Abstract We report on use of iPads (and other IOS devices) for student fieldwork use and as electronic field notebooks. We have used questionnaires and interviews of tutors and students to elicit their views on technology and iPad use for fieldwork. There is some reluctance for academic staff to relinquish paper notebooks for iPad use, whether in the classroom or on fieldwork. Students too are largely unaware of the potential of iPads for enhancing fieldwork. Apps can be configured for a wide variety of specific uses that make iPads useful for educational as well as social uses. Such abilities should be used to enhance existing practice as well as make new functionality. For example, for disabled students who find it difficult to use conventional note taking iPads can be used to develop student self-directed learning and for group contributions. The technology becomes part of the students’ personal learning environments as well as at the heart of their knowledge spaces – academic and social. This blurring of boundaries is due to iPads’ usability to cultivate field use, instruction, assessment and feedback processes. iPads can become field microscopes and entries to citizen science, and we see the iPad as the main ‘computing’ device for students in the near future. As part of Bring Your Own Technology/Device the iPad has much to offer, although both staff and students need to be guided in the most effective use for self-directed education via development of personal learning Environments.

1. iPad use in Fieldwork:
formal and informal use to enhance
pedagogic practice in a
Bring Your Own Technology world
Brian Whalley University of Sheffield
b.whalley@sheffield.ac.uk @brianwhalley
Derek France University of Chester
Julian Park Reading University
Alice Mauchline Reading University
Katharine Welsh University of Chester
Victoria Powell University of Chester
#ihe2014 1st International Conference on the use of iPads in Higher Education
Enhancement of Fieldwork Learning: www.enhancingfieldwork.org.uk/
Funded by the Higher Education Academy, UK

2. Extending the personal in a 21Century,
information-rich, world
(for as many people as possible)
Image Credit: New Scientist
Personal Learning Spaces

3. And for learners:
‘there is convincing evidence that people who
take the initiative in learning (proactive learners)
learn more things, and learn better, than do
people who sit at the feet of teachers passively
waiting to be taught (reactive learners).
(Knowles 1975 *)
* References at the end

4. And for learners:
‘there is convincing evidence that people who
take the initiative in learning (proactive learners)
learn more things, and learn better, than do
people who sit at the feet of teachers passively
waiting to be taught (reactive learners).
(Knowles 1975 *)
Personal learning spaces can
be anywhere
(Does a VLE really allow this?)
* References at the end

5. Computers in Fieldwork spaces
Lyngen Alps, North Norway, 1984

6. Computers in Fieldwork spaces
Apple IIe + HDD + CRT Screen +
generator + people to carry them all!
Lyngen Alps, North Norway, 1984

7. Converting field notes from
sheets of paper to tablets
Measuring slope angles with a
low-cost app
Cumbria fieldwork - March 2014

8. Personalised Learning
in Personal Learning Spaces
from laptops to netbooks to iPads

9. Personalised Learning
in Personal Learning Spaces
from laptops to netbooks to iPads

10. Personalised Learning
in Personal Learning Spaces
from laptops to netbooks to iPads

11. Personalised Learning
in Personal Learning Spaces
from laptops to netbooks to iPads

12. Personalised Learning
in Personal Learning Spaces
from laptops to netbooks to iPads

13. Personalised Learning
in Personal Learning Spaces
from laptops to netbooks to iPads
Tablets - now individually served
with apps for you

14. The active learning is here
in this case!
The usual Learning Spaces in Higher Education ….

15. Towards an ecology of education
• Student use and tutor implementation
• To get away from 'exam and two essay'
• To promote more/better/any
experiential learning
• To promote better digital and
information literacies
• To promote better understanding of the
way the world works
• Through creative educational devices

16. Towards an ecology of education
• Student use and tutor implementation
• To get away from 'exam and two essay'
• To promote more/better/any
experiential learning
• To promote better digital and
information literacies
• To promote better understanding of the
way the world works
• Through creative educational devices
Personal Learning Environments

17. Personal Learning Environment
a definition:
As such, a PLE is a single user’s e-
learning system that provides
access to a variety of learning
resources, and that may provide
access to learners and teachers
who use other PLEs and/or VLEs.
Mark van Harmelen 2006

18. Drivers
• The needs of life-long learners for a system that
provides a standard interface to different institutions’
e-learning systems, and that allows portfolio
information to be maintained across institutions.
• A response to pedagogic approaches which
require that learner’s e-learning systems need to be
under the control of the learners themselves.
• The needs of learners who sometimes perform
learning activities offline, e.g. via mobile system in a
wireless-free hospital, or on a remote mountainside.
Mark van Harmelen 2006

19. A ‘PLE’ from Stephen Downes -
but it is overly-complicated and VLE-oriented

20. Personalising Education
via iPads and PLEs
What Neal Stephenson predicted and what
Steve Jobs has (almost) given us via
Moore’s Law (Gordon Moore) through
Constructivist - Connectivist approaches
But we need to take into account:
Mooer’s Law (Calvin Mooer)
Moore’s Chasm (Geoffrey Moore)
If you can’t remember, then use your iPad to look them up on Wikipedia!

