The Application of Innovative Technology

Included in the conference will be the opportunity for delegates to engage with a mobile, context-aware learning experience in a variety of situations, showcasing innovative and novel approaches in mobile and wireless learning. As part of the registration pack, delegates will be given an ‘active’ ID badge and asked to choose one or both of the broadcast technologies available in order to allow automatic detection of the delegates throughout the conference. A benefit of this will be to record the sessions that they have attended and to automatically generate a blog as well as transmit relevant information to delegate devices. The blog can then be accessed post conference to review the individual experiences of the delegate. This technology will be carried over to the evening sessions, with the full cooperation of all venues involved.

One of the main focal points of our conference is the use of technology and as promised in our last newsletter - here are a few words from our Technology Chair, Dr Chris Dennett:

 ‘The idea for the conference technology originally stemmed from conversations between colleagues in completely different areas of research in the School of Computing and Information Technology at the University of Wolverhampton and the realisation that with a bit of effort, sticky-backed plastic, blutack^® and a prevailing wind, the different bits and pieces we were playing with could be used to provide a wireless detection and transmission system to any mobile device. Things have moved on since then, with a proof-of-concept system starting to take shape. It doesn’t do everything we’d like it to do and is a bit Heath Robinson, but it’s a good start!

The system comes in two parts, the transmission of content (to mobile devices and the web) and the detection of delegate position. We’ve pretty much solved the transmission to mobile devices part, settling on a combination of Bluetooth (using a bespoke version of projectBluetooth hardware and software solution) and mobile messaging courtesy of the Steve, John and the team at Edutxt (www.txttools.co.uk). The delegate blogs should be following soon. Be warned though, they might not be the prettiest because the system is little more than a proof of concept and Chris hasn’t allowed enough time for content design and creation. It is multimedia though, so should give you an idea of what is possible.

The real fun has been detecting delegate positions. We wanted the whole service to be pervasive, so that you’d forget it was running until your ‘phone buzzed with some useful information about what you were standing in front of. Each time we came up with a possible solution, we’d find a reason as to why it wouldn’t work. We still haven’t finalised that last bit, but we’re nearly there. The mesh network of sensor nodes dotted around the venues are used to tie the points of interest to the information we have about them. All we’ve got left to do is recognise individual delegates at each of these points. We’ve got a couple of possible solutions, but I’m not telling. You’ll have to come to the conference and grab the slightly harried looking technology chair to find that out!

So, that’s where we’re up to at the moment. Things we’d like to do if we have time is to apply some of the learning algorithms that we’re developing for other projects to the system, so we can give you information based on your interests, where you’ve been before, who you’ve been talking to etc. If we do it, it’ll be basic (See penultimate line, second paragraph!). I have a solution for that too... "