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The role of mobile technologies for
enhancing fieldwork teaching and learning
Trevor Collins, John Lea and Sarah Davies
The Open University, UK
Overview
• Context and approach
– OU Geology fieldwork courses
• Two examples
– Nearby and distant remote
access to fieldwork
• Discussion
– Role of technology to enhance
fieldwork teaching and learning
2
Context: Geology fieldwork
3
Problem based learning
• Student-centred approach, students
collaboratively solve problems and
reflect on their progress
– Learning driven by practical
problems
– Tutors’ role as facilitators of
learning
– Instructional activities to develop
interpretation and reasoning skills4
Learning as conversation
• Why questions ~ answers
require explanations in
terms of relations
between topics
• How questions ~ answers
require
demonstrations, models
or problem solutions
5
(Pask 1975; Laurillard 2002)
Receives or offers
explanation in terms
of relations between
topics
Receives or offers
explanation in terms
of relations between
topics
Offers
demonstrations or
elicits models and
problem solutions
Receives
demonstrations, buil
ds models or solves
problems
Modelling facility for performance of
tasks such as model building and
problem solving
Teacher Learner
Why
questions &
response
How
questions &
response
Examples: Remote access
• Challenge: Improve access
to geology fieldwork courses
• Solution: A portable
networking toolkit
– Rapid deployment
– Instantly share photos
– Live video streams
– High quality (VoIP) audio
6
Enabling Remote Activity project http://kmi.open.ac.uk/projects/era
8
Durham: Local access
• Wins
– Network topology
– VoIP calls
– Webcam video
(using VoIP)
• Losses
– Sunlight
– Sense of location
9
Nicaragua: Distant access
10
Nicaragua: Distant access
• Wins
– VoIP over satellite
(standard data link)
– IP video (fixed data
rate 200kbps)
• Losses
– Sunlight and heat
– Sourcing mobile
broadband
11
Extendable toolkit
• Networking
– Local area: Ethernet switch and IEEE 802.11* WiFi
– Wide area: Broadband (ADSL), mobile broadband
(3G) or satellite terminal (BGAN)
• Devices
– Netbooks, WiFi cameras, IP video cameras and
encoders, Android phones
• Services
– XAMPP web, Asterisk VoIP and Prosody IM chat
Discussion
• Role of technology ~ communication tools
– Synchronous (time critical)
• Live video, voice calls, instant message chat
– Asynchronous (less time critical)
• Photos, video files, email, discussion
boards, wikis, blogs, datasets, mapping
– Metadata
• Geocoding, time-stamped
12
Contact details and information
• Trevor Collins
– email t.d.collins@open.ac.uk
– www http://kmi.open.ac.uk/people/trevor
• Remote access
– ERA project http://kmi.open.ac.uk/projects/era
– Toolkit overview http://ie-repository.jisc.ac.uk/450/
• Remote collaboration
– OTIH project http://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/otih
13
References• Blumenfeld, P. C., Soloway, E., Marx, R. W., Krajcik, J. S., Guzdial, M. and
Palincsar, A. (1991). Motivating Project-Based Learning: Sustaining the
Doing, Supporting the Learning. Educational Psychologist 26, no. 3: 369.
• Collins, T.D., Lea, J. and Gaved, M.B. (2010). Remote fieldwork: using portable
wireless networks and backhaul links to participate remotely in fieldwork. In The
Proceedings of the 9th World Conference on Mobile and Contextual Learning (mLearn
2010). Valetta, Malta, October. http://oro.open.ac.uk/24711/
• Laurillard, D. (2002) Rethinking University Teaching: A Conversational Framework for
the Effective Use of Learning Technologies. 2nd edition. London: Routledge, Falmer.
• Linn, M. C., Clark, D. and Slotta, J.D. (2003). WISE design for knowledge integration.
Science Education 87, no. 4: 517-538.
• Pask, G. (1975). Conversation, cognition and learning: A cybernetic theory and
methodology. Elsevier, Amsterdam.
• Salomon, G. (1992). What does the design of effective CSCL require and how do we
study its effects? ACM SIGCUE Outlook 21 February: 62–68. 14
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