Wednesday, July 09, 2008

mLearning Developing while Mobile

Most of my mLearning friends are undoubtedly aware, but there is a great tool for developing learning content while mobile. Google Docs are available on mobile browsers. I have found in my adventure drafting my first book on mLearning, that inspiration can happen anywhere, at anytime. I caught myself recently in a restaurant waiting for my order with a thought about something to look into. I grabbed my Blackberry Pearl, opened Google Docs, and added my thoughts to a notes document I created.


Of course, there are many ways you can do this, from the good old notepad, to text messaging yourself or leaving a voicemail to yourself (very guilty of this) or even using mobile blogger to post a message from your phone (as I am doing now). Google Docs has an advantage that you can append an existing document from any device at any time.


I'll post more on this later. My sushi is almost ready.


Message sent via Blackberry wireless messaging.



















Tuesday, July 08, 2008

Detecting Mobile Browsers- Applying CSS

In my previous articles on detecting mobile browsers, my scripts redirected the viewer to a mobile formatted page, such as the xfruits site I use for 2mlearn.mobi.

Greg at Brain Handles offers another suggestion, using the script to reformat a page using mobile detected CSS scripts. There are some challenges to his script, specifically for designers who aren't familiar with php scripting.

Personally, I prefer using the simpler script and having a completely customized page for mobile users. This way, you aren't just reformatting the content for mobile, but you can customize the content completely. The php script Greg offers, however, has advantages for internal users who want to reuse content that is simply reformatted instead of offering completely custom content for your viewers.

Click here to see Greg's suggested script.