iPads and field trips

Students at the Lochnagar crater ©P.Hopkins MMXIV

The History PGCE students have also be looking at the use of iPads in the field. As we all know this year is the centenary of the beginning of the first world war and as part of their programme the PGCE secondary History students visit some of the mementi mori of the war in a battlefields tour of Belgium and Northern France.

The trip is centred around two of the great campaigns of the British Expeditionary Force (the BEF) those of the Ypres ("Wipers") salient and the Somme campaigns. We were looking at how having an iPad changes the ways in which the students can access and experience the field trip. The field trip is an important part of secondary (high school) history and "when children are asked to recall their school field trips they recall lots of things, including who they visited and what they did ... even after many years" (Falk and Dierkin, 1997).

We were thinking of the affordances of the iPads to enhance this field work experience and were thinkings of the nature of the learning that would take place, would it be as Kearney, Schuck and Burden (2012) suggest more authentic and promote a higher level of social interactivity than more "traditional" methods of pen, paper and clipboard? Would it offer a range of more transformative experiences rather than just allowing for existing methods to be more efficient or effective (McCormack and Scrimshaw, 