Mobile phones are becoming Internet browsers

The picture above is part of the wrapper from a cup of coffee bought by a blogger writing in Las Vegas. He uses it to illustrate a post on Mobhappy.com in which he describes the wrapper as an indication that the tipping point has arrived for mobile phones to have browsers:

. . . the bit underneath that’s interesting, the “or go to m.yahoo.com using your mobile browser.” Yahoo’s confident enough that people will know their phone has a browser, know how to use it, and be comfortable enough to access the service that they’ll put it in mass-market campaigns. Nice.

The writer is pointing out that a device most parents, teachers and school officials are now carrying, which was once basically a phone, is quickly becoming an Internet browser as well as a phone. That means Internet-based information is increasingly carried by people responsible for the welfare and safety of children. As mobile phones become more powerful and featured Internet browsers, their role in school safety should be developed at the same time. If a child is hurt, the adult in charge should be able to reach help and information quickly. A mobile phone that the adult carries routinely is obviously an ideal means to reach help. With a browser, that mobile phone is also the best means for receiving information directly from where it is archived. At Defywire, making these immediate connections and optimal information delivery operate for the safety of children at school is what we do.

Video messaging in the safety picture

For the past two days I attended WebVideo Summit07, where I learned a great deal about the videos that are cascading on to websites and into mobile phones. One of the most interesting presentations was by a company called Veeker which is, among other things, serving as the platform of some citizen reporting via video to local NBC TV news stations.

The Veeker talk included an account of how citizen video reporting proved to be a significant safety factor in the wildfires earlier this fall. People reporting fire danger from onsite through their mobile devices made it possible in some cases for media to stay ahead of the danger curve in alerting their audiences.

As I listened, my thoughts shifted to how school staff and faculty could use video messaging for school safety. This may become an important piece in the school safety picture in our increasingly digital times. Veeker has an explanatory webpage about this new communications venue.

Personal safety assembly at Lakewood, Colorado middle school

Master Corina Black, shown above, heads the ATA Black Belt Academy in Lakewood. She is passionate about women’s safety and self-defense. Last May, she conducted a personal safety and self-defense assembly for approximately 800 eighth graders at her community’s Dunstan Middle School. Female teachers and administrators also attended. Master Black said about the event:

The girls were very attentive and interested in keeping themselves safe. I was very pleased with them accepting the challenge of keeping themselves safe over the next 8 years as they complete high school and then college. I outlined a four-step plan as a starter for personal safety and awareness — P-erceive; A-nalyze; F-ormulate; I-nitiate. They also got to try a hands on approach to someone grabbing them and a spacial body positioning drill in relation to a real or perceived threat.

It is helpful to think of safety across a broad range of techniques. Physical self-defense is perhaps the oldest, and certainly important for every youngster to have in the range of ways to keep from getting hurt. It is good news, though, that new lines of first defense can be not physical, but digital. In our maturing age of digital devices and wireless communication, highly effective self-defense is often using a cell phone to send alerts and location information that will bring help.

The story quoted and image are from YourHub.com, a weekly section produced by the Rocky Mountain News.

Jan Chipchase of Nokia on mobiles

TED Talks: Ideas worth spreading is a series of videos recently made available online from the distinguished conference series of the same name. To go to the TED page where you can watch a talk on the mobile future by top researcher Jan Chipchase of Nokia: click here.

The image above is from the screen behind Chipchase. He says that connections & consequences is the theme for what he describes in the talk. He speaks for 19 minutes and does not mention school safety directly or talk about schools. He describes more fundamentally how mobiles are becoming how connections are made. The mobile principles and phenomena he touches on often have strong implications and insights for the world of schooling both now and in the future. For school safety, connections and their consequences can only be major — and personal mobiles of teachers, administrators, parents and students are certain to play big roles.

If you have the time to listen to the talk, we think you will find it interesting and useful background for planning toward the future.

The new fundamentalness of mobile contact

The image above is from a fast-growing part-time employment service in Japan. It is taken from a blog post by entrepreneur Joi Ito, who explains:

My sister has written about the Japanese youth behavior where less and less stuff is planned – the kids going out and using their mobile devices to meet up or deciding to do things while constantly keeping in touch with each other. These swarming bands of kids are now adults and many of them don’t want to be tied down.

These “kids” are not becoming adults. In a recent survey by Otetsudai Networks, most people surveyed cared more about freedom and flexibility than the pay when considering a part-time job.

Enter Otetsudai Networks. With Otetsudai Networks, if you are willing to work, you sign up for the service with your skills and focus, take a GPS reading on your phone and then just hang out. If you are looking for someone for say… 3 hours to man a cash register or help wash dishes, you just send the request to Otetsudai Networks and within minutes, you have a list of people available. The list shows what each person is qualified for, how others have rated their work and exactly how far away they are. Typically you will receive a list of half a dozen or more people within a few minutes.

The image and the employment service are an intriguing window on a fast-arriving future. It is not only the kids in Japan who are creating a new way of doing things with their mobile phones. It is happening to youngsters everywhere. Nowhere is the kid-mobile-phone phenomenon stirring up more change than in schools — which makes sense because that is where the mobile generation is now spending its time.

As digital transformation has rolled across the world over the past decade, schools have lagged behind in some important aspects. That must not happen with school safety. An example like the Otetsudai Networks is a reminder that for today’s kids their mobile phones have become fundamental to their world. To keep abreast of these times, Defywire puts the mobile in the center of a school’s safety initiatives and focuses on the rollout of new ways to keep our kids safe using this central emerging technology.

Handheld Learning — Handheld Safety

This week in London, several hundred people are gathered for the Third Annual HandheldLearning conference. After last year’s conference, John Galloway of The Guardian reported:

“the key element in London’s recent Handheld Learning conference was not the tools but the ethos behind them. It covered more than one technology – in fact anything you can easily carry, including personal digital assistants (PDAs), iPods, tablet PCs, mobile phones, and even games consoles. These are not new technologies, and the speakers weren’t saying anything they hadn’t said several times before. However, it seems the message – that these devices can fundamentally change learning – is beginning to be heard more widely.”

While possibilities and techniques for handheld learning are being explored now and in the months and years that lie ahead, Defywire is pioneering in parallel to develop a powerful potential for what could be called handheld safety.

The concluding observation can easily be paraphrased from The Guardian: Handheld safety is based on the fact that these devices can fundamentally change safety — which is something that is beginning to be heard more widely.

A fundamental reason the devices can make changes toward greater safety is that teachers and administrators can use the mobile phones that they routinely have with them to receive and send safety information more quickly and effectively than through any previous system.