Mobile and Personal technologies supporting learning in the field

Dr Stuart Downward, School of Geography, Geology and the EnvironmentDr. Tim Linsey, ADC, @timkuKingston University

Mobile Learning – Now and the Future

Overview•MoRSE Project Overview and context•Fieldtrip context in academic

Geography•Pilot Activities•Main Phase Developments•Findings

Project Context

•Joint project between Kingston University and De Montfort University

•Builds on earlier HEA Pathfinder projects at KU and DMU

•To develop a situated understanding of the impact of mobile and personal technologies on student and staff practices, beyond the institution, and on institutional processes▫Work Placements (DMU)▫Fieldwork (KU)

The KU MoRSE Team

School of Geography, Geology and the Environment, KU•Dr Stuart Downward•Dr Ken Field, Kingston Centre for GIS•Dr James O’Brien, Kingston Centre for GIS

Faculty of Health and Social Care Sciences, KU•Dr Ann Ooms

Context“When students use social technologies outside university (in the informal domain) they often engage in activities that would be valued if enacted in formal learning in higher education”.

Trinder et al. 2008

Sharing Peer group collaborationSophisticated Information seeking

Contribution Collective wisdomSelf generation

Active Participation

But…

“Most learners, despite access to technology and self-reported confidence, aren’t appropriating the technology they know into their study”Sharpe et. al. 2009

Field Trips•Centred in the School

of Geography, Geology and the Environment.

•GIS •Geography•Environment

•Field trip locations include the Isle of Wight, Malta and south-east Spain.

Specific Issues

•Integration of fieldwork and other aspects of the curriculum

•Co-ordination and collaboration amongst staff and student groups distributed over a study area.

•Sharing resources/collaborating•Access to resources, real-time databases,

‘experts’ and support from the field.

Personal technologies (2009)

•High level of Laptop usage (83% )•All students possess a mobile (40% PAYG)•Some student usage of dedicated cameras

and MP3 players.•64% of students interested in taking

personal technologies on field-trips•77% of students willing to use their own

text credits for educational purposes

Trialling technologies

•Live Streaming video•Plymouth Hoe examp

le•Hertfordshire examp

le•River Thames•Kingston•Merry hill•Leicester note

Synchronising GPS Units with Personal technologies

Using GPicSync &Google Maps

Live Tracking (Instamapper)

http://www.instamapper.com/trk?key=2642287017959854978

18/10/2009 12:37 N 50.69961° W 1.09922° 35 0 0

18/10/2009 12:38 N 50.69965° W 1.09904° 49 0 129

18/10/2009 12:39 N 50.69967° W 1.09905° 51 0 49

18/10/2009 12:39 N 50.69922° W 1.09888° 52 6 167

18/10/2009 12:40 N 50.69877° W 1.09872° 51 5 165

18/10/2009 12:40 N 50.69830° W 1.09860° 46 5 173

Altitude Speed Bearing

Tools: Data capture

Audio Audioboo AudacityAoA Audio Extractor

VideoYoutubeUstreamQik

MobileDed. DeviceFlip camera

Flip toolsPicasaYoutube

MobileDed. DeviceCamera

PhotosFlickr Picasa

Photoshop.com

MobileCamera

Inbuilt App 3rd Party App AnalysisDevice

Y

Y

Y

LocationGoogle MapsMapDroydCompass

AudacityAoA Audio Extractor

BearingCompass3Banana

MobileDed. Device

MobileDed. DeviceCamera

Geocode Flickr GPicSyncGeosetter

MobileCamera

Inbuilt App 3rd Party App AnalysisDevice

Y

AsynchTracking/mapping

MobileDed. Device

My MapsOSMTrackerESRI ArcPAD

My Maps EditorArcGIS

SynchTracking Mobile Instamapper

Y

Sharing / Support

Blogs WordpressRSS Reader

Micro-Blogging

Twitter –UbertwitterTwidroid

MobilePC

MashupsMobilePC

SMS Txttools MS ExcelMobilePC

Inbuilt App 3rd Party App AnalysisDevice

(email)

Y

Y

Voice MobilePC Y Skype

Local Information

AugmentedReality

LayarWikitude

Wikipedia Wikimobile

Mobile

MobilePC

SMSTxttools MS Excel

MobilePC

Inbuilt App 3rd Party App AnalysisDevice

Y

Preparatory Event

• Presentation on field techniques and the use of the field notebook.

• Overview on the potential of personal technologies on fieldtrips and how they might be used to enhance student contributions to learning activities.

• Field activity around the campus• Laboratory session and feedback. • Students were given access to the devices (e.g.

GPS, laptops) in advance of the fieldtrip and encouraged to practice and develop the acquired skills prior to leaving for their field destinations.

Student Mentors

•4 mentors appointed (2010 and 1 in 2011)•Student mentors are ideally suited to the

role: they can be selected from students one year above who are already familiar with the field-sites and it is hoped that they will be viewed as highly approachable with a certain informality that they may not perceive of staff.

