Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Brown (
2010
) highlights the context of location as important for the learning
process in the field. By embedding students in a set of similar locations with
varying exemplars of landuse types we are forcing them to interact and collaborate
to build an archetype of each landuse. The only way for the students to accomplish
this in situ is through mediation and deliberation via mobile devices. As the group
of students in question are experienced with spatial reasoning (as a result of their
GIS experience) they're also confident map users despite the change in map form
from paper to digital.
2.5 Summary
While infrastructures currently exist for collecting volunteered geographic infor-
mation its use is questionable without imposing a top-down framework to ensure
consistency (Goodchild
2008
). Web 2.0 provides a set of tools for enabling data
contribution, information exchange and negotiation for GIS and the process of data
collection from users. The challenge is to link these tools together in a meaningful
way to manage spatial and aspatial data collection in a structured manner while
facilitating collaboration (Cochrane
2005
).
3 Context
While the implementation of the application is explored in the next section it is
important to place it in context. Before continuing it is important to correct details
of the fieldcourse presented in Beddall-Hill and Raper (
2010
). As part of a 3 year
Bachelor's degree in Geographic Information Science (not Geography as has been
reported in Cook (
2010
), approximately 15 second year students (and 15 GIS MSc
students) took a class in Mobile GIS comprising a 1 week field course in Malta for
data collection and post field course analysis tasks.
We use web-based learning (WBL) before the trip to familiarize students with
the mobile tools they will be using (specifically Esri
Virtual Campus classes on
ArcPad
). We utilize the social network Twitter for communication between
students and staff during the trip. We incorporate reflective learning through the
use of blogs and video diaries completed in the field and stored in the University's
familiar VLE. These approaches are justified individually in a number of case-
studies: WBL: (Clark et al.
2007
; Ullrich et al.
2008
; Gillet et al.
2008
); Social
networking (Ozok et al.
2009
; Kamel Boulos and Wheeler
2007
; Cole
2009
);
Blogs
and
video
diaries
(Churchill
2009
;
Cartwright
2008
;
Gruber
2008
;
Thompson
2007
).
Rejecting the pedagogic crutch of hours of student pre-preparation for fieldwork
only the WBL class on ArcPad
was introduced to students prior to the field-
course. Past cohorts of students did not demonstrate retention of preparatory
