Hand holding

As you will have seen from my previous posts, I spent 3 days in London this week, attending the HandHeld Learning Conference. I had some money in my research budget so I decided to avoid the numb bum syndrome this year, and fly up from Plymouth to London. I arrived at London City Airport at around 0930 where we landed in the rain. The Dockyards Light Railway took me to Bank and having looked at the map, I decided to walk the rest of the way to Chiswell Street. I wish I hadn't. No sooner had I emerged from the underground and turned a corner than a fine member of the London Transport drove by in his double decker bus and swamped me by driving through a puddle. It was my Bridget Jones moment, and for a second, I imagined myself wearing a white dress (Steady on now - Ed). I jest of course - I don't cross dress. I can't even cross the road. No, seriously, I was furious and called the bus driver a very rude name. He didn't hear me. Nobody else took any notice either. People walked by quickly with their heads bowed against the weather. Well, I told myself, this is London. And so I dragged myself onwards....

The walk up Moorgate, dodging the rain and the puddles and the maniac bus drivers, and on into City Road seemed interminable. At Moorgate tube station I did happen across a great fast food counter that served some of the largest vegetable samosas I have ever encountered (and at £1 each, superb value). Breakfast done, and wiping the crumbs from my face I finally wended my weary way, slightly damp and steaming, into the Handheld Learning venue - the Brewery. The gentleman in the bowler hat and top coat who meets and greets you outside in the cobbled courtyard is an excellent bloke - he is one of the best features of the Handheld Learning Conference - always cheerful and always willing to assist.

Inside, many people were already milling around in reception, where I was presented with a bag with my programme and a theme park style wrist band to wear. Wot no name badges? Nope. You are expected to introduce yourselves properly.

And introduce ourselves we did. It was great to meet up with so many Twitter people (Tweeple) whom I have got to know over the last year or so, and have enjoyed conversing with. This list is not exhaustive, but it gives you an idea, as I bumped into Simon Finch, Michelle Gallen, Drew Buddie, Ollie Bray, Leon Cych and Dughall McCormick - all of whom you should follow immediately, because they are jolly decent blokes (and I include Michelle in the blokedom of blogging). It was also good to mix it up again with Dave Sugden, Lilian Soon, Stuart Smith and the ever-present James Clay, all of whom put on a great show for the fringe events - HHECKL. I also got to speak to Donald Clark, James Paul Gee, David Cavallo and Zenna Atkins, all of whom were featured speakers at the event.

The talks I attended at HHL were generally very well presented (unlike this blog - Ed). I make a special mention to John Traxler here, whose talk on the role of student owned devices was excellent. The food was sophisticated although a long time coming, the drinks were overpriced, the entertainment from the band at the awards ceremony was excellent, and the wifi service superb. Not bad at all really.

Getting back to London City Airport through the rush hour traffic, and in the pouring rain (which never seemed to cease during my 3 days in London) proved to be a bit of a nightmare, but I wasn't going to risk the long walk back down to Bank and another Bridget Jones moment. My bowler hatted friend assisted, with umbrella in hand, risking life and limb to plunge himself into the fast moving traffic, hailing me a taxi. My taxi driver then did a stirling job veering in and out of the back-up traffic, to make sure I didn't miss my flight. Of course, I rewarded him appropriately.

So here's to next year's event - if it's anything like HHL2009, we are in for another treat.

The Atkins diet

Zenna Atkins is a particularly influential figure in the world of British education, yet her personal learning journey has been chequered. It was refreshing then to see her give the opening keynote at this year's Handheld Learning conference, in London.

Atkins is actually more of a 'mum' than she is the chair of OfSTED. At least this is how she portrays herself, and she laces her narrative with school from a parent's perspective, rather than sticking to the standard mantra that emanates from many government appointees. She has also been hailed by the press as 'a failed student who is now in charge of inspecting schools'. Zenna Atkins focused on the consumer power that has emerged around Web 2.0 services. It is both disconcerting and liberating she said, that patients often know more about their condition than their GPs, due to trawling around on Google. It will only be a short time, she warned, before a similar situation arises in schools. Teachers are often lagging behind when it comes to good use of learning technologies, but worse, they can no longer aford to represent themselves as the sole arbiters of knowledge.

Atkins cited an incident where her son streamed a live video of his classroom to her at home using his mobile phone. She was appalled to see a small riot raging unchecked in the classroom, whilst the teacher sat doing nothing, with his feet up on the desk. Incensed she phoned the school and alerted them to the impending disaster, and a senior member of staff was summoned. The lookout posted at the door told the teacher and when the senior staff member entered, all was calm and business-like. The school denied anything untoward had happened, and took disciplinary action against her son. Atkins was able to show the senior staff member evidence that her son was 'telling the truth', but her point is challenging... The power is now in the hands of the parents, regardless of whether schools ban mobile devices or not. The entire educational system is being challenged when parents are able to eavesdrop into classrooms using the technology that is currently available. What will happen when this becomes common practice? Good question.

Read also an excellent summary of the rest of Zenna Atkins' speech (by Terry Freedman).

All in hand

I have just returned from another excellent Handheld Learning conference in London. Because it was a conference focused on handheld technologies, I promised I would do an experiment and see if I could survive for three days without a laptop, and using only my newly acquired iPod Touch. Well, I survived, and some things worked, whilst other things were a little more problematic (the wifi service was second to none, by the way - congratulations to Graham Brown-Martin - pictured - and his team for this).

For example, I was able to Tweet live from the event, firstly with the standard Twitter application on my Safari web browser. A bright young thing then introduced me to EchoFon which I downloaded for free from the iPod App Store. This made my life a lot easier, and I was able to see more clearly what I was tweeting, who was responding to me, and I could also more easily reply, DM and RT other people's tweets. EchoFon used to be known as TwitterFon, and it's designed for mobile phone use, so it was ideal for the task.

Less easy was updating my blog which I found quite difficult. For some reason, Safari would not allow me to modify text once it was saved on Blogger. Not sure why that was, but James Clay showed me how to e-mail direct to my blog, including the posting of images as attachments, which I will try when I can pluck up enough courage.

I was also able to respond to e-mails until someone sent me 13 MB of pictures which clogged my university e-mail inbox, and then I couldn't send or receive anything. I would normally save the pictures onto my laptop, but of course, with only my iPod Touch this wasn't possible. Unless, of course, someone out there knows differently.

My hashtagging wasn't being picked up by the conference feed or Twitter either - someone told me that Echofon has some problems here, but I think there may be a more deep seated problem than that, and I'm sure someone out there has a solution...?

It was an interesting experiment to conduct, and I will do it again for other conferences. It was wonderful to not have to lug my laptop across airport lounges and drag it across London. Oh, what liberty, but at a small price of reduced functionality. More from the conference when I get some time to reflect and post my comments.