What’s Your ECOpedagogy? Environmental Education with Mobile Devices-Paul Kelba

Calgary Board of Education ISTE 2013

“Uneasy Bedfellows” –James Neill

Intimate Tension

Technology

Technology

Environmental & Outdoor Education

Inevitable Mobile Learning

A problem with outdoor experience & technology is students are used as ‘dumb’

data recorders. There is a lack of

emotional connection• Most effective when learning takes place

on-site in the school yard, and in the local community and environment.

• Learning focuses on local themes, systems, and content.

• Learning is personally relevant to the learner.

• Learning experiences contribute to the community’s vitality and environmental quality and support the community’s role in fostering global environmental quality

Mobile device is the ‘all in one’

• With simple software (Geoforms for googledrive) data can be plotted, analysed and presented in a different way. Using off & online freeware and shareware.

• Students can produce a variety of exciting and innovative diagrams from their raw data.

• ANALYZE PATTERNS IN DATA SYMBOLS

Urban Adventures• Document at least 3

‘interconnections’ among some of the places/systems (natural or human made) in your community

• Document some of your favourite places on your walk, and describe why you like these particular places.

• Document some of the places on your walk that you did not like, describe why you did not like these particular places.

GEOFORMS FOR GOOGLE DRIVE

Sustainable Living• Do you think that someone who

is very concerned about the plants and animals in your area would agree with your opinion?

• Do you think that someone who is very concerned about the economy would agree with your choices of likes and dislikes?

• Do you think that someone who is very concerned with the health of the humans in your community would agree with your likes and dislikes?

• In general, do you care about the place that you walked?

Sustainable Living

• Where does your drinking water come from?

• Where does the water from the storm drain nearest your house go first?

• What is the name of the closest creek, river, lake, etc. to your house?

• What is the source of the water?

• Where does the water drain into?

• Where does the water from your toilet go?

Evernote is essentially a note-taking tool which

is available as a desktop and mobile version. Thedata gathered in either

version can besynchronised across the two platforms and the

functionality of Evernotecan be fully exploitedwhen both versions

work in tandem

Fieldwork Adventures

Tumblr:

• enables students to comment on blog posts and interact with each other’s audio, video, text and images. It negates the need for a dictaphone, video camera, digital camera and notebook due to.

"Understanding basic ecological concepts (and their meaning in our daily lives) is too important to leave to a chance meeting or a talk.“

-Steve Van Matre

Capture – Create -Synthesize

Effective Environmental Education with Mobile Devices includes the local school yard & community environment at the forefront

Student Tasks on tablets/modilesMicro-field guide:

• Groups of 3 or 4 students worked together to investigate their own 3 by 3 foot (approximately one square meter) research plot, over multiple visits, and then created a imovie field guide to their plot.

Local Field Guide

• contains two main features. First, students included geological information about local sites – describing the geological features. Secondly, students explained the underlying geologic concepts that contributed to local occurrences.

Energy audits:student findings from energy audits at schools city and recommend a variety of initiatives that the school should take in order to lower its carbon footprint and reduce energy costs.

Fieldwork Adventures

Polldaddy:• questionnaire out into the field

and survey people without the need to connect to the internet. This is particularly useful where 3G coverage may be poor and Wi-Fi is unavailable. The user can conduct the survey ‘offline’, then when they return to a 3G area or Wi-Fi enabled zone, the data will automatically synchronise to the online version.

Outside•Technology is not the

antithesis of the natural world

Inside•The indoor environment

is the antithesis of the natural world

Effective Environmental Education with Mobile Devices includes:

Emotional Connection

App’s Fieldwork

Are We Enhancing or Transforming?

The SAMR model, developed by Dr Ruben Puentedura, aims to support teachers as they design, develop and integrate learning technologies to support high levels of learning achievement and student engagement. C/O @jackiegerstien

Outdoor Learning Programs with Mobile Devices?

• Sequential Activities

• Common occurrence

• ‘Sense of Place’• Joy in the natural

worldA sensory walk, commonly 10 minutes w/o tech ends up taking over an hour due to the rich documentation with devices

Field tasks are essential for all good data collection; but, by employing exciting and innovative

methodologies it can enhance learning, increase interest and understanding of the study topic, and

ultimately lead to greater participation in the subject.

Make them feel alive

"You can get lost in studies of what makes healthy students-its about feeling fully alive" -Richard Louv-

Slideshare and resources available on

@FreshClassroom

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