4. Student on an exchange visit

Children and students make constant use of mobile technology. A scenario could be set up to explore this.

Scenario:

Sarah is 17 years old and is studying Spanish as a foreign language.

She is excited about an opportunity that has arisen where she is to spend two weeks with a Spanish family on an exchange visit. Discuss the implications of Sarah using mobile technology.

As with the previous page in order to answer a question based around a scenario such as this you need to break your answer down into sections so that you can analyse it efficiently.

To analyse this, make a list of the things she might want to do. For example:

  • Keeping an online blog / diary / photo gallery of the trip
  • Keep in touch with her family - phone, text, voip, social networking
  • Find out about the country she is visiting
  • Writing reports and sending them to her teacher
  • Find her way around unfamiliar places
  • Making short video clips of Spanish family members

Equipment available to her:

  • Smart phone
  • She has borrowed a wireless enabled netbook

This gives you a framework to work with to see how the technology helps and hinders the trip.

As before, take one issue at a time and look at the technology, implications, pros and cons.

What does she want to do?

a) Keep an online blog / diary / photo gallery of the trip

Description

Sarah wants all her friends and family to be able to see what is happening on her trip.

This includes making heavy use of social networking sites such as Facebook. Perhaps upload short video clips onto video sharing sites such as YouTube.

Using free shared photo galleries such as Flickr

Using a free blog service to write a daily diary of her days

She wants to do this whilst visiting places - take photos and then upload them via the Internet, writing diary entries in cafes. Making short video clips with the built in camera on her smart phone.

Pros

Because she has a smart phone she will be able to connect to the Internet whilst on the move. This could be done over the mobile networks or it could be done by wireless connection at a cafe

The smart phone could have apps installed that will allow her to take photos then upload them directly to a photo sharing site or Facebook.

She will be able to see comments that her friends and family have left on the social site.

She can use the wireless netbook to write blog articles from a cafe using Wi-Fi. This is easier than using the smartphone as the netbook has a proper keyboard and a good screen. It is lighter and smaller than a standard laptop although less powerful. It would suffice for this kind of use though.

 

 

Cons

Both netbook and smartphone will need regular charging

Sending / uploading data from overseas can be very expensive. This is called 'data roaming'.

Smart phones and netbooks are expensive and attractive items for thieves.

Video and photo files can be large in size. She needs to consider the speed of the link and her bandwidth allowance in her contract.

What can she do about it?

Charging - she must make sure that she has the right kind of mains plug as European and British mains plugs are different.

Data Roaming - She must make sure she has a suitable contract in place that covers overseas data roaming and that the bandwidth allowance is within her planned use of the Internet.

Carrying around expensive equipment - she should keep the netbook in an anonymous bag so as not to attract the attention of thieves.

She must not have any personal information on the netbook in case it is stolen. If she does need to keep some details then it should be encrypted and protected with a password.

Smart phones tend to be used to store all kinds of personal details. She should consider buying a SIM card just for this trip that is loaded with the bare minimum of contact details. She should password protect her smart phone as well.

Continue to work through each of the other points and break them down in a similar way.

 

challenge see if you can find out one extra fact on this topic that we haven't already told you

Click on this link: Mobile technology for going on holiday