About This Blog

Here's a little overview to how this blog got started.

I am currently taking an online graduate course on mobile learning.  Since I went to Costa Rica for one of the weeks during this class, my "homework" was to maintain a blog throughout the trip.  For my final project I will be creating an iTunes U course on blogging on an iPad, so since I was going to be out of the country with limited internet access this past week, Luci (my professor) and I decided that I could blog for the week while I was in Costa Rica.

My final project will be about blogging with Google’s Blogger, so it only seemed appropriate that I use the Blogger app on the trip.  With this app I was able to write posts with no internet access, then when it was available I could upload my posts. This worked great.  Many times I found myself in the car or waiting for something, so I was able to write, then post once I found wifi.  

This first thing I noticed, perhaps it’s because I haven’t traveled too much in the past two years, was that it seemed like every third person I came across in the airport was on an iPad.  All I could think was how much Apple was making for all the people using one.  To no surprise, all kinds of people were using one- grandmothers to little kids, and all types of nationalities, no one seemed excluded.  

In Costa Rica everyone had some sort of mobile device.  The daring motorcyclist had them tucked up in their helmets, students walked alongside the roads oblivious to the speeding cars, men rode their dancing horses with one hand on the phone one hand on the reins, and the women selling items roadside all seemed to be caught up in some dynamic conversation. While most people had phones, I didn’t really see a lot of smart phones.  Most people I talked with did not have phone plans, like we have here in the states, instead they used a charge card for minutes, which I didn’t realize could also be used for data too.

Writing long blog posts on a phone isn’t the easiest thing to do.  I tried Suri, but since it only works when you have internet access, I found myself mostly typing them up.  I also found myself having to decide if I would take a picture with my phone or my camera, since I could only post from my phone.  After a couple days I figured out a system that worked best.  Since everyone seemed to have a phone in hand, I found it was nicer to use the phone when I was in places filled with people, because tended to stand out less using my phone vs. my camera.  I found it also interesting that when I had people take pictures of us, they had no trouble knowing how to the phone, but the camera was much tricker for them.

From my posts you can see I used the Pic Collage app a couple times.  It was fun to create the collages, since the app doesn’t need the internet, I could create them anywhere, which I found myself doing twice on the beach.  I tried posting a couple movies, but they ended up taking so long or kept failing, that eventually I gave up.  I used the Aviary app a couple time to crop or clean up some photos, again an app that doesn’t need internet access.

All the places we stayed had free wifi, but all were spotty and we competed with all the others trying to access it.  It certainly made me appreciate access here more.  You don’t realize how much you use your phone until you’re forced into not having it.  There were countless times we would come across things like the fields of hanging fruits, odd white pumpkins, or strange spiky crops that we wished we could look it up.  We had a running joke that we add it to the “Google it later list”.  The one piece of technology we couldn't have done without, was our GPS.  If you ever decide to drive in Costa Rica, first you need nerves of steel and second you need a GPS.  There are no road signs.  The landmarks people use for directions are not updated, so their reference might have been washed away during the rainy season- not too reliable.  

I’ll admit I had a great time blogging.  I certainly had to make the time to do it, it was fun and now I’ll mostly blog again when I travel.  While it wasn’t the easiest thing to do on a phone, it was definitely doable.  I had contemplated taking my iPad, but very glad I didn’t in the end.  The phone was certainly easier to manage and less conspicuous.  This experience certainly gave me some good ideas and insight to my final project.

As they say in Costa Rica “Pura Vida”.