•Attended Briefing sessions

“It is less daunting as going up to lecturers; it is less pressurised having formulated the best sort of question to approach a lecturer than it is just to go up to someone that’s say a year older than you in academic levels and just ask them a question” (Mentor)

“..unexpectedly, they would ask those mentors not only about the mobile technology, but also about things to do with the environment; those guys had been there before…..the mentors were able to help….in the environmental objectives of the trip” (Staff) (2010)

Student attitudes (and frustrations) towards the use and issues of personal technologies supporting their learning activities:

“…Today this has been very useful in resolving issues that have arisen. I took a while to follow everyone and set up text forwarding but it was worth it. If it wasn’t for the ridiculous roaming charges, it got me thinking about the use of Skype to contact students and tutors either over video, audio or text. Also you could use the conference calling feature to contact many people at once…”

“Understanding and learning the different ways of importing and collating different sources of media and tagging spatial location to them (i.e. long/lat values for example) has given more interest in the subject and found some of the features pretty cool to analyse and present!”

“I think the technologies I used and the way I used them helped my learning; in conjunction with other research they will give a broader and fuller picture of an environment”

“We took tons of photo’s but in the end we were only able to use the ones off my camera as its was the only one that had a memory card that would fit in the laptop, so I may have been lying  about not having any technical difficulties.   Later that evening we got all the data downloaded of the units were able to geotag the photos (pretty slick) and throw them up on Google earth”

“Some lecturers don’t know much about technology and we are quite fortunate that XXXX was up-to-date with this kind of stuff. But then in a way I think some lecturers can overdose on the technology, they think oh we’ll have a blog, we’ll have a forum, we’ll have a this, we’ll have a that but what is the point if it is not used? But we are learning and I suppose they want to show us the ways we can use technologies in our future work, this is the idea, you don’t have to use it but you might find it helpful in your future work”

Impact

•Over 75% of GIS students reported that the use of the technologies made the fieldtrips more enjoyable and that they had a positive impact on their motivation to study.

•When asked if the use of the technologies had an impact on their understanding:

•40% of the students said they agreed•37% somewhat agreed.

(2008-10)

•The Geography field trip Leader (Almeria, 2010) perceived that the preparatory activities had had a positive impact on the quality of geography student fieldwork notebooks and that students had being using their personal technologies for recording locations and cross referencing with the notebook.

•The student mentors also reported positive engagement with students on their use of personal technologies to support learning activities.

2011 Developments

•Student Guides to technologies updated•Mentor student appointed•Placement Student Allocated•New video guides for Staff

Student Guides to using Mobile & Personal Technologies Updated•Introduction to Personal Technologies on

Field Trips Guide•Mapping Photographs and other

Resources Guide•Sharing Photographs•Georeferencing Photographs Guide

Student Mentor•Student mentor attended the 2011 Malta

and Spain Fieldtrips

•Mentor took on additional roles covering evaluation and capturing audio, video and imagery.

•Mentor worked with a student placed with the central e-developer team to edit and develop resources between the two field trips

Mentor Support role•Available each evening to students

•Technical support

•Maintained a blog

•Met with each project group

“I would not have been able to do this a year ago”

“Do not assume it is going to be a holiday”

Mentor Evaluation role

•Undertook videoed interviews with project groups▫Fieldtrips and Project research▫Student use of Personal & Mobile

technologies on fieldtrips.

Collecting Resources

•Video, images and audio

Staff Created Video Resources•Significant issues in encouraging staff•Concerns over compromise of techniques•Students will use the technologies but not

necessarily incorporate in final reports unless encouraged by staff.

•Developed with student support

Student created Resources

•Audio Guide for Staff•Edited staff guide by cutting in mentor

captured video and audio resources from the fieldtrips.

•Screen videos of using specific software tools.

Mentor’s ObservationsStudents willing and comfortable in using their personal technologies, and in preference to dedicated technologies “Nobody using GPS units unlike last year”.

Role of Technologies

• Primary data capture and Immediacy of data analysis• On-site reference to key data• Use of primary data in conjunction with secondary

data. • Use of GIS in the field to identify and analyse

relationships between variables - enhances higher level cognition and construction of meaning (Fletcher et. al. 2007; Latham & McCormack, 2007))

• Engaging with students at the institution• Enhancing ‘extended’ group work through sharing• Enhancing autonomy

•Using Blogs:▫Public Vs Private blogs – not an issue as it

the views of their peers that were most important.

▫May be seen as over studious. Needs an element of compulsion.

•Will it cost me a fortune?•Using the phone for everything:

▫Voice notes▫Geocoding▫Photographs▫Video

Mentor Recommendations

•Introduce Skills in the first year•Encourage greater preparation in

advance•Individual activities during preparatory

events•Need to follow up and discuss how the

information can be used in their reports / dissertations.

Funded by JISC through the Transforming Curriculum Delivery through Technology programme.

http://Morse.ac.uk