I couldn't have said it better ... almost

In the morning news....

In this mornings Wall Street Journal - Tech Blog, Ben Worthen did a very good job summarizing what I believe is the direction of mobile application development. There is no clear platform that has won the standards war so Apple (iPhone), Google (Android), RIM (Blackberry) and Microsoft (Smartphone and Mobile PC) will continue to fight it out. Diversity is good and we can expect the technology to only get better. With no common denominator in regards to platform, the most feasible standard is web page access but with the Mobile device taken in consideration in the design (screen size, app speed, etc.). Also as I have posted in a previous blog, wi-fi access in cell phones is still yet to be a cell phone standard but this is a critical piece for higher ed.

The suggestion is that your organization should not adopt a standard too soon and let your workers investigate the options to see what rises to the top (I guess you might say that what this sabbatical is all about), I think is a good one. You could look at cell phone platforms today being a little like the IBM/Microsoft versus Apple discussion that happened when personal computers were first available (actually that battle still goes on today with the addition of the Linux operating system).

I would add an additional concern to higher ed that was not included in the article. The blog was written for the business world. I think cost is an important factor for higher ed. With the cost of classes and books, students will not have the extra money to invest in costly custom software.

My goal is in my sabbatical to locate software and tools that are open source (preferably) and free for academic use. My feeling is that if enough of us in higher ed pool our resources and expertise, we can come up with cost effective solutions that will make our technology more effective in student learning (or at least that is the plan).

Cell Phone Di$play Emulator$

I am doing some work on cell phone display emulators this week. Since I do not have the budget to purchase a cell phone and contract will all of the major cell phone vendors (Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint, Qwest, AT&T, etc.) in the "Valley of the Sun", I want to rely on emulators that will allow me to put a "faux" cell phone on my computer screen that would look roughly the same as a real cell phone. I can then display web page and run web applications and see how they will look and perform on at least a "faux" cell phone emulation. I am looking at several "free" emulators. Some are web based and some, like MS Device Emulator, are installed on a PC. I have also created my own emulator page which is still a work in progress but can be accessed if you click here.

There are more resources on my sabbatical web site at http://sites.google.com/site/mobiledotsite/Home