Codiqa is a very new service which has been developed over the past month or so by Ben Sperry and Max Lynch. It allows users to create a mobile web-app by simply dropping controls onto the “phone”. The HTML required can then be exported, ready for use on your site.

The action happens on the Try it! page.

You’re presented with a blank “phone”, and a tool bar at the top containing a range of web controls. You simply drag the control you want to the “phone”, and then edit its properties in the pane on the right. It’s about as simple as that.

Interestingly, it allows you to drag accordians and grids onto the stage and then drag controls into the content areas of each to populate them, which I think is a nice feature. The controls even have several colour themes to choose from to customise the look and feel a little.

The whole thing is very easy to use and I got a complex (albeit meaningless) web page together and ready to go in under ten minutes. You can view that web page here: http://www.e-bls.com/app.html (best viewed on a mobile device, obviously).

When ready, simply click the Download HTML button and you’re offered a zipped HTML5 page with the necessary HTML markup and jQuery includes to get your page running. One page which you can upload to your web server. Nice and easy.

Here is a shot of the interface with a sample page in development:

One gripe though is that I couldn’t figure out how to add multiple pages to the project. While the naviagation objects have a property to choose where they link to (as well as a transition property), you can’t link them anywhere because you only have one page to work with. Maybe that will come in the future.

The generated HTML also has a section for “custom JavaScript” so there may be some functionality added for that in the future as well.

For something that’s so early in its development, it’s looking very good and definitely something to keep an eye on. It currently has two pricing options available: $US10 per month for a single developer and $US30 per month for a team of developers.

What do you think about Codiqa?

“Play is the highest form of research.” ~ Albert Einstein
“Play is the beginning of knowledge.” ~ Anonymous

The idea of using games in education and training is not new. Clark Abt¹ touched on the subject as far back as 1970 in his book ‘Serious Games’. Yet when it comes to online delivery, there is still some shying away from this powerful training tool.

The reasons for this are varied. For many, games are simply the equivalent of playtime, and therefore not suitable for training that is often critically important. Modern games are often identified as 3D ‘shooting’ style games, and therefore have a huge development budget and are consequently not available for the average training provider. Gamers are stereotyped as isolated individuals, immersed in a game, cut off from their peers and as a result, not the team players training outcomes so often ask for. There are certain restrictions and downsides that are worth keeping in mind while designing training. Firstly, the majority of Learning Management Systems (LMS) will not be able to cope even with standard tracking of basic player progress and achievements (with the exception of Replication games). Secondly, while definitely catering for the learning needs of Generation Y, Generation Z (also tagged as Generation M), are the digital migrants not being left behind?

Indeed, all of the above can be true. Yet, on close inspection, it is clear how much more gaming has to offer for effective training delivery. Well-designed games are affordable and extremely adaptable training tools increasingly popular among military and medical providers. Educational games might be valuable in providing a safe context for active student learning. Game worlds can be more concrete, immersive, and open-ended than textbooks. By definition games respond to social constructivism goals such as learning by players’ collaboration. The immersive nature of the game proves itself essential to training and learning success. As Cathy Moore, an international instructional design thought leader dedicated to saving the world from boring instruction says, ‘Our job is to design information [sic] experience’². Games are the very tools in trainers’ hands that enable practicing this brilliant idea. Through immediate application of learned content and immediate reward, addictive learning experiences are created.

To summarise all the benefits of this powerful training tool in a brief article is a challenge. But just to name a few: mentioned team collaboration and individual engagement, practical problem solving and skills are the main advantageous features. Quoting Kevin Corti, founder, PIXELearning Limited: ‘Games­based Learning (a.k.a. ‘Serious Games’) is all about leveraging the power of computer games to captivate and engage end­users for a specific purpose, such as to develop new knowledge and skills. Games­based Learning enables learners to undertake tasks and experience situations which would otherwise be impossible and/or undesirable for cost, time, logistical and safety reasons.’³

There are many paths for combining modern technology into games for training and teaching purposes. To understand the full scope of possibility helps with better content delivery choices, which are more suitable for the desired learning outcomes. It is almost an impossible task with cross ‘genre’ developments emerging almost everyday, but an attempt at online training games classification may look like the description below.

