iPad, uPad

I have a new paddy. No, there is nothing wrong with my old paddy, and I still love it as much as the first day we met. But it has a friend now. It's a work pad. A uPad (=university pad).

You may wonder (and people have wondered) why I would want another one, but I like to keep work and personal tools apart. I have a laptop at home, and there are lots of things I do on it that I would not do on my office machine. So when my boss consulted me - as the most technology-savvy at the Faculty :-) - whether people who already use pads should still get new ones from the Faculty, I said yes, of course. What I use in my spare time is my own concern.

When we signed up for colours, I chose bright green, to make it different from my home paddy.

We had an instruction session when we collected our new toys where we set up five thousand passwords half of which didn't work.

I had had some serious thoughts about exactly how much I wanted to keep things apart. I want different accounts for home and work, but I want to sync calendars and other useful stuff. So far, I haven't managed. But I won't disturb our IT people yet because I am sure there are people having more trouble than I. People who don't even know what an App store is. (Mind, I didn't know until recently. I feel soooo advanced in comparison).

The uPad had some good apps that I'd like to have on my home pad. I haven't figured out yet whether I can do it.

Now, most people will of course say: I wish I had your problems...

Virtually Russian

A couple of years ago I carelessly promised to go to Moscow for a guest lecture. It's a bad habit I must get rid of: when people invite me to come and do a guest lecture, I feel flattered and say: I'll be delighted, instead of: Sorry, I truly cannot. Apart from painful travel, I have a complicated relationship to my birthplace, but at some point going to Moscow to do a guest lecture and then see all Rabbit's friends and relations felt attractive. It got less and less attractive as the date approached, and since I was then - as always - desperately cancelling all previously arranged travel I took a deep breath and emailed my Russian colleague to give my apology. By that time, another colleague in Germany had suggested that I do a virtual lecture if I couldn't come in person, and I suggested to my Russian colleague that I do a virtual lecture for them, secretly hoping that it would turn out impossible. However, she was delighted, and the date went on approaching. Actually, it was brought forward by two months, so suddenly last week I realised that I was going to give a virtual lecture in my mothertongue which I hadn't spoken academically for decades. (I used to go to Russia and lecture a lot, but not for a long while now. I always liked it. It took me to exotic places such as Murmansk).

I insisted on a technical test in advance because there are thousands of things that can go wrong. I had a test for my German lecture, and it worked fine, and then it didn't at the actual lecture. At least, not at once.

The test went fine, but I did it from home, while I wanted to do the lecture from the office where I was sure that my end worked as it should. I asked to have a final test half an hour before the lecture. When I opened my Skype this morning the Russian contact was not there, and I didn't quite remember their Skype name. I tried this and that, which didn't work, and then I hoped they would send a contact request, and they didn't, and I emailed them, and I tried some more Skype names, and finally one was correct. Perfect. Close encounters of fourth grade. Well, I said, see you in fifteen minutes. My Russian colleague wriggled and said, could we possibly start five minutes past so that the audience got in. I had no problems with that and looked through my notes. They called five past to ask whether we could make it ten past since there were more people coming in. Finally a quarter past we started, and I forgot my notes and made some jokes (which is weird in a virtual classroom since I couldn't see the audience's reaction). Halfway through, the connection broke. My contact went offline, and there wasn't much I could do about it. I got an emal saying: Sorry, we are fixing it, which I had already figured out. Then it worked again, and I had to ask them what the last thing they had heard me say was. I had a big alarm clock in front of me, but because of the delayed start and the interruption I allowed myself to go over a bit. Then there were questions and comments, all very clever and helpful, and I had forgotten that I had spoken a language I wasn't comfortable with. I enjoyed it. I want to do it again.

