The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the international body charged with managing the standard file formats and protocols that make the web work, has formed a group to look into connecting people with mobile phones. The Mobile Web for Social Development interest group (or MW4D, they really like acronyms) will be looking in how to better utilize mobile phone networks to provide services to rural and under-privileged communities in developing countries.

Mobile phones are increasingly touted as the key to issues from how to provide content to people to how to get rural communities online. Wireless cell networks are cheaper and easier to setup and phones have become inexpensive. The MW4D will bring together industry leaders in mobile technology and hopefully come up with some good ideas on how to make use of these networks.

Although the mobile device is hailed as by content producers looking for the next revolution, it has a way to go before it can be use for more than the simple communications it’s designed for.

I have a Windows smart phone right now, and it was the top-of-the-line when I bought it from AT&T last summer. Let me tell you, I really don’t like using for anything other than making calls, sending texts and sending emails. The screen is too small, the software is not well designed and the Internet connection is slow in most places. In the past few weeks I’ve had the opportunity to use an iPhone and I have been impressed by how it seems to finally fix most of the problems with using a mobile phone to access Internet services. Most mobile web pages are added as an afterthought, but the iPhone gets around this by doing a great job of displaying full size web pages.

It’s good to see W3C paying attention to the problem of using Internet services on mobile phones. We shouldn’t all have to buy iPhones to be able to make use of services on the web, mobile device designers and content creators need to focus on the big opportunity on the small screen.

via Businesswire and Cellular News

I wrote a month ago about a school district in North Carolina that is using smart phones in class as a platform for learning.

Mobile devices could be a great way to integrate technology into the classroom. They are inexpensive, ubiquitous, and are designed for communication. A lot of kids have them already, so teachers could harness their power instead of telling the kids to turn them off.

Read Write Web has a piece up about mobile learning and the integration of mobile devices in the classroom, a response to a recent book called Augmented Learning by MIT Professor Eric Klopfer.

Klopfer call this idea m-learning. E-learning is so 2005.

Small mobile game devices are already making strides in classrooms, although they may not all be mobile phones. I’ve talked about the importance of the educational software. The mobile phone could hypothetically be a great platform, but with all the different kinds of phones and different capabilities, can you create good software that won’t require all students to by an iPhone for class?

The ITU, or International Telecommunication Union, has produced another video about their efforts to connect  a remote and impoverished area of Honduras. They sent out a technician to install a wireless telephone that locals can use to communicate. This kind of thing can make a big impact in communities, allowing businesses to communicate with suppliers and buyers who only come to town once and a while.

Here is a good video about using microcredit to provide a poor remote village with a cell phone. The video is produced by the International Telecommunication Union, a special agency of the United Nations. Grameen Bank is an organization that provides micro-credit loans to people throughout the world, and provided the money the phone lady needed to get her business off the ground. The video looks at how useful and economically beneficial instant communication can be to individuals and communities.

A North Carolina school district partnered with Qualcomm’s Wireless Reach Initiative and Arlington, Virg., based Digital Millennial Consulting to provide some 9th graders smart-phones with internet access in a pilot program. The K-Nect Program, as it’s called, is an attempt to address three issues at once: Getting at risk kids access to the Internet, educating them on technology use and improving thier math scores.

How to cell phones improve math scores?

Well it looks like the consulting group associated with the project developed some custom software that allows teachers to send the kids math questions, which they can solve by themselves or with help from other classmates through peer-to-peer technology.

However it looks like the program is in trouble. According to an article on an NBC affiliate’s website, NBC17 in Raleigh, the funding is set to run out in June. The director of the project and of the Digital Millenial Consulting group, Shawn Gross, ‘pleaded’ with the state board of education for more funding, which will be matched 100 percent by private sources, according to the article.

And from the article, it looks like the smart phones are popular among the students and might actually be teaching them math.

Now if only I could get my smart phone to stop crashing…

The era of global communication is upon us, and the Internet is changing the way people work, find information about their world and talk to friends and family. But many people are left behind because they can’t afford a computer, have no Internet access where they live, or are just plain scared of taking the plunge for the first time.

In the United States, availability of high-speed internet is a big problem. It’s difficult to get a broadband connection in many places. Urban as well as rural areas of the country are lacking the infrastructure. Despite President Bush’s promise to improve access to broadband, about half of americans have broadband in the home. Part of the problem is the lack of data thats collected to monitor the progress of wiring the nation.

Cities across the United States, like Chicago, Philadelphia and Houston, have contemplated or implemented city-wide wireless Internet access as a way to address problems residents have getting or affording it on their own. Often these municipal wireless projects do not work out.

Other advanced nations typically have much better and much cheaper broadband access for their citizens. In Japan, consumers can get connections that are much faster than consumer connections in the United States. Less developed countries are a much different story. Lacking in communication infrastructure and the resources to build them, many residents of poorer countries have no way to get online. Experts are looking to mobile phones to pick up the slack and provide Internet access to people in developing nations.

Organizations like the not-for-profit One Laptop per Child (OLPC) are working on developing low-cost hardware and software for people – and in OLPC’s case, children – in the Third World. Other electronics companies like Intel and mobile phone giant Nokia are working on low cost computers and devices to get people online.

By far the biggest digital divide issue that has to be addressed is access to education. Many people lack the skills to use computers and the Internet, especially those without physical access to computers but also the elderly and many who are afraid or aprehensive of technology. Some money available to help communities provide computer education, but the demand for affordable training is greater than its availability. Training will just become more important as more employers look for computer skills in all of thier employees.