Stellar Alpine Gill Clough09

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Geolearners: Informal Learning with Mobile and Social TechnologiesPhD 2009Gill Clough [email protected]

Institute of Educational Technology

Supervisors:Patrick McAndrewAnn JonesEileen Scanlon

About this presentation:• Guidelines:

– Must include a working demo, or at least a video of its use– Real emphasis on the actual system, not on the theoretical underpinning

• This research offers evidence of informal mobile learning– Informal mobile learning is mobile learning “in the wild”– Learners using mobile and Web 2.0 technology to support location-

based learning and augment locations with cooperatively generated resources

– Frameworks for assessing informal learning with mobile and Web 2.0 technologies that could prove useful

– No demo, but findings for discussion– Theoretical underpinning slides “hidden”

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Research Questions• How do online community members use mobile and

social technologies to make connections between the virtual spaces of the internet and the physical spaces that surround them?

• What learning opportunities result from interactions between people, location and mobile and social technologies?

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Geocaching• A form of GPS guided treasure hunt

• Co-ordinated via a central website

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Online Geocaching community• www.geocaching.com focus of geocaching community

– Central listing of all caches– Log caches founds & post

images to gallery– Groundspeak web forums

where geocachers to share information and provide peer support

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Some popular types of Cache• Traditional cache

– Container

• Earthcache– Geological feature– Deliberate learning goal

• Multicache– Series of co-ordinates– Each co-ord clue to next

• Puzzle cache– Encrypted

• Event cache– Meet other geocachers– Caches placed for event and

archived afterwards

• Cache-In Trash Out– CITO – clean environment as

you cache

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Method: web survey + case study • Web survey invite posted in Geocaching web forums

• Web survey contained 52 questions– 25 radio button (click on one)– 3 check-box (click on all that apply)– 20 free text (type as much as you want)– 4 optional follow up (email address, name, website, geocaching ID)

• Use of data from Geocaching website and forums– as data– verify survey responses– illustrate findings

Ethical issues

Public domain data, is it ethical to use it for research?Permission from web forum organisers, is this enough?

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Responses• Over 160 posts in web forum invite threads

• 659 completed web surveys– 107,748 words in free-text answers

• 439 agreed to participate in follow-up interviews– 39 shortlisted– 8 selected as a linked cluster– 5 participated in the interviews

Analysis Frameworks• Preece and Shneiderman’s Reader to Leader staged

approach to online community membership:

– Stage 1: Reader

– Stage 2: Contributor

– Stage 3: Collaborator

– Stage 4: Leader

• Jonassen et al.’s five attributes of meaningful learning

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Preece, J. and Shneiderman, B. (2009) 'The Reader-to-Learner Framework: Motivating Technology-Mediated Social Participation', AIS Transactions on Human Computer Interaction., vol. 1.

• Active (Manipulative/Observant)– Learners develop knowledge and skills in response to their environment, manipulating objects and

observing and learning from the results.

• Constructive (Articulative/Reflective)– Learners reflect on activity and observations and articulate what they have learned. Thus when new

experiences appear contradictory, they can engage in a meaning-making process to develop their mental models and make sense of their observations.

• Intentional (Reflective/Regulatory)– People think and learn more when they are motivated to do so in order to achieve a cognitive goal.

Technologies should engage learners in articulating what they are doing; decisions made, strategies chosen and answers found, thereby enabling them to use their constructed knowledge in new situations.

• Authentic (Complex/Contextualised)– Learning is more effective when situated in a meaningful context rather than being oversimplified and

presented in isolation.

• Cooperative (Collaborative/Conversational)– Collaboration is a natural human activity, with most collaboration taking place through conversations.

Collaborative learning relies on socially negotiated understandings that help learners build on and learn from their own and each others’ knowledge to construct new knowledge.

10Jonassen, D. H., Howland, J. L., Moore, J. L. and Marra, R. M. (2003) Learning to Solve Problems with Technology: A Constructivist Perspective, Merrill Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.

Geocaching: Mobile learning in the Wild• Mobile and Web 2.0 technology used create persistent

digital narrative of location

– individuals augment narrative by uploading content

– create a dynamic collaborative resource

• Narrative acts as a guide and learning resource

• Enhances experience of location

– Supports learning during experience of location and afterwards

– Inspires intentional learning to create Geocaches for others

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Tanks Littering the Landscape

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Making Connections

• Contributing to persistent digital narrative of location of Ghost Village on Salisbury Plain.

• Making connections to another similar Geocache location at Tyneham.

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Church of St Giles, Imber

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Learning with technology• Classifying learning opportunities encountered at different

stages of Geocaching community membership

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Preece & Shneiderman’s Stages of Community Membership

Rubric for Assessing Authentic Learning Opportunities

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Rubric for Assessing Active Learning Opportunities

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Learning through Geocaching• 89% learned something as a result finding a geocache

– Engaging with local environment leading to sharing info with others through creating new caches

Although I'm caching in an area that I've lived for over 40 years, I've been astounded to find local history that I was unaware of in approximately 1/3 of the caches I've found. That knowledge has motivated me to discover more knowledge about my hometown and I'm planning cache hides based on that

Only 4% mentioned learning as a reason they started Geocaching

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Intentional learning after the event• 73% inspired to follow up after finding cache

– Follow up research often leading to placement of new caches for others

A local cache led us to finding out more about a now disused and removed railway branch line. Caches done often inspire caches we will place in future

After visiting 3 earth caches I have been inspired to create 2 of my own as I think they are an easy way to learn about geology. They have also encoraged me to visit new places.

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Learning in order to teach others• 71% of those placing a geocache hoped that people

finding it would learn something as a result

Always try and set my caches at an historical site and try to include a bit of history to read up on, how the area looked previously etc

As puzzle caches they will have to research either famous local people, learn about worshipful companies, learn certain song lyrics, pick a lock, or even research Thomas the Tank engine. I like variety.

Concluding Remarks• Web 2.0 & mobile technologies act as an enabler

– Allowing people to focus on the creation and sharing of persistent representations of locations

– Supporting the development of a temporal narrative of place

• Geocachers use mobile and social technologies to cooperate in the creation of a persistent digital narrative of location

• Mobile technologies enable individuals to participate in and contribute to this narrative by taking the power of technology out into the field

• Jonassen’s rubrics for assessing meaningful learning with technology might inform design of mobile learning activities 27

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Gill Clough [email protected] Institute of Educational TechnologyThe Open UniversityWalton HallMilton KeynesMK7 6AAwww.open.ac.uk