Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
The students also shared technical tips for mapping different land use/landcover
types using different technology (e.g. ''#malta10 students who are complaining
about poor signal quality are you using the external antenna?'' and ''great expe-
rience today, how a combination of diff devices to capture data and get one total
output'') and students reported a gain in efficiency of data collection over the
previous day (e.g. ''Efficiency much better—approx. over 1/3 of area done'' and
''productivity down due to heat and hills but much better than yesterday'').
The threaded nature of discussions between students could also be visualized on
the map (Fig.
3
) using the spiral technique of Fig.
5
either centred over the study
area or on the first tweeter to use a term, concept or ask a question (using the
search box on the map page). This representation was monitored by staff via wifi
and students were encouraged to check in regularly whenever they found publi-
cally available wifi (to avoid large data roaming charges over 3G). As previously
noted students could send and receive tweets as free SMS messages so they were
able to participate in the discussions. Replies to tweets could be extracted, ordered
chronologically and added to the map in a Fibonacci spiral. This allowed staff to
follow and contribute to a threaded discussion and to monitor the contributions of
students for summative assessment.
6 Discussion
As illustrated above, the 2010 #malta10 TweetMap was used in a number of ways
during the field course. Students were required to use it as a general collaboratory
during the field course which enabled the collection of a chronological field log
(Fig.
7
). 738 tweets were exchanged during the week on all aspects of the tasks set
with approximately half of these occurring during the land use mapping exercise.
The #malta10 TweetMap was used to support the same land use mapping
exercise in Mellieha as the #malta09 TweetMap. The architecture and interface
improvements, in addition to pedagogic improvements and increased student use
of the environment, proved valuable. The students were able to exchange ideas,
interpretations of landscapes and the search for common frameworks for data
collection. The students reported (via Twitter and daily reflective blog & video
diaries) greater productivity on the second of the land use exercises and noted that
they felt that the collaboration and deliberation enabled by the Twitter map had
improved their productivity:
I have forgotten to mention the use of twitter so far. 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.
I did attempt to geo tag my texts automatically using the phones gps receiver however this
did not work well as it did not save the setting and would have to set it up every time I
wanted to text twitter.
