I attended a very interesting symposium earlier today, led by Agnes Kukulska-Hulme with presentaions from John Cook, Tom Boyle and John Traxler. More tension.... The title was 'Tensions between personal space and social space in mobile learning'. Toward the end of the session, we were asked to get into small groups and think about the design issues if we were asked to create a mobile technology friendly site within a city centre. Several issues emerged, including cover from the inclement British weather (electronics and deluges do not mix - ask Noah.) We also thought that because some people didn't have access to mobile technologies (the so called digital divide) that we should make systems/access for them using kiosk based technology. By far the most important issue for our small group was the problem of finding somewhere to top up your battery when it goes flat. How could this be achieved...?There is a blog related to this subject run by James Clay, which you can visit to contribute toward the discussion.
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The question you explored in your session - about how mobile devices can be recharged "on the go" - is a good one.
One method an educator could already employ is the use of the portable power pack. These are essentially a portable, large capacity battery, usually with a couple of outlets for dispensing power for various devices (the largest models are capable of powering a laptop for several hours) including USB ports which are capable of recharging most mobile electronics.
I recently purchased three portable power units which I can recommend to other mobile educators. The units are powered by rechargable AAA batteries, and can be recharged themselves by plugging them into a USB port. They each dispense sufficient power to fully recharge several mobile phones (or PDAs) to full capacity; and should even this capacity prove insufficient, normal AAA batteries could be used to replace the rechargable ones, to provide further power.
Each unit (minus batteries) costs less than $10, including shipping, from this site: http://dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.3205 . For the greatest capacity, I'd recommend using good-quality 950mAh rechargable Ni-MH batteries, which would provide a total power capacity of almost 4000 mAh.
You've touched on an important issue here so I think I might share this information on my own mobile learning blog (http://mlearning.edublogs.org). :)
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