Recently I was asked by @PatParslow to participate in a research survey on Digital Literacy at University. The overall task of which I believe is to assess how students use various technologies in various scenarios, and how that has shaped the way I work, and socialise. For example; the tools I use, how I go about using them, and the situations I use them for.

University work vs Personal use

What I'm doing influences how I use technology. For example, an email relating to university work is generally more formal and brief. It's often that the person on the other end is busy. So I try to adjust the wording to be polite and concise. This is in the hope that it makes it easier for the receiver to read and process without distracting them entirely. Hopefully this is more memorable and can lead to a prompt reply if needed.

The idea of email being marked urgent for quick response in my mind is silly. If it's something important enough, and you don't phone them why not? You're far more likely to have a reply quicker than my infrequent email times, which I normally save for the evenings, or times that I'm being unproductive. It's also very difficult to forget to reply to someone on the phone.

I find that I almost rely on technology too much for entertainment and communications. So when I'm on holiday I cut this down and avoid using it for anything similar to work. This is where the iPad comes in handy. I'm much more likely to socialise or read articles for pleasure as opposed to something academic whilst on holiday. However, when the time comes to focus on work again the switch is instantaneous. It's an especially useful device when it comes to researching and browsing through the web. By syncing to iCloud it allows me to save articles to read later, as well as through dropbox to save documents.

Public Image

The more content that you create through identifiable means, the more someone can learn about you. Be it that they're a friend, stranger, or potential employer, they can see anything that's public. If you've intentionally put content out there and linked yourself to other mediums across the internet it is possible for them to see any public content on that too. Considering this I find myself censoring what I say. Would I want it to be quoted as a reflection of my character or not? If the answer to this is no, then I consider why I want to publish it, often finding it to be completely pointless, which I believe also helps with some self-reflection.


What about you? Do you think before you tweet? Are you concerned at the permanent nature of things you say and how they can effect your portrayal in the future?

Being a student studying computer science I regularly use a variety of software packages to get the job done. One of the powerful tools in the first year of university was Visual Studio. But I was aware that not many students were informed where they could download this software, the simple answer is through Dreamspark (www.dreamspark.com). This is a portal to free software for all students at participating Universities. You can grab a lot of useful tools here, in particular for a competition for a Nokia Lumia 800.

The Windows Phone Incentive scheme this year has started. The idea is that students who are eligible dream big, and create useful and beautiful applications for the Windows Phone 7 market place with a chance to grab one of the shiny new Windows Phone 7 devices, and win a trip to the Microsoft Technology Centre here in the U.K. You can find further details at http://blogs.msdn.com/b/microsoftukstudents/archive/2012/03/13/new-student-incentive-write-apps-chance-to-win-a-windows-phone.aspx

Now that the University of Reading has had it's Phone Camp event day from Microsoft and three lucky people were rewarded with a brand new Nokia Lumia 800, maybe those folks will still give creating an app a try!

The Microsoft Academic team is coming the the University of Reading for a day introducing people to the Windows Phone 7 platform. Come along and get your feet wet with some Microsofties!

The event runs from 1pm - 6pm on Wednesday the 14/03. I'll be there. To sign up to the event check your  University inboxes if you're a student, or email Microsoft at ukstu@microsoft.com.

Think up some app ideas before the day and maybe on it they can become reality, and if you're a student, they could be published for free, and you can even make money from them. Learning a skill that can make money from nothing is certainly useful!

Not at Reading? Not to worry, you can see a full list of planned Phone Camps here.

Edit:
There's an opportunity to win one of 3 brand new Nokia Lumia 800s!

Download the software in advance from Dreamspark and get set up ready for a day of development!

You're a student on a technical degree with need of a high speed, reliable, internet connection that doesn't cost an arm and a leg.

You notice that Virgin Media serves as a viable option to do meet these requirements. With a fast setup and relatively cheap unlimited internet to your door with no line rental what could go wrong?

The short answer is; a lot. Too much in fact. Since day one the router firmware failed to update correctly so despite the helpful engineer coming to install the service it remained unusable until we decided, by chance, to perform a factory reset. Additionally on day one their online activation service was down so it was only after performing numerous phone calls that we were able to activate, which turns out uses the same system that was down, so even a Virgin Media employee was helpless to assist.

Then you see that amazing 50mb download speed that you'd only dreamed of until this point. Then the fun begins. The sub-standard Virgin Media Superhub that you are supplied with may as well be a soldered blob, it's useless on wireless. With frequent drop outs, slow downs and packet loss you also get the joy of a minute amount of the 50mb bandwidth that you pay for.

From then on it becomes a battle to do downloads in non-peak times, often being faster on a mobile. Rather than admit there's a fault on your service on the status page, it seems Virgin Media are content with you thinking this sort of rubbish is normal for them. After ringing up the staff seem unaware of any issues, yet on the Forums there are numbers referred to and fix dates. However, the first fix date was for a different problem. The other problem was due to be fixed 2 days later, neither have sorted it.

It's a bit of a wasted effort writing this so I'll stop there. But this isn't acceptable - even if they'll refund on a substandard month. They won't rebate for 5 months of poor service which is entirely their fault.

I can't help but find it hilarious that they're advertising new speeds in Reading of 100MB and 120MB for users. They can't even make 10 at peak times. I could actually go and buy a DVD on amazon and have it arrive before I could watch it on Netflix.