In recent mobile learning research, college-bound students initially showed a preference for learning environmental science in the classroom through lecture or reading assignments rather than through hands-on learning activities. Though students had access to mobile technologies, they used the mobile technologies for classwork the same way they could use a desktop: searching and reading electronic documents. The classroom teacher and researcher intended to leverage mobile learning technologies to break out of this mold, helping students engage the subject of environmental science first-hand through using mobile tools in the natural environment.

In this session you will explore how the researcher and classroom teacher designed learning activities where students went outside the classroom into the natural environment to gather and build firsthand information using mobile technologies. You will learn how students collaborated through shared data and video conferencing to develop mobile-accessible knowledge bases in their subject. You will leave this session with new ideas on how mobile technologies can be used to enhance classroom-based learning programs.

In this session, you will learn:

• How engaging the subject through mobile learning enhances student interest
• How mobile learning provides new opportunities for collaboration
• How mobile learning provides new opportunities for first-hand discovery of knowledge
• How mobile-supported first-hand discovery of knowledge supported student interest in the subject
• How mobile learning activities outside the classroom required more time for preparation and assignment completion

Audience:
Novice to advanced designers, developers, project managers, and directors.

Technology discussed in this session:
N/A