Floozy Speak!

Remember my ramblings on paparazzi proof devices?  Well HP's on the way with one.  Totally makes sense to me really.  I say bring it!   Except this only gives the devices themselves a way to be controlled.  I still like the idea of a directional EMP type weapon myself.

I'm interested in location-based mobile gaming.  I'm not sure what offerings I can get on the sidekick 2.  There is a sdk out there for it.  But for everyone else, especially you Nokia folks check out In-Duce's list of location based games.

Battle of the Tabletz and Education is unfolding yet again this year.  Bishop Hartley Highschool, Lextant and Ohio State University are teaming up this quarter in OSU's Industrial Design Engineerings 508 class.  Kind of a warm spot for me for a few reasons really. 

My father created the 508 course at OSU long ago when he was a professor there.  The course is aimed at getting the students out into the field and conduct real research with real result.  Teaches students everything from proposal writing, presenting, fielding and research approach methodoliges and more. 

And the other reason why I love this project really is cause I pushed it thru really.  Ever since the tablets debuted I've followed them, seen where they have weeded their way into viable marketplaces.  They have such incredible potential. About a year ago I came across the Bishop Hartley story, and wouldn't ya know it - we're all connected, cause at the time our IT guy was the same guy working for the school getting them all wired up for wifi.  I hooked up with Ken Collura, Technical Director at Bishop Hartley and the talks began.  

I'm amazed with their level of tablet integration.  200+ tablets connected to 200+ kids changing the way every class works.  The sheer number of research questions is mind blogging really. 

• Do kids really learn more, better, etc?
• Do tablets make learning fun?
• Can and will teachers also adopt tablets?
• What are the barriers or inhibitors?
• What about the backend, server and file management?
• Or the apps themselves, which ones, what classes are the tablets most profiecent in?
• What about media types, audio, video?
• And collaboration platfroms?
• What about potential abuses, napster, p2p, bittorrent, skype on the administrations network?
• Ergonomic issues, new postures, new stress loads on the hands, arms, body?
• How bout reading, screen clarification, eye strain?
• Printing, ebooks and availability of enough educational resources in an electronic medium?
• Ethics and standards in the new tablet wireless classroom?  
• Life after Bishop Hartley High school, will college be a step in the right direction or going back in time?
• What does tablet technology teach kids aside from class offerings etc?
• Who gains?  Who loses out?
• Who adopots? Who doesn't?
• Writing styles and note taking, cursive scribe is back, tablet likes, but is it native to the kids? 
• Is the tablet smart enough to keep up? 

and the players in the mix..

• Who's developing pen based software and technology?
• Can Microsoft give us a TRUE pen-based OS?
• Whats a better way to navigate vs existing top drop down file, mouse orientated navigation?  BIGGIE FOR ME
• Who are the players in the core education base?
• What kind of boot strapping is occurring on the back end to make it all stick together? - that is ripe area to find potential killer app development

Who's doing what?  Check it out: GoBinder, DyKnow, SlateGlove?, MathPractice, TabletPcTalk, ArtRage, and more...

In other news, i'm catching up with the Folksonomies.  Readin about Intuitiveness, realizing I really really really need to get it goin here at work to blog, and what is it that attracts me to blogs i cant read but surf anyways? 
Oh and I love this, in fact I wanted to create something like this a long time ago.. i wish i could program... where should I start?  flash?