The Educational Potential of Mobile Computing in the Field

Abstract

The 2011 Horizon Report places mobile devices as a top technology to watch for in the coming year. Our article focuses on mobile computing with a tablet PC, drawing from over five years of experience teaching with tablets in outdoor, field-based classes. We discuss three classes — Environmental Science, Ecology, and Biology — in which we tap the "educational potential of our backyards."Loading mobile tablet PCs with scientific visualization software, classes can be taught outside, field methods demonstrated, and data collected in real time using the tablet's stylus or pen. The technology of mobile computing has broad application in the field sciences. In the field and in the geographic context, patterns emerge and are observed, such as a change in soil-type coinciding with a marked change in vegetation, and data can be reliably verified without waiting to go to a computer lab. This active learning, where students are engaged in a task, exercise, or research question, allows learners to be better able to understand complex relationships and apply what they have learned in other settings and contexts, and using tablet PCs enhances and provides advantages, such as teaching about and improving the scientific method, in this learning environment. Working on a research-based problem, especially one with longitudinal data, provides students an opportunity to interpret findings and integrate information.