Urban Planning Education In Context With Mobile Phones

john.cook@londonmet.ac.uk

John CookLearning Technology Research Institute,

London Metropolitan University

Slides available from http://www.slideshare.net/johnnigelcook

Structure

1. Introduction

2. Definitions

3. CONTSENS

4. Project description

5. Evaluation results

6. Future work

7. Issues

8. Questions & discussion

1. Introduction

An urban area close to London Metropolitan University, from 1850 to the present day, is being used to explore how schools are signifiers of both urban change and continuity of educational policy and practice.

The aim of this project is to provide a contextualised, social and historical account of urban education, focusing on systems and beliefs that contribute to the construction of the surrounding discourses.

Another aim of this project is to scaffold the trainee teachers’ understanding of what is possible with mobile learning in terms of filed trips.

2. Definitions

Location-aware services– offer to transfer background information– services such as finding places and giving directions– help identify potential interactors in physical proximity of the learner

Context-sensitive learning– aware of the activities of learners and can thus offer to give

assistance– E.g. if a student’s course work is due in soon, the context-sensitive

system can send a tip giving the location of resources that may help with an assignment

– continually derive what intervention is appropriate and can provide relevant services to aid learning

Context-aware learning could include (Sharples, 2006)– location-based guides and customised help systems– systems that enable activities in context, e.g. data logging– game learning offering services and options such as

communication and awareness of other game players– customise content– adaptive interface and interaction, where the level of detail

and order of presentation can vary and be made appropriate for context and for display on different devices.

Context-sensitive learning is a fascinating area that holds great potential for enabling learners to engage in meaning-making through interactive practice.

Location-aware services, already used by emergency services, which use systems and tools that are able to detect the exact physical location of mobile device.

For example, if a learner is stood in front of a painting by Picasso in an art gallery, the location-aware system can offer to transfer background information on the painting and the artist.

In addition to services such as finding places and giving directions, location-aware systems can also help identify potential interactors in physical proximity of the learner.

Applets on mobile devices such as the iPhone or iPod Touch utilise location awareness to tell the user which of their ‘buddies’ and friends are in physical proximity.

Context-sensitive systems are aware of the activities of learners and can thus offer to give assistance. For example, if a student’s course work is due in soon, the context-sensitive system can send a tip giving the location of resources that may help with an assignment.

Thus, interaction based approach to context should, ideally, continually derive what intervention is appropriate and can provide relevant services to aid learning.

3. CONTSENS

Partner in the Erricson led ‘CONTSENS’ EC project http://tiny.cc/5wdUr

WP4 we developed a series of mobile learning applications that are being used to support student teachers in exploring their knowledge and understanding of urban education in a meaningful context

Smith, C., Cook, J. and Pratt-Adams, S. (2009). Context Sensitive Mobile Learning: Designing a ‘Technoscape’ for Urban Planners. Mobile Learning, Barcelona, 26-28 February.

4. Project description

Enable urban planners to examine past and present representations of urban form using mobile learning technologies in context to see how the organisation and re/structuring of urban space related to educational discourse.

The aim is to create a digital ‘technoscape’ (Appadurai 1996, Urry 2007) to represent urban land, space, and subjects using a combination of social and cultural scripts. The intention is for the urban planner to move through the re-constructed landscape and thus “perform that landscape” (Sheller and Urry 2006: 9)

CONTSENS

Going for a local walkabout

(Smith, Cook and Bradley, 2009)

Script segments from the work package:

Task: Using the local maps and old photographs sketch the road layout of the area in the 19th century.

Outline of development/research process

High end mobile phones (HTC diamond + Nokia N95) used by small groups of 2 or 3 students at a time. They allowed real research to be done on the move.

The voice recorder on the phones used to allow report writing and note making for final presentations to be captured quickly and efficiently.

Students could also produce video podcasts of themselves and even edit the videos they make on site using the phones.

Images captured with the phones automatically be geo-spatially tagged with their location information using GPS (not yet!). These smart phones are also capable of instant upload of data to sites like Flickr.

The project used a combination of smart phones: HTC Advantage and HTC Diamond (running the Mediascape authoring environment http://www.mscapers.com/ on the Windows Mobile operating system) and Nokia phones for students to record their reflections about the various tasks.

Users equipped with a mobile device running the Mscape player can move through the physical world and trigger digital media with GPS via an invisible interactive map, in response to their physical location. The map is then divided into areas or zones which are called when the GPS location matches the coordinates.

Contextual information was provided in the form of audio commentaries that guided the tour and outlined the tasks, along with supplementary multimedia resources, such as photographs, maps, videos and QuickTime VR reconstructions of the inside of buildings.

MSCAPES Mscapes overlay digital sight,

sounds and interactions onto the physical world to create immersive and interactive experiences. Users equipped with a mobile device running the mscape player can move through the physical world, triggering digital media - in response to physical events such as location, proximity, time and movement. The most commonly used trigger is GPS, but a range of sensors can be used and combined, such as Bluetooth, wifi, RFID tags.

5. Evaluation results

Students took part in the first trial in 3 distinct groups

Quantative feedback:– CONTSENS

questionnaire– informal group

interviews afterwardsTutor feedback:

– interview

The prior knowledge of the three groups:

Group 1Group 2 Group 3

UG Intermediate level PG UG Honours level

BA Education Studies MA Education BA Education Studies

Studying module Urban Education this semester

Not studying module urban Education

Not studying module Urban Education

Not taking ICT modules Not taking ICT modules Taking ICT modules (so had knowledge of uses of technology)

Had taken analogue tour Had not taken analogue tour

Had not taken analogue tour

Tutor accompanied on mobile tour

Tutor accompanied on mobile tour

Unaccompanied by tutor on mobile tour

“The information given was underlined by the 'experience' of the area and therefore given context in both past and present.”

““it was triggering my own thoughts and I was getting to think for myself about the area and the buildings.”

Key outcomes for the students were that the context-sensitive and location-aware GPS system made the tour easier because the information was sent to them on their devices.

As two students said, “a lot of past events/information was brought to my knowledge without much struggle to access them through other means”; “it made it easier than trying to find the information every time you got somewhere”.

One student said, “It gave a wider perspective for learning, it wasn't just standing looking at buildings, it gave you more information from the past with narration and images”,

And another when asked about the mix of media used said, “it contextualised the area very well”. 

Several students commented that they were less passive than they would be on a tutor-led tour, and that the mobile tour encouraged active learning.

Enhancement of the learning experience

91% thought the mobile device enhanced the learning experience

The information was easy to assimilate allowing more time to concentrate on tasks.

Allowed instant reflection in situ.The mobile tour promoted “active learning”

– they were less passive than they would have been on a tutor-led tour

– they were not “merely taking in information” – the mobile tour triggered their own thoughts and

encouraged them to think more about the area

6. Future work

Future work in this area will revolve around these context questions.

1. Will learners follow a ‘learning pathway’ across multiple contexts for learning?

2. During their activity, what will the learning trail left behind by learners tell us as they move from one learning context to the next?

3. Will it be possible to produce intervention guidelines that can be used (perhaps in modified forms) across many contexts?

7. Issues

There is still much work to do if mobile devices are to be widely adopted for learning in educational institutions. As Sharples (2006) pointed out, there are many issues that for schools to resolve, these include:– How will schools respond to children bringing in their

own mobile multimedia communications devices?– How can schools manage the tension between

informal networked learning and formal institutional learning?

– What types of mobile learning are appropriate and cost-effective for schools, colleges and universities?

Ethical issues surrounding tracking location and activity need constant attention.

Thank you

Questions?

&

Discussion