In serious games as the name indicates, the entertainment goal of an activity has been replaced with a purpose, namely, solving a problem. This has traditionally been used for defence, education, scientific exploration, health care, primarily using many simulation activities (one of many is ‘Amnesty the game’)⁴.

Within this category are replication games. They replicate the traditional way of study or training. These are often embedded games characterised by clear, short-term goals and enabling objectives. Primarily the game’s focus is on student self-tests and concentration enhancement. Typical activities are Drag-and-Drop, Matching and Flashcards. Scenario situation simulations are based on multiple choice questions and audio files belong in this category also. Typically, users would go through the game path individually. A good example of an advanced replication type would be ‘DNA – the double Helix’ game⁵.

Collaborative games require the players to form a team and work together to achieve a goal or goals. Often these games offer simulation replicating real life scenarios and demand application of acquired knowledge and skill, for example in procedural practice. Conversely to replication games, a player is expected or independently chooses to form a team, and will also take on a game specific personality (Role Playing Game). Within this category also sit:

• MMOG, MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online Games) – multiplayer games supporting hundreds or thousands of players simultaneously.
• MMORPG (⁶Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games) – online games, typically featuring at least one world, which continues to exist and evolve while the player is offline. As in all RPG type games, players assume the role of a character (as in Everquest, for example).

Immersive games are usually extremely life like, described as ‘shooter’ style with typically an action or adventure context, highly developed 3D graphics and played in the first person. These types of games require and develop higher-level skills and strategic thinking. The game space is variable and large, with its own set of rules. It sometimes also allows temporary cooperation. When used in the serious gaming field, these types of development would typically be used for military, civil defence or medical training purposes, e.g. ‘America’s Army’⁷. A simplified version of immersive games is also possible, such as ‘Immigration game’ in Tenement Museum, New York⁸. Additionally, ‘Second Life’ is a great example of a simulation SIM game, where either the individual or a group creates an immersive reality. The flexibility of these virtual worlds enables almost countless training scenarios to be played out.

Immersive games can also wrap and intertwine with real life, be even more collaborative (these boundaries are becoming increasingly blurred) and cross platform. The training goal is primarily to develop teamwork habits but it can also deliver almost any other training content that is possible to be written into the game plot. Alternative reality games (ARGs) are an interactive delivery with a storyline evolving over time, using multiple communication platforms, media and devices. The key feature is the ARG’s co-existence with real life, and also how the plot can be affected by participants’ ideas or actions. The following can be considered as variations of ARGs:

• Trans-reality games combining virtual gaming with game experiences staged and played in physical environments. Another variation of this game concept are Trans Reality Role Playing games (TRRPGs)
• Transmedia storytelling (also known as Multiplatform Storytelling) is very similar to ARG, where the audience engagement is the key and these pieces of content creating the narrative are linked together overtly or subtly.

The desired outcome in ARGs is the players spontaneously forming communities focused on unravelling the mystery or solving the question embedded in the game.

Augmented reality games are usually based on the same principles as alternative reality games, primarily using an augmented tagging engine, mobile apps, iphones, smartphones and tablets. The augmented reality engine is also used in increasing the number of MMORPG and trans-reality games.

Good examples that illustrate the various development types described above well are:

• Transmedia story/recruitment campaign for the Royal New Zealand Air Force designed by Brooke H. Thompson⁹,
• From the same designer ‘Missed Steaks’ – a fun alternate reality game created to train employees in medium-sized businesses on their corporate communication and team building skills,
• ‘The Lost Ring’ 2008 by Jane McGonigal – ARG developed for McDonald’s and the International Olympic Committee for the 2008 Summer Games¹⁰.
• CES 2010: Parrot AR.Drone – An iPhone-Controlled Quadricopter – a phone base augmented reality game¹¹.

