The ubergadget commeth!

Well, I've finally been freed of the evil force that is Telus and the wife and I are now on Rogers - and on a plan. Why? Pay as you go time expires every 30 days - so even if you get only $10, that is a $10 a month plan - and you still have to buy out your phone. The plans on the other hand (for a two person family plan) offer considerably more time for a better rate. And they are elegible for a new phone rebate every 18 months. When I called to tell Telus this morning, man how they tried to keep us - especially since I've been there since 1999. Ah well, their loss. Anyway, so the ubgergadget that I got was the Nokia 6820. A great little phone... that only shares files with my Mac... doh! when I was researching, I must have got mixed up because it's the 6620 that works the way I want - file exchange and isync support. But with the time that I've had with this little jobby, it's obvious that Rogers sees big things coming with this. It has Wallet - a way to store and use (excuse the Telus link) electronically ALL your payment and loyalty cards (damn it - that is what I was hopping to do in some other RFID based system and make a mint off of!) and it has a full keyboard. I'd certainly keep it if I was on Windows... but then I'd be on Windows... so it's off to Costco I go to swap this one out for the "junior" model - but one that runs on SymbianOS. As for what these could do in the long run for education. I can see these are being an alternative to clickers (with IR and BT connections) and I could see the capture facilities being very useful - especially if the data can be stored on an external card for easy offloading, or if there is good BT support. I'm still not sold on it, but now that both my wife and I have phones that are on this side of the 2K mark (freaking Telus), I'm sure will find ways to get them to be used in an educational setting. Technorati Tags: mLearning, Technology Integration, Uber Gadget