21. Personalising and linking in various learning spaces…..
No free beer – but free WiFi
Free food – but expensive WiFi
No beer – no WiFi
Traditional notebook
Create a
Personal Learning Environment
with an iPad

22. 5 factors for successful learning
(Race, 2005)
• Wanting to learn
• Needing to learn
• Learning by doing – experiential learning
• Learning through feedback – experiential learning
• Making sense of things – experiential learning
Add to these:
Spatial and social domains (learning spaces)
And so build into an ecology of education

23. The Young Lady’s
Illustrated
Primer

24. The Illustrated Primer .....
.... is an extremely general and
powerful system capable of
more extensive self-
reconfiguration than most. …a
fundamental part of its job is to
respond to its environment.
‘The Diamond Age’, Neal Stephenson, 1995 p. 108.

25. Marguerite Koole’s FRAME Model
Framework for the Rational Analysis of Mobile Education
Spaces:
Device
Learner
Social
A way to situate
devices and apps for
education
Build into the
Ecology of Education
via PLEs

26. Student views of iPads

27. Student views of iPads

28. Student views of iPads

29. Student views of iPads

30. Student views of iPads

31. iPads – Disruptive* Devices?
Disruptive Technology?
Christensen, Horn and Curtis, 2011

32. Some Disruptive Apps
• Clickers/PRS/polling in class
• ‘Facetime’ in class (signing)
• Twitter sharing
• Sketching and annotation
• Collaborative devices
• Exchanging and sharing information
• Bibliographic tools and PDF handling
• Lecture Tools
• Synchronous and asynchronous
All via one device

33. Moving around educational spaces
Physical spaces from field to lab and library
Technologically enhanced spaces
(or not) via WiFi and Cloud accessibility
Pedagogic spaces
Task and activity spaces
Knowledge and Information spaces
Individual and collective (group) spaces
Can be reached via the ubiquitous iPad

35. After Helen Beetham, 2013 etc

36. Trip space
Team Space
Personal
space
Knowledge space
Other
Personal
space
Educational Spaces
… lab, home, library ….
….. lecture, pub, wherever …
Student
information
environment
Rich Internet
Applications
PLEField space
‘Cloud’
Wifi ‘APPS’

37. In the field
Trip space
Team Space
Personal
space
Knowledge space
Other
Personal
space
Educational Spaces
… lab, home, library ….
….. lecture, pub, wherever …
Student
information
environment
Rich Internet
Applications
PLEField space
‘Cloud’
Wifi ‘APPS’

38. Your PLE includes
Your learning experiences
Allows you to adapt your PLE to:
Your needs
For any purpose, at ‘any’ time
Collecting tools as needed
Sharing information – written, audio-visual
Developed on a self-contained device
Thus, getting close to Neal Stephenson’s device
Young Lady’s Primer

39. Mooer's Law
(in case you thought I’d forgotten)
Mooers’ Law: ‘An information retrieval
system will tend not to be used whenever
it is more painful and troublesome for a
customer to have information than for
him not to have it.’
The problem is not students using tablets
but educators not using them to enhance
educational ecology

40. Technology Adoption Curve
Adoption
Time
Innovators
3-5%
Early Adopters
10-15%
Early majority
34%
Late majority
34%
Laggards
Non-adopters
5-16%
Moore’s chasm
Or - the technology just crashes!
From Aldrich 2005, ‘Learning by Doing’
Geoffrey A Moore ‘Crossing the Chasm’

41. What BYOD means .......
• Students (of all ages, but especially
the upcoming) will use whatever
they feel comfortable perhaps with a
bit of guidance
• Digital literacies are rather more
than ‘teaching MS Office products)
usually done poorly anyway

42. Bring Your Own Educational Device
to your personal learning spaces
You + ‘Space’ + iPad

43. In Summary
• iPads are the first time a fully functional
computer can be carried in a pocket
• to any educational space you choose
• to enhance your/students educational
experiences
• with easy assimilation of device + apps
• to promote enhance educational ecologies
via
• Bring Your Own Device implementation

44. References
• Aldrich, C. 2005 Learning by Doing, Pfeiffer,
• Beetham, H. 2013. Designing for active learning in technology-rich contexts, In: Rethinking
pedagogy for a digital age. H. Beetham and R. Sharpe eds.New York and London:
Routledge. 31-48.
• Christensen, C. M., M. B. Horn, and C. W. Johnson. 2008. Disrupting class: How disruptive
innovation will change the way the world learns, McGraw-Hill New York.
• Downes, S. PLE diagram at: www.edtechpost.ca/ple_diagrams/index.php/L
• van Harmelen, M. 2006. Personal learning environments, Personal Learning Environments.
Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies
(ICALT'06), IEEE. City.
• Knowles, M. S. 1975. Self-directed learning: a guide for learners and teachers., Cambridge,
Globe Fearon.
• Koole, M. L. 2009. A model for frameing mobile learning, In: Mobile Learning. Transforming
the delivery of education and training. M. Ally ed.Edmonton, Canada: AU Press. 25-47.
• Moore, G. A. 1999 Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling High-Tech Products to
Mainstream Customers. New York: HarperBusiness.
• Novak, J. D. 1998. Learning, Creating, and Using Knowledge, Mahwah, New Jersey,
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. For discussion of Ausubel and see Fig 5.6, p.58.
• Race, P. 2005. Making Learning Happen, London, Sage.
• Stephenson, N. 1995 The Diamond Age, Bantam.