Go virtual

I have been teaching online since 1999, but today I gave my first live virtual lecture. I don't quite believe that it's an adequate way of teaching, but as I always say about online teaching: it's a good alternative. In this particular case I was invited to do a lecture in Germany, and I just couldn't travel there for a whole number of reasons. Then my hosts asked whether I would be prepared to do a video lecture, and since I am always foolishly eager to try new things I agreed. It was some time ago, and I didn't contemplate how it would turn out. Last week we ran a trial, and after I had tried every single button it finally worked, so I was pretty confident it would work today. I had agreed to "meet" the technical assistant at a quarter to, and I started getting nervous, sitting there and staring at the dead screen. There is not much you can do. Then suddenly I saw a big lecture hall with a handful of students and wondered why there were so few - did they think it was a waste of time listening to someone who wasn't even there? (It turned out that they employ "academic quarter", that is, the lecture is announced at 4, but actually starts at 4.15. I was used to it when I taught in Finland).

I could see them, but not hear them, and they could neither see nor hear me, and I stared at myself on the screen and wondered whether I really look so hideous or was it just the camera. Eventually they could see and hear me, and I could hear them, but not see them, and by that time I just didn't dare push any more buttons in case I would ruin it all together. So I talked for an hour watching myself on the screen, without any contact with the audience, which felt a bit like talking into outer space. I like to see people's faces when I talk; I often adjust my talk according to the audience response - I guess we all do. But I just talked and talked, and sometimes I smiled, and sometimes I made a side comment which I'd normally expect the audience to react to. In fact, I wasn't even sure whether they were listening. But apparently they were, for they asked intelligent questions afterwards which they wouldnä'f have been able to ask if they hadn't heard me. It wasn't meant to be like that, but it worked for me, and I feel I can do it and would do it again.

Requests considered on first come first served basis.

My smart friend

When I bought my first mobile phone, many years ago in the Stone Age, I told the very young assistant in the store that I wanted a senile mobile. He was at a loss and called an older colleague who knew exactly what I meant: basic, big keys and one button for everything. It served me well, especially since I never had it switched on unless I was expecting a call or needed to make a call myself. For these two tasks it was perfect. If absolutely unavoidable, I could text.

Some time ago when I was in the middle of something and for some reason had the phone on, I asked a student to answer it. She didn't know how. She had never seen such an antedeluvian artifact.

Since a month ago, I am the happy owner of a smartphone. We aren't quite good friends yet - it hasn't even told me its name. I got it for my birthday, but didn't dare to open the box before Julia and Pontus came to visit a week later. Pontus did all the initial magic tricks, downloaded this and that, and suddenly I could read my email and Facebook on the tiny screen. Some days later I learned how to zoom. I learned how to scroll and swipe. Yesterday I learned how to switch windows. All on my own!

I had resisted a smartphone because I couldn't see what I needed it for. The old phone was just fine to make phone calls. But I do admit now that my new friend can do a lot of nice things. Maps and star charts was what I had fallen for. I am still not going to have it switched on. But it proved very useful when I travelled. Normally I would bring a laptop. This time I thought I would only need to check my email, and that's just what a smartphone was for. I even considered leaving my Kindle behind and read on the phone, but didn't want to take the risk. After all, the phone and Kindle together are smaller than the laptop. Since it's an old laptop they can apparently do ten times as much. Possibly, thousand times as much.

Since I had plenty of time at airports, on trains and in my hotel room, I played like a child with my toy. I checked my email and read my Facebook. I set the Clock for London and Stockholm. I downloaded a ringtone app and set one ringtone for the phone and another for the alarm. I fed my appointments into Calendar (it is, amazingly, synchronised with my computer. New horizons!). I took pictures and shared them on Facebook. I checked my email and read my Facebook. I found an Italian restraurant near my hotel where I went for dinner. I set Weather for Cambridge and found train timetables. I fed my imminent tasks into Tasks. The phone reminded me the next day that I had a Task. I checked my email and read my Facebook. I tried to read an ebook, just to confirm that Kindle was better, but in emergency I would cope. I read a newspaper. I checked my email... I believe each operation takes me ten times as long as an expert user, but I am learning.

Now I am back home, the phone is switched off, and I don't know when and why I would need it again. But we are getting to know each other. I may even use it to make calls.