In conclusion, even if game-based training is not dominating the training delivery yet, it is very likely to do so in the near future. After all, ‘We live in a world in which information and entertainment are customizable and immediately available.’¹² The Internet and the Social Media are forming a reality in which many believe that the games will soon be the preferred platform not only for communication, training and education, but also branding, marketing and sales. Games will become the primary tool used to influence and modify behaviours. This trend is inspiring a new emerging discipline called gamification, which explores the use of game thinking and game mechanics to engage audiences and solve problems in typically non-game situations. “At the intersection of loyalty, behavioural economics and game design – [it] is growing dramatically, with Gartner Group projecting that 70% of the world’s biggest companies will be actively using gamification by 2015”¹³.

_________________________

¹ an engineer, educator, environmentalist, entrepreneur, and social scientist at Harvard University
² http://blog.cathy-moore.com
³ http://www.pixelearning.com/docs/seriousgamesbusinessapplications.pdf
⁴ http://amnestygame.com/
⁵ http://www.nobelprize.org/educational/medicine/dna_double_helix/dnahelix.html
⁶ http://www.everquest.com/
⁷ http://www.americasarmy.com/
⁸ http://www.tenement.org/immigrate/
⁹ http://www.giantmice.com/portfolio/args/air-force-special-ops/
¹⁰ http://olympics.wikibruce.com/Beginners_Guide
¹¹ http://toucharcade.com/2010/01/06/ces-2010-parrot-ar-drone-an-iphone-controlled-quadricopter/
¹² Georgina Bath Goodlander, Smithsonian American Art Museum, USA
¹³ http://gamification.co/2011/10/27/intrinsic-and-extrinsic-motivation-in-gamification/

Perhaps it’s the need for speed in our industry: it’s unlikely I’ll get this blog post proofread. But why should advances in technology mean that more traditional things like quality and good grammar have to fall by the wayside? In actual fact, poor writing is just as likely to make the reader stumble in the online world as in the print one. Take something as simple as a modifier. The phrase ‘a light green dress’ means a dress that is both light and green. But ‘a light-green dress’ means a dress that is light green. That may seem small, but it can hold the reader up for a half a second, and those half-seconds add up pretty quickly.

A lot of the writing in the online world is aimed at the lowest common denominator. As long as the general gist is apparent, what do a few errors matter? There’s an ephemeral feeling to the online writing; it doesn’t seem as permanent as the print one, as indelible. But pages – and more particularly products – can last for years. A client isn’t paying for errors as part of the product. And credibility is something we sell with every product. It’s diminished by errors, which have a cumulative effect.

I’m sometimes staggered by the errors I see. Comma splices are one of the main ones. This is when two complete clauses are joined by a comma. To the literate person seeing one of these is the visual equivalent of someone scraping their fingernails down a blackboard. And unfortunately they’re really common in online work. Almost as common as using capital letters for emphasis. There are two fine conventions for emphasis: using italics or bold (use one or the other). But people insist on capitalising every third word. It’s not only poor punctuating, it’s distracting. It’s like repeatedly going up and down stairs.

How do we in the industry pick our socks up and resist the slide? At e-BLS we make sure our work conforms to a style guide. This sets out grammar and punctuation rules, but also sets a house style for projects (no serial comma for New Zealand English; the serial comma for American English). Our projects always include editing and proofreading stages to pick up errors and ensure consistency. As blended-learning specialists, we see no difference in the need for quality in print materials and online work. The more polished the product, the more user-friendly and effective it is. If you’re interested, I’m sure we can create a style guide for you too.

Basically how it works is you need to have a QR code reader installed on your mobile device – these are usually free to download. Some smart phones or tablets  come with them pre-installed. You just need to use the scanner to scan the code and the information contained in the QR code will appear on your screen.

A QR code sounds just like a barcode, but a QR code is better because it can store much more data. Data such as a URL, geo coordinates and text. On top of this, a QR code doesn’t need a special, chunky hand-held scanner like a barcode scanner to do the job, as many modern smart phones with a camera are able to scan and read it.

