Handheld and Mobile Computing and Articles, Papers, and Reports

Geolocation, also called geotagging, is the practice of associating a digital resource with a physical location. A photographer, for example, might include the longitude and latitude coordinates for where a picture was taken, allowing others to pinpoint that location on a map. Increasingly, geolocation is being applied to infrastructure components and end-user devices for the purpose of knowing where people are. This additional layer of location data can make resources much more useful to a broad range of users.

The "7 Things You Should Know About..." series from the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) provides concise information on emerging learning technologies. Each brief focuses on a single technology and describes what it is, where it is going, and why it matters to teaching and learning. Use these briefs for a no-jargon, quick overview of a topic and share them with time-pressed colleagues.

E-text readers designed for use in higher education will reduce textbook pricing and address environmental concerns.

The New Media Consortium (NMC) and the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) jointly produced Horizon Report describes six areas of emerging technology that will have significant impact on higher education within three adoption horizons over the next one to five years. The 2008 report focuses on the following topics;

• Grassroots Video
• Collaboration Webs
• Mobile Broadband
• Data Mashups
• Collective Intelligence
• Social Operating Systems

The evolving technologies committee is charged with identifying and monitoring evolving technologies and their impact on higher education institutions. This submission is on M-Learning.

Focusing on “imagining the future,” the EDUCAUSE Evolving Technologies Committee looked at seven technologies and trends of 2007: the Web, Google Apps, Web conferencing, m-learning, 3D printing, virtualization, and information lifecycle management and physical storage technologies for digital.

"Be warned: One researcher says the iPhone could become the "perfect spying device," thanks to multiple security flaws."

A system that tracks students through their mobile phones is among the new technologies being developed to help improve security at America's universities - something increasingly of concern since the tragic events at Virginia Tech in April 2007.

When cellphones become safety monitoring devices, students, parents, and administrators can worry less.

This entire issue of The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, Vol 8, No 2 (2007), is focused on mobile learning. This special issue addresses some of the issues and challenges of mobile learning, and provides suggestions and recommendations for mobile learning and for research on mobile learning.

A pilot study of text messaging explored its usefulness in enhancing social presence and communication in online courses.