Handheld Instructional Technology

VentureBlog: Coming Soon: Desktop In Your Pocket

Link: VentureBlog: Coming Soon: Desktop In Your Pocket.

Last year, I wrote an article about using your mobile device as a window into your desktop world. This year, we are several steps closer to that goal.

Ironically, it's desktop search companies that are leading the way even if they don't know it.

The Problem: Too Many Devices

The paradigm of yesterday is that you have multiple devices, and each one has its own set of information you work with. Your PDA holds your contacts and calendar, which occasionally syncs with Outlook where you also have your email. Your laptop contains your files and presentations that you work with, and your work server contains corporate files. Your home computer contains your digital photos and your private work.

What a mess. We keep things consistent through a complicated set of procedures we learn over time: sync your PDA daily, enter numbers into your phone, copy files from your work servers or home computer to take with you on your laptop, and hope that you don't accidentally forget or change the same file in both places.

The Solution: One Window To A Wireless World

When I wrote the article last year, the mobile devices (Treo in particular) were finally able to support the simple tasks you need while on the move: work with Microsoft Office documents, do email, etc. The latest Treo now has all of those features included in the purchase price, and applications like instant messaging are now robust enough to become useful mobile tools as well.

However, the problem of getting one window into all your information remains. That email with second cousin Selma's new address that you received 3 years ago is not something you want on your PDA. Companies like Good Technology are partially solving the problem by allowing you to share the same email, contact, and calendar view as Outlook on your desktop. However, current organizer information and email is only one facet of the problem.

Enter The Google

The latest fad in the consumer world is finally giving us a glimpse into the future. Google released the Google Desktop Search utility, which indexes your personal files and emails. It then allows you to search them using the familiar Google interface. It's cute, but the really powerful tool is called X1 (from the prolific folks at Idealab). It indexes all emails, even the old archived ones from three years ago, and has a variety of features that put Google to shame (of course, there's a lot to be said for free - X1 is $75).

This is finally a window into your desktop that could fit on a 2" by 2" screen. I wouldn't need to carry my desktop files around with me. I should be able to do a very simple text search on my Treo that will tell me precisely what file I'm looking for on my desktop.  I could then download the file, work with it, and put it back. I could even find cousin Selma's email from three years ago.

The additional technology necessary to support this feature is trivial. All X1 or Google would need to do is open up a secure interface as a web server. Any device with a web browser - your laptop, your Treo, your cell phone - could log in and find the necessary file, email, or information.

Your entire virtual world could be available to you in seconds through device that fits in your pocket. Will the desktop search companies realize this potential?

Wireless Security & Healthcare - The Wireless Weblog - wireless.weblogsinc.com

Link: Wireless Security & Healthcare - The Wireless Weblog - wireless.weblogsinc.com.

Hospitals have huge burdens on them with regards to protecting patient privacy, medical records maintenance and storage, sharing patient data, and managing the thousands of other processes needed to run the business of patient care. This report from Information Week tells us how Columbus Regional Healthcare System is increasingly using wireless data technologies to improve productivity while simulteneously protecting the wireless network from intrusion and eavesdropping.

But that wireless convenience and productivity comes with the burden of keeping sensitive patient information whirling through the air secure. The hospital didn’t want to dictate what types of wireless devices doctors and health-care professionals could use, Lewack says. So one of the first steps he took was to require hospital workers wanting to use wireless devices to register them with the technical and communications services office before they could use them to access the network. “We didn’t want to hinder the adoption of these devices by telling them what devices they had to use,” Lewack says.

[...]

[Wireless] gateways provide several ways to authenticate users to the network, including using passwords and secure wireless encrypted connections. The AirFortress gateways meet the government’s rigorous FIPS 140-2 (Federal Information Processing Standards) security-validation program and maintains compliance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, both important factors, Lewack says. The hospital installs AirFortress secure wireless clients on each device. The clients enable the devices to securely connect to the wireless gateways. AirFortress clients support a wide variety of handheld devices and are easy to manage, Lewack says.

Handheldmed

A Little Rock company has proved itself a pioneer among medical-software developers for hand-held-based technology and envisions branching into other professional fields.

An electronic reference for cardiologists released in early July by Handheldmed Inc. is the first such reference to be written, edited and designed specifically for hand-held devices such as Palm Pilots and Pocket PCs.

Featuring the contributions of more than 100 physicians worldwide, CVMstat is billed as the definitive reference for cardiologists.

The programs allow doctors to access medical information typically contained in a thousands-of-pages-long textbook on their hand-held units. The information also can be searched and retrieved rapidly. The data then can be used to diagnose and treat patients.

"It had to be very much truncated," said Dr. Eric Topol, one of three doctors who edit CVMstat. "Instead of the usual lengthy discussions ... we were thinking in terms of bullet points."

The focus on hand-held technology was something new.

"The whole idea was completely foreign," said Mark Maliwaukee, Handheldmed's president. "Handheldmed really pioneered that process."

