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January 29, 2007
Seriously Mobile Summit Scheduled for April 20!
Seriously Mobile Series Update:
We are in the midst of designing our annual Seriously Mobile Summit and Workshop Series and are happy to announce that we will again be at Reuters in their fabulous high tech conference suite and have selected a date: April 20. Last year we had over 70 people attend to hear from luminaries including Charles Jennings, Gordon Bull, Fabrizio Cardinali, Donald Clark, Wolfram Spoenlien, Jonathan Levy, Gilly Salmon, Stephen Clee, William Ward, and Dick Davies. Archive is still here.
This year we can expect another great keynote from Charles, thought provoking conversations led by Nigel Paine, a few less presentations than last year to give people a better chance to network and ideas to blossom, a few mobile technology solutions showcased, and the worlds second virtual world mixed reality panel where I will invite key thought leaders from around the world to join us online (I ran the first at Techlearn in NYC in 2004!)
We are also scheduling our first two hands-on workshops this year for March and May (dates will be selected later this week).
How to Podcast & Blogging in the Enterprise - combining our most popular Podcasting and Blogging half day workshops for a full day focussed on the basics of finding, subscribing, creating, distributing, and implementating. Participants will create their own podcast and embed it into their new blogs to better understand the process and just how easy it can be.
Mobile Performance Solutions - a mix of easy to implement mobile technologies showcased and positioned for which type of learning and performance need they address combined with experienced advice on how to get started with projects which will have impact.
Posted by Ron Edwards at 10:05 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 26, 2007
See You at the Learning Technologies Conference?
I'm excited to be speaking at this years conference and looking forward to hearing the presentation on games and learning following mine - but even more jazzed to see whats happening in the exhibition as the buzz on mobile continues to grow. David Wilson commented on the future of elearning on his blog recently and cited mobile (and games/simulations, too) as the way forward adding yet another voice to the chorus (Elliott, Jay, Clive, Hanif and Vaughan have all recently commented on mobile learning).
I hope to see you there, I will be oscillating between partners Giunti Labs and Datmedia booths - both have new press releases discussing mobile. I will also be visiting the Learning Light booth for whom I've provided some PSP content - it will be great to hear some feedback on it.
Posted by Ron Edwards at 10:33 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 23, 2007
The Year of Mobile Learning?
I gave an overview of the European mobile learning outlook to Ellliott Masies Extreme Learning workshop last week in which I highlighted the role of mobile phone based performance support through RSS feeds, access to corporate/job reference content, and the use of SMS/email messaging to quickly assess team knowledge and help reinforce key information. I also described the value and use of learning content on mobiles for those moments of when one finds a few minutes to explore and learn what they want and/or need, where ever they are. This has been described for years as a key benefit for mobile learning but I think we will actually see it happen more broadly to solve specific needs now that tools to create mobile content have become more powerful, easy to use and prevalent while the phones and networks have become more robust.
It turns out I'm not alone in my predictions, Elliott summarized my comments by saying he thinks this is the year of Mobile Learning on phones, and now I see that Jay Cross has predicted that he thinks it is the year of Mobile and Virtual Worlds in a press release by Learning Light (you will be able to read Quick Guides on mobile learning, RSS, Podcasting and more I wrote for Learning Light on their Members area as well as resources from Jay).
Meanwhile, we have the Learning Technologies conference next week in which I'll be speaking on Mobile, Web 2.0 Enterprise Applicatoins and Virtual Worlds. There are several more suppliers positioning mobile tools this year, from friends at Saffron Interactive discussing voice based solutions to partners Datmedia showcasing streaming mobile video and Giunti Labs with Interactive SCORM trackable content production and management. There are also three articles in Learning Technologies magazine alone on Mobile Learning, a first!
Of course, we will continue to strive for and deliver thought leadership on the applications, value and best in class tools for mobile performance solutions through research, consulting, writing and our Seriously Mobile series of Summits and workshops (2007 schedule will be announced shortly).
Posted by Ron Edwards at 08:30 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 21, 2007
Creating 3D Environments in 58 Seconds
People want increasingly realistic virtual environments for training, simulations and games. Today, they are mostly created from scratch by hand using 3D modeling tools such as 3D Studio Max using photos, memories, and occasionally CAD drawings which takes time. Last week we experienced a 3D model of the room we were in created in just 58 seconds using a laser scanner. We saw a few examples as well (below), one of an entire church interior and then part of a street.
Very impressive. This capability enables scanning up to 200 meters so anything from room interiors, corridors, tunnels, mines, oil rigs, streets, building exteriors to entire stadiums can be scanned and integrated into a 3D environment (OLIVE by Forterra Systems for live training or scenario planning with dozens to thousands of people. This capability is currently unique to the OLIVE platform (integration of industry standard 3D models and MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online) use) and will save big money and lives. There are a few companies today that can be hired to do this type of scanning, and a university we are partnering with who are interested in acquiring it for projects and research so stay tuned for our first examples of live training in even more realistic virtual worlds...
Scanning the room in 3D in 58 seconds
3D scan of a church. Color is added by attaching a camera to the top to get the color information and synchronise it.
A street was scanned, close up views show good detail,.
Posted by Ron Edwards at 08:55 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 16, 2007
Location Based Learning Games and Serious Virtual Worlds
We're mobile tomorrow with Celine delivering a speech at the University of Bristol on The Value of Location Based Games for Learning where she will be highlighting her Dockers Dilemma game and research (she blogs here) and Dick and I will be in Coventry discussing the new Serious Games Institute and we will be attending a demo on a cool tool that can map indoor facilities using lasers and create 3D models out of them. This gives us some great application ideas for handheld walkthroughs with some advanced handheld 3D gear we are working with and also for integration with Forterra Systems OLIVE Virtual World platform for more realistic, faster importing of buildings for training purposes (fire, security, safety, etc.).
Speaking of Serious Virtual Worlds, Dick has started to blog here.
Posted by Ron Edwards at 09:42 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack