Authentic learning: Making sense of the real environment using mobile technology tool

Abstract

Formal learning, though usually conducted within the four walls of classrooms, with or without technology, is not complete, unless connected to the authentic environment. This has made ground truthing essential. With present-day technology, we can measure an entire catchment and understand its capacities, impact on a region and mankind's positive or negative influences. But without verification by ground truthing, our data from space are hypothetical at best. This is where fieldwork becomes unquestionably an essential part of learning. However, learning through fieldwork is not just about having a direct experience of the locational environment, but also about making educated judgement about the location, based on observations and measurements of desired parameters, to make sense of the environment, to be locationally aware, contextually rich, and to be able to relate the two in a way that unravels the uniqueness of the subject. Today's many technological tools can provide the required support for doing such a task, but it requires a modest investment of time and resources to produce something aca demically substantial. Mobile technology, however, has managed to bring the many previously impossible tasks together and made them not just possible but also pervasive and affordable, not just to the elite few but to the general learner groups. For this reason, in the present learning arena, using the mobile technology is not just riding the technological bandwagon, but an essential vehicle to reach out to the learners far and wide, to empower the masses, to encourage even the 'not-so-initiated' learners to think, to excite the 'already-initiated' learners to look further afield and generally to expand the horizons of learning. Field-based au thentic learning, though desired, is often hard to execute due to big student groups, lack of curriculum time and the inevitable need to gather huge database for any in-depth research to achieve academically sound outcomes. Because of the opera tional constraints, many a time field-based learning is done to fill in some gaps in the learning strategies but cannot be incorporated in a comprehensive learning outcome. The chapter focuses on authentic learning through fieldwork and also how applications on mobile phones are used to not just help in field observations but also how mobile technology is used in managing the total learning environment, starting from field data collection to post-field data organization, and analysis, thus com pleting the whole learning circle to create a knowledge base on the intended topic. It will focus on how even large groups of students can be engaged in doing authentic field-based study and also do in-depth analysis through collective database devel opment and socially negotiated knowledge. The chapter also looks at how mobile technology can be used to conduct large group learning in authentic environments and how learning is helped by using modes with least learning curves and without additional capability requirement. There are examples from actual work done by students in remote areas, using mobile technology, but with little other infrastruc tural support, to collectively develop academically sound data sets and then ana lysing these to achieve target learning outcomes, without impinging excessively on the given curriculum timeframe.