Do not doubt for a moment that this type of application, while not specifically designed for this (I assume), has wonderfully reassuring properties especially as one’s wife is hurtling close to the Arctic Circle on their way towards Seoul. With simple little applications like Google Latitude and Flight Stats (plenty to choose from), I watched her from JFK more or less the whole way there (and am now watching her make her way from the airport at Incheon to Seoul). Fantastic, reassuring, and even inspiring at the same time. Literally a half a world away. All the more distance to find her again as home is with her.
By Michael Gallagher
My name is Michael Sean Gallagher. I am a Lecturer in Digital Education at the Centre for Research in Digital Education at the University of Edinburgh. I am Co-Founder and Director of Panoply Digital, a consultancy dedicated to ICT and mobile for development (M4D); we have worked with USAID, GSMA, UN Habitat, Cambridge University and more on education and development projects. I was a researcher on the Near Futures Teaching project, a project that explores how teaching at The University of Edinburgh unfold over the coming decades, as technology, social trends, patterns of mobility, new methods and new media continue to shift what it means to be at university. Previously, I was the Research Associate on the NERC, ESRC, and AHRC Global Challenges Research Fund sponsored GCRF Research for Emergency Aftershock Forecasting (REAR) project. I was an Assistant Professor at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies (한국외국어대학교) in Seoul, Korea. I have also completed a doctorate at University College London (formerly the independent Institute of Education, University of London) on mobile learning in the humanities in Korea.