Anybody can generate their own QR code by using a QR code generator from sites like Kaywa.com, Google and more. Marketing and sales people all around the world have already started to make use of QR codes in magazines, on billboards, websites, merchandise and some people even have it on their skin as a tattoo!

Recently I saw a video about how Tesco uses QR codes to change the way people shop in South Kore. It is indeed a brilliant idea. I can see that QR codes will become a very powerful tool in our life very soon.

United Continental Holdings, Inc. has issued 11,000 of its United Airlines and Continental Airlines pilots with iPads to use on the flight deck. The iPad is designed to replace the bulky paper reference books, charts and manuals pilots use which way in at over 15kg. The normal flight bag for a pilot contains over 12,000 sheets of paper – and there’s one per pilot. The handy iPad weighs in at less than 1kg.

Each iPad comes loaded with Jeppesen Mobile Flitedeck which has all the information a pilot needs from flight checks through to navigation information and terminal maps.

United Continental Holdings, Inc. sees many benefits in the move to the iPad, with one of the major ones being environmental. They estimate they save over 16 million sheets of paper each year, which will save the lives of around 1,900 trees. Added to that is the reduced weight which will lead to a saving of over 320,000 tonnes of jet fuel each year and over 3,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions.

Of course updating the material is now much easier as well and pilots can have access to the latest information faster than ever before. The easy to use interface allows the pilots to find the information they want faster and easier, and the smaller device leads to a less cluttered flight deck.

It seems as though there’s no end to the benefits of moving to the mobile devices for the pilots, unless of course we raise the issue of using electronic devices during takeoff and landing…

How you moved any of your paper documentation onto a mobile device? Has it been a good experience?

The original article from Airlines and Destinations can be found here.

First, let’s look at some of the interesting statistics.

Technology is exteremely prevelent with almost all students owning some sort of digital device. 98% of students polled said they owned a laptop, a tablet, a cell phone, an MP3 player, etc.

Students’ devices are important to them – more imporant than their traditional learning materials. 27% of students consider their laptop to be their most important item, but only 10% of students consider their text books to be the most important.

The devices students are using are very important to their study and ingrained in their study habits. 75% of students said they wouldn’t be able to study without using technology. In fact, a study asked students to go for 24 hours without using technology or digital devices and some students reported symptoms similar to withdrawl from substance abuse.

Using digital devices can increase student engagement, which is always a good thing. 46% of students said they were more likely to read course material if it was available in digital format as opposed to hard copy.

Students are using digital devices to communicate not just with each other, but with their teachers too. 8% of students said they contact their teacher through Facebook, and 13% contact their teacher through text message. The communication extends to Twitter too, with “students in classes that use Twitter to increase engagement have been found to average 5 grade points higher than those in normal classes.”

The devices are being used in the classroom as well, with 70% of students saying they used their devices to take notes during formal class sessions.

It’s not just laptops which are important though as new technology such as tablets are on the rise too. 75% of students prefer using a tablets over textbooks and 50% think tablets will replace textbooks within 5 years.

These are just some of the statistics listed, and make for interesting thinking. You can view the full graphic below and check out some of the other enlightening statistics.

Are you adapting your training methods to encompass the latest technologies? Are your students more or less dependant on technology than those surveyed in this poll?

The original graphic can be found here: http://mashable.com/2011/08/10/students-technology-infographic/

The school is ‘grasping the opportunity to step into the 21st Century with the latest technology available’, reported an article in the New Zealand Herald yesterday (July 19).

Orewa College is to be praised for its progressive outlook.

As with most change, the scheme will have its naysayers – notably the parents who cannot afford the (roughly) $800 needed to buy one new iPad per child.

But the benefits will surely outweigh such negatives, especially if that financial pressure can be mitigated.