Previously, medical-reference software for hand-held devices was adapted from texts already in print.

Topol, of the Cleveland Clinic Foundation's cardiology department, had edited 18 medical texts before serving as an editor for CVMstat. He said the problem with adapting texts to software is that "other programs not designed specifically for hand-helds don't work very well." "I think it's going to be immensely useful. This is the first of its kind. We think it's a major contribution," Topol said.

Maliwaukee said sales of CVMstat have been up to or above expectations, and marketing for the product is just getting under way. CVMstat retails for about $80 and can be downloaded off the Internet directly to a hand-held device.

Cardiovascular disease is listed by the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as the leading cause of death in the United States and worldwide. About 960,000 Americans die annually from cardiovascular disease.

Topol and a few fellow cardiologists conceived the idea of creating the definitive reference for cardiology, and one - Dr. Marco Roffi of the University of Zurich, Switzerland - pushed for a strictly digital publication. Handheldmed was picked to publish the software, Topol said, because the company is respected in the industry and was the only company that was ahead of the shift when hand-held devices became popular among doctors.

Surveys have shown that over the past five years the number of doctors using hand-helds has grown from less than 10 percent to around 40 percent, Maliwaukee said. And medical-specific software for hand-held devices has become a million-dollar industry, he said.

Topol said the electronic revolution became apparent while he was teaching resident doctors.

"I would be talking and people would pull these things out of their pockets," he said. "I said, `Whoa.' Nowadays you can't go on rounds without someone pulling out a hand-held device." Dr. S.W. Norwood, who works in the emergency room at St. Vincent Health System in Little Rock, said he enjoyed the convenience of using a hand-held device, as well as its many applications.

"It's so extensive and very user friendly," he said.

Norwood said he has used the program 5-Minute Clinical Consult, which is a general reference for physicians, and a program to assist in prescribing medication. He also had the Bible programmed into his hand-held and plans to use the device as an MP3 player.

Other programs for hand-held devices allow doctors to electronically keep track of their patients or assist in translating medical terms to other languages.

The plan for privately held Handheldmed, originally based in Ohio before being acquired by @Hand Medical Technologies about six years ago, is to design more reference works for other specialties in medicine specifically for hand-held devices. "[CVMstat] allowed us to build our platform for our future," Maliwaukee said. "We want to create the definitive reference library for 15 to 16 areas of medicine. From neurosurgery to radiology to pediatrics. You name it, there's a possibility for us. "Each title will be as complete as it can be. That's our objective." The company's eventual plan is to move outside medicine, Maliwaukee said. That would entail creating hand-held-specific software for professionals in real estate, law and other fields. Handheldmed has fewer than 10 full-time employees in Little Rock, but it is planning to shift its technological jobs to the city from California. Maliwaukee couldn't say for certain how many jobs that would bring to Little Rock. "We're actually excited about growing in Little Rock," he said. "We anticipate we'll be in Little Rock ... as long as I can foresee."

Macromedia CourseBuilder for Dreamweaver and UltraDev - Documentation Overview

Link: Macromedia CourseBuilder for Dreamweaver and UltraDev - Documentation Overview.

Using CourseBuilder (printable version) Download a printable version of the CourseBuilder manual Using CourseBuilder.

Mobile Learning

Link: Mobile Learning.

Mobile Learning and Pervasive Computing

This website is designed to provide a portal to the latest information on mobile learning and pervasive computing for trainers and educators at all levels from elementary education through higher education.

What is mobile learning?

The field of learning through technology is a vast one with subtle distinctions among its various branches. Distance learning incorporates all forms of instruction in which instructor and student are physically removed from one another by time or space from traditional correspondence courses to web-based instruction. Electronic or e-learning incorporates all forms of online instruction using personal computers.
PDA

Mobile learning, sometimes called m-learning, is learning accomplished with the use of small, portable computing devices. These computing devices may include: smartphones, personal digital assistants (PDAs) and similar handheld devices. There is some debate on the inclusion of tablet and laptop computers. Often, wireless two-way internet connection is assumed as an integral component.

What is pervasive computing?

Pervasive computing occurs when the entire environment becomes embedded with information accessed through devices that will range from desktop computers to handheld devices to items in development such as wearable computing devices.

How will instruction affected when the pervasive nature of handheld devices and digital tagging systems allow linking information to real world objects? How will teaching and learning occur when we are immersed in this new educational ecosystem?

This portal is divided into six major sections:

Issues
What are the benefits and challenges of mobile learning and pervasive
computing for the learner? the instructor? the academic community in which the
program is used?

Technology

What infrastructure is needed to support mobile learning? What devices are currently available and what are their potential uses and limitations? What will the future be like?

Applications

What do educators need to consider when planning a mobile learning environment? What software and tools are currently available to create and manage learning with
handheld devices?

Resources on mobile learning and pervasive computing

    Articles
    Learning Theories and Pedagogy
    Case Studies and Examples
    Sources for E-books
    Standards
    Statistics
    Tools and Software