The nextlab fall 2008 project journals have been deployed online this week.

You can find links to the project journals here.

The first batch of videos has been uploaded. You’re welcome to let us know what you think about them.

Hi everyone,

I will be holding extra sessions to discuss technical issues on Tuesdays, 3:30pm-5pm at 32-D507 (Stata Center, Dreyfoos tower, 5th floor).

For this week’s session, we will loan out equipment to you (GSM modems and phones), discuss SMS programming, and discuss the NextLab wiki and toolkit effort in general.

Please come at 3:30pm if you can.  We can start with equipment logistical issues, and team updates.  For this week, we will start the common “lecture” part at 4pm, as announced in class.  However, we can move the common time for future sessions to 3:30pm, if that is better for more people. (The people who previously couldn’t make it at 3:30 are now able to make it, so we now have the option to start the common time at 3:30pm for future sessions.)

As mentioned in class, your team programmers are most encouraged to come, but even non-programmers are welcome to come too.

See you,

Luis S.

NextLabbers,

We have just posted on the “bookmark feed” section of this blog, a dozen links to sites full of opportunities, funding sources, grants, fellowships, conferences and other great possiblities for those of you interested in making a mark in the world using mobile technologies. Please browse through them, as many of them are time-sensitive. You will not want to miss any of them.

We will, of course, continue to upload more, so please direct any good opportunities to us, and we’ll share them with the rest of the class. We really hope you look beyond the confines of this class, and realize your potential to have a positive impact out there.

NextLabbers,

We had our first session of the Guided Design Process last Wednesday, after the X-prize presentation. Based on that, Luis and I came up with a set of pointers that should make the process work better for next time. Please follow up with these pointers as we need to improve:

1.- Each team must designate ONE person to present for each Milestone. Since there are 6 milestones, there should be 1 or 2 opportunities for each team member to present. Having one person present helps us see the level of involvement and understaning each team member has in his/her own project.

2.- Each team must also designate one note taker for each presentation. Since the emphasis is on peer-to-peer feedback, unless your team is taking notes, most, if not all the feedback you are receiving will be lost/forgotten.

3.- Pay attention to other teams’ presentations. We are a projects-based course, there is no textbook or problem sets: much of your will learn will come from the experience of your classmates, and you should learn from them as much as from your own project, especially given the wide diversity of projects and skill sets from students in the class. Starting next Wednesday, Luis and I will begin calling on random audience members asking for feedback, insights or substantive questions about the presentation at hand.

4.- Laptops:
a.- Each team must bring at least one laptop to class, and have their slides prepared in case they are called on to present. Please do not rely on using someone else’s laptop.
b.- Unless you take notes on your laptop, or otherwise use it for class-related research, do not take it out during class. I saw a few people working on their laptops throughout last class without regard to their peer’s presentations, something I found somewhat disconcerting. The whole point of our Wednesday excercise is that audience members help improve their peers’ designs and those not paying attention are not keeping their end of the bargain. If someone is not interested in what other teams are doing, how they are doing it, and the obstacles they are facing, it’s likely that person will not enjoy or do well in this class.

Thanks!