Writing and the 4C’s of Mobile

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m writing a book on mobile learning.   My only previous experience was writing Engaging Learning, where the prose practically exploded from my fingers. This time is different.

The prose actually does flow quite easily from my fingers,   but I find myself restructuring more often than last time.   This is a bigger topic, and I keep uncovering new ways to think about mobile and new facets to try to include.   As a consequence, as the deadline nears (!), I find myself more and more compelled to put all free time into the text.

There’s a consequence, and that is a decreasing frequency of blogging.   I’m coming up with some great ideas, but I’ve got to get them into the book, and I’m not finding time to rewrite them.

When I do have ideas in other areas (and I always do), I’m finding that they disappear under the pressure to meet my deadline. And there are ancillary details still to be taken care of (photos of devices, coordinating a few case studies).

Further, as neither blogging or the book (directly) pay the bills, I’ve still got to meet my client needs.   Also, I’m speaking at the Learning Solutions conference and involved in various ways with several others, and some deliverables are due soon. I’m feeling a tad stretched!

So, in many ways, this is an apology for the lack of blog posts, and the fact that it will likely to be sparse for another month and some.

As a brief recompense, I did want to communicate one framework that I’m finding helpful.   I’ll confess that it’s very similar to Low and O’Connell’s 4 R’s (for which I can’t find a link!?!; from my notes: Record, Recall, Reinterpret , Relate), but I can never remember them, which means they need a new alliteration.   Mine’s a bit simpler:

• Content: the provision of media (e.g. documents, audio, video, etc) to the learner/performer
• Compute: taking in data from the learner and processing it
• Communicate: connecting learners/performers with others
• Capture: taking in data from sensors including camera, GPS, etc, and saving for sharing or reflection

I find this one of several frameworks that support ‘thinking different’ about mobile capabilities.   I’ll be interested to hear your thoughts.