It will be interesting to see if other schools follow suit or opt to stick with traditional learning methods. If tradition prevails, parents won’t need to funnel extra money into stationery but students will be robbed of an opportunity to adapt to a fast-changing world.

As American educationalist David Thornburg said, ‘If we keep doing what we’re doing, we’ll keep getting what we got.’

It’s a simple ball rolling simulation, where the ball rolls around the screen based on the orientation of the device. Tip the device left and right, up and down, and the ball rolls around the screen accordingly.

As an app it’s not very refined or polished, but it serves as a proof-of-concept that Google’s App Inventor has the potential to create some interesting, complex applications without having to write a single character of code.

Check out the video of our app in action:

We’ve been specifically looking at three areas:

• What is possible with mobile devices?
• What is the best way to use mobile devices for e-learning (or mobile learning)?
• What is the best way to develop apps for Apple and Android devices?

Today I’m going to take a quick look Google’s App Inventor for Android, and what it can do.

App Inventor is a visual development environment which allows you to build apps for Android without touching a single piece of code. It’s great for designers or people who don’t want to write code but want to get started with Android app creation.

App Inventor is currently available in Google Labs, and is still a beta product at this stage. One neat feature about it is that it’s in the cloud, using the Software as a Service (SaaS) model. Your projects are all stored online, under your account (you need a Google account to access App Inventor) and all your development and export work is done online through your browser and a Java app.

App Inventor is quite simple to use, and the introductory tutorial shows how easy it is to develop your first Android app in just minutes. There is one package you need to install on your computer before you start, and you need to check your Java is up to date and up to the task before you begin, but the setup instructions cover all that.

Once you’re ready to go, building your app is as simple as dragging the controls from the left onto your screen area. Each control used in your project is listed on the right side of the screen area, and then the editable properties are available on the far right.

But the really cool part comes when we get to add the functionality and the logic. Clicking on the Open the Blocks Editor button in the top right will launch a Java application which will allow us to build interactivity simply through drag-and-drop.

There are two parts to the Blocks editor: Built-In and My Blocks. The Built-In section contains some standard properties and some logic which can be applied to the controls. The My Blocks section has the controls you’ve set up back in the editor. There is a live connection between the two windows, so switching back to the browser and adding another control to the screen updates the Blocks Editor automatically.

Adding interaction to the controls is simple, and a bit of fun. Simply click on the control you want to work with, a button for example. The slide out panel is populated with some button events you can respond to some properties you can set.

The blocks snap together like puzzle pieces, which lets you know if what you want to do will actually work – if the pieces don’t fit together then you’ll need to find another way of completing the task.

Dragging the “Button.Click” event to the right sets it up ready to perform an action when the button is clicked. Dragging the “set Button.BackgroundColor to” into the click piece sets it up ready to change the background colour on button click. Switch back to the Built-In options, select a colour from the Colors section and snap it onto the end of the “set Button.BackgroundColor to” piece.

That’s all it takes to change the background colour of the button on button click. It’s programming without having to type a single of character of code!

There are a lot of features available in this seemingly simple package. For example, it comes with a built in emulator for an Android device. Clicking New Emulator starts an emulated device. Once that’s up and running you can deploy your app to that device by simply clicking Connect to Device and choosing the device from the list.

If you already have pre-configured emulators you want to use (which you’ve set up previously using the Android SDK) you can choose to connect to those too, provided they’re running.

And lastly, back in the browser, you can choose to package the app to a phone connected to the PC, or download to the app as a packaged .apk file, ready for deployment or testing.

At present, I’ve only just started to explore App Inventor and what it’s capable of. While it’s easy to use and able to develop apps quickly, I don’t think it will provide the level of control we can get if we code the app ourselves through Eclipse. More will be revealed as I dig deeper into App Inventor. At present I’m working to create a simple rolling ball app that rolls around the screen based on the device orientation and attitude.

If the testing proves successful, we’ll post up a video of our app in action. Stay tuned.

Have you had any experience with Google’s App Inventor? Or what’s your preferred method of creating Android and/or Apple apps? Let us know.