Mobile Learning

Development of Spatially-Aware Learning Tools

Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) and tablet PCs fitted with Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers are being used to develop ‘spatially-aware’ applications for exploring orientation and navigation skills. SPLINT have developed applications for these mobile devices for use on undergraduate and taught postgraduate field courses (Geography Field Course [more], Practical Field Course in the IESSG [more], and the new 'Mobile and Field GIS' [more] modules).

The Benefits of these systems include:

• Introducing the students to the use of state-of-the-art technologies in a spatial context.
• Enhancement of the students' learning experiences by providing new hands-on methods to help them to assimilate their experiences in the field.
• Providing a field-based student-centred learning approach where the technology supports in-field student enquiry through information relevant to their spatial context.
• Built-in logging procedures can allow assessment of the students' field activities and achievements.
• Use as a lab-based virtual data-logger.

Examples of Current SPLINT M-learning systems

The systems can vary widely in specification. They are based on simple GPS navigation applications, but have enhancements to disseminate more information to the user than just their position on a map. It is possible for example to provide an audio feed telling them about aspects of the landscape within their visible range, or to provide them with views of the landscape that they are seeing overlaid with additional information, such as a glacier model or a geological map.

Mobile visualisation field exercise - A PDA-based application has been developed and trialed on the year 1 field course in Cumbria. Students generate 3D views from known points on a virtual model of the local landscape (including a recreation of the glacial scene and geological data draped over the 3D scene) which are then automatically displayed on the PDA when the students reach those points in the field. In addition information relating to landscape features visible from these points is generated in the form of audio commentary files [more]. Also, there is a paper on the project, ‘Landscape Visualisation: From Lab to Field’ [here].

Experiments with Augmented Reality - Along with SPLINT colleagues at Leicester, and the company Virtalis, alternative mobile technology is being explored in the form of Head-Mounted Displays (HMDs). These replace the user’s central vision with a 3D virtual scene. The images are rendered in real-time, responding to the user’s position from a GPS receiver and their orientation from an inertial device.

Instructional media for Navigation - A software test bed has already been built in the Visual Basic.NET Compact Framework. The first application to be built around this framework utilised a network of major nodes around the University Park Campus, Nottingham (start points and destinations) with connecting routes, and minor nodes at each junction representing decision points. This application explored the use of ‘instructional media’ such as photographs to assist navigation.