaar based on bleeding-edge technologies like JQuery Mobile, HTML5 WebStorage, and CouchDB. Although that is a bit wordy…

More to come.

Mo Learning

Mobile learning = mo learning. At least that’s what Teemu Arina has to say on the topic (see videos below).

Arina views the subject through the lense of learning spaces. Do we learn in cubes, or is learning open to the world — to the larger environments in which we actually find ourselves from day to day? Can mobile learning foster situated applicational learning better than more formal educational settings? From personal experience, I’d say “YES!”

While Arina focuses on the value of mobile learning as being in its ability to allow for greater social interaction, to connect people and ideas, to share conversations, and to connect the virtual world with physical contexts, I find myself turning instead to a different focus: mobile learning is real world learning. Situatedness really does have an impact on how well we can assimilate new information into our present schemas. And real-world contextual learning may allow for more authentic tasks and for the construction of new ways of thinking and acting, both socially and personally. Beyond this, at its heart all learning is mobile learning. People learn on the go. People learn as they are doing. In a way, traditional in-classroom learning could be considered one (limited) phase of mobile learning, because learning happens not only in the room itself, but in the hallway, in the dorm room, in the library, and on the way to work. People are thinking while they are being, and we are called human beings for a reason (one thing we know how to do well is be). While we are being we are becoming with the help of education (whether formal or informal). And becoming is situated across times and places. Learning spaces are living spaces and vice-versa.

One particular manifestation of mobile learning is learning while using modern mobile technologies (laptops, mobile phones, mp3 players, etc.). These tools help us to connect with other people and to situate our learning experiences in real world contexts. We are here. We need the knowledge here. We can apply the knowledge here. It seems an obvious conclusion that here is where we should learn. These tools bring our living and learning together here. Do we want people to learn only in a cube, or do we want them to be learning, to become in the here and now?

The Role of RSS in Education

What can a simple xml file do for education? What’s the big deal? So what if RSS gets the word out easier and more consistently than other forms? So what if its standardized and often rich in metadata content (making it more thoroughly searchable even than html)? So what if it caters to a society that doesn’t want to take the time or effort to actually go anywhere even when they’re not going anywhere (i.e. to not have to surf the net while sitting at a chair at their computer)? So what if it helps make the user the meta aggregator of what is meaningful and useful, and the editor of their own publishing empire? So what if learning opportunities are made more readily available and mobile? So what? Why should we all get excited about a couple of xml tags with some simple content? What’s so revolutionary about having the world’s news, entertainment, blog entries, podcasts, and latest updates in education sent to your favorite E-mail client or feed reader? What’s so great about not having your head explode from information overload? And from a Web programmer’s point of view, what’s so great about being able to serve up others’ continually updated content for free without having to code a thing?

I say RSS has no future in education. Why would we want to educate more people anywhere in the world? What kind of bleak world would it be if everybody was able to streamline their content so that they could control their own education? If students didn’t have to sit in a specific chair in a specific room in a specific building at a specific time of day to learn? And why would people want to increase their choices in educational media delivery and production? Do we really want to learn more often? Do we really want to hear a professor on our ipod? Do we really want to share with the world? Nah. I think clay tablets are the future.

The World as Classroom

In Dr. Curt Bonk’s newest book (as yet unpublished) on the open world of online learning, a particular passage in a chapter summary on educational resources on the Web caught my eye: “With all these [free online] lectures available, how can we not learn? What is to stop someone from learning any topic she wants at any time of the day? How will ambitious, self-directed learners be mentored or tutored into and through all of this content?”  This passage got me thinking. What if someone really did create such a service for high schools, Colleges, and self-directed learners. What if there were a resource on the Web that provided not merely repositories of online learning modules, lectures, videos, OCW, and learning objects (as if that weren’t enough), but also provided tutoring, mentorship, and guidance through these ever-growing and changing Web resources? A team of instructional designers, reference librarians, and computer programmers could staff an online Web 2.0 service that provides these things (for money or ads as financial backing, or it could be volunteer work). Instead of “Online Tutor,” it could be called something like “Tutol” (TUTor OnLine). Or accreditation could be sought for such a service, leading through OCWs, independant studies, searches, research topics, etc.

One might ask: “Isn’t a wiki a form of such guided learning through a topic?” Not really. While they are participatory in nature, wikis (at least the ones I’m familiar with) have very few integrated question/response or guided participatory learning tools. Online forums can come close to this, but seem to lack a broad enough scope. Also, forums often suffer from poor information architecture, making finding your way around (or sequencing instruction) a little difficult. FAQs are sometimes well organized, but are too static and are not usually participatory in nature, nor do they allow for extended discussions.

On the other hand, there have come to my attention interesting ideas about the automization of such a service. The US government-sponsored Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) has done research into just this topic. Here are some of their wide-ranging interests in the field of instruction:  http://www.adlnet.gov/technologies/index.aspx. The ADL also helped in the creation of SCORM (the shareable content object reference model) which standardizes learning resources and repositories to be easily accessible and reusable. Along these lines they are also developing Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS) which are “computer software systems that seek to mimic the methods and dialog of natural human tutors, to generate instructional interactions in real time and on demand–as required by individual students”. These tutoring systems are being developed for the fields of artificial intelligence, computational linguistics, and cognitive science. Is there hope for such an artificial tutoring system? Can these sytems be applied to other fields as well? Could something like this be the next Google (which automates Web searching) by automating Web tutoring? Not only could a person find anything on the Web, a person could also learn anything on the Web. Is such a thing possible? Are we being swept up into an Isaac Asimov world where we learn from robot mentors? I’m guessing not. I think, though, that social learning using automated Web 2.0 or Semantic Web tools is a distinct possibility for great growth in the next five years. So whether or not instructional designers, librarians, and computer programmers will be used to actually assist in tutoring individuals on the Web in the near future through this maze of online resources, these experts will be needed at the very least to design and implement the systems that will eventually do the tutoring. Somebody needs to teach the machine before it teaches us (tongue in cheek).