A short history of G1:1

If G1:1 becomes a landmark in research and development of the field, it is worthwhile to keep a record how it originally emerged. In a later stage when there are more people involved in these endeavors, it might not be easy to keep a full record. This document is a short account of the history of G1:1, from August of 2002 to March of 2004. The first G1:1 workshop was held in National Central University, Chungli, Taiwan. The name G1:1 in that first workshop was used to be 'G4P'. The second G1:1 workshop was also held in Taiwan during March 21-22 because the second IEEE WMTE workshop was held during March 23-25 at the same venue. The first and the second G1:1 participants are invited. IEEE WMTE workshop was a formal international events while G1:1 is an informal one. But the third G1:1 will go to public in May, Germany together with the meeting of the EU's Network of Excellence project, Kaleidoscope.

First WMTE Workshop, Sweden, August, 2002

G1:1 builds on the success of the first IEEE Workshop on Wireless and Mobile Technologies in Education held at Vaxjo University in Sweden, August, 2002. Cathie Norris and Elliot Soloway, in their banquet dinner speech in this meeting, pointed out that, to date, for K12, there are only a few percentages of kids using computers in their classrooms. To kids personal computers are not really 'personal'. This is an important reason for computers and networks in educational settings not having the kind of impact we all expected. They also stressed that teachers do not want technology, but curriculum.

Researchers in the first WMTE noticed that, today, almost every adult, and in some countries, almost everyone in all age groups possesses a cellular phone. Products between large screen devices such as notebooks and small screen devices such as cellular phones with names such as PDAs, pocket PCs, handheld computers, Palm-tops, and so forth are emerging. The uses of such devices for educational purpose are within reach. At the end of workshop, the organizer of the first WMTE, Milrad, proposed the possibility of some 3-continent consortium. It is becoming obvious that in a future of not too long, more and more students of different age groups will bring some form of computing devices with wireless communication capability into the classrooms.

G4P Workshop, March, 2003

As said before, the name of G1:1 was used to be called G4P, standing for Workshop on Global Public-Private Partnership Platform for Mobile Learning. It was held in March of 2003, at National Central University, Taiwan, to explore a possible global collaborative model. As summarized by Steve Yang of National Central University in email discussion prior to that workshop, the purpose of G4P was to try to establish a model of partnership among academia and industry in order to generate real impact to education with mobile learning technology. Academia can tell industry in what ways technology is best designed and used in education while industry will diffuse mature technology and product to users.

Prior to the hosting of G4P workshop, starting from January of 2003, a small group of researchers and industry representatives discussed about the possibility of establishing a global collaborative platform for wireless and mobile technology support for learning. Besides colleagues of the host, National Center University and representatives from Ministry of Economic Affairs of Taiwan such as Wan-Fen Chen, participants in discussion included:

Tak-Wai Chan (National Central University, Taiwan)
Pierre Dillenbourg (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne, Switzerland)
Randy Hinrichs (Microsoft Research, USA)
Ulrich Hoppe (Duisburg-Essen University, Germany)
Sherry Hsi (Exploratorium, USA)
Eugene Hwang (Acer, Taiwan)
Kinshuk (Massey University, New Zealand)
Marcelo Milrad (Vaxjo University, Sweden)
Roy Pea (Stanford, USA)
Jeremy Roschelle (SRI, USA)

Tak-Wai Chan, from National Central University, coordinated the discussions. He started by urging people to input their thoughts by telling a well-known western fairy tale, "There is a story that goes as follows: Once upon a time there was a village. One day, a fellow in that village demonstrated how to cook soup by putting some stones inside a barrel of water and started fire. People in the village were very curious about such a magic way to make soup. The fellow then claimed that if you put vegetables and meat into this soup, the soup tastes even better. People started to put vegetables and meat into the soup. Now I put the stones and you folks put vegetables and meat …"

G4P was held from March 24-27, 2003. All those listed above who involved in email discussions participated G4P meeting, except Hinrichs and Hsi who finally could not come because the treat of SARS. Pea, as planned, gave a videoconference talk in the meeting from Stanford. One special guest was Stan Shih, CEO and founder of Acer Inc. He used Tablet PC in his presentation and advocated his ideas about the potential such devices used in learning. See http://www.G4P.org for further information of G4P.

Conclusions of first G4P

International researchers had ample time of internal discussion and exchanges. With the arrangement of the Ministry of Economic Affairs, international researchers met and exchanged with local industry representatives. After the meeting, again, arranged by Ministry of Economic Affairs, there held a press conference in Taipei City. There in the press conference, researchers told the media the vision of mobile and digital learning and its impact to the industry.

Finally researchers came to draw conclusions of the first G4P:

Continue to hold a workshop of G4P before or after WMTE2004 (both will also be in National Central University in Taiwan);
Continue the forum format of G4P;
Write a summary of our position toward mobile learning and our anticipation of the possible benefits with industry partnership in IEEE Learning Technology Task Force Newsletter;
Edit a book in the series of CSCL published by Kluwer addressing on mobile technology impacts to CSCL research; and
Make a visit, if possible, by the host to the laboratories of the international researchers.

Taiwan delegation US and EU tour, ICCE2003 panel and others

In late October of 2003, a delegation of Taiwan researchers led by Dave Liu, representing the National Science and Technology of Program of E-Learning, had an expedition. They visited Berkeley University (Alice Agogino, John Canny, & Marcia Linn,) Stanford Research International (Jeremy Roschelle), Stanford University (Roy Pea), HP Lab (Ran-Fun Chiu & Alan Kay), Exploratorium (Sherry Hsi), Michigan University (Joseph Krajick & Elliot Soloway), and National Science Foundation of USA (Bill Chang & John Chernersiky). Then the delegation continued to visit Europe, Laboratoire Leibniz of France (Nicolas Balacheff & Jean-Fran?ois Nicaud), Duisburg-Essen University of Germany (Ulrich Hoppe), Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne of Switzerland, Switzerland (Pierre Dillenbourg), and Vaxjo University of Sweden (Marcelo Milrad).

In early December of 2003, Chan, Kinshuk, Marcelo, and Liu met again in Hong Kong at the ICCE2003 conference. There were more exchanges of a possible model of global collaborative initiative. Also, Chan, Kinshuk, Milrad, and Woodruff (Toronto University) conducted panel discussion in Hong Kong ICCE on the future of mobile learning.

Chan met Roschelle and Sabelli at SRI. There G1:1 idea had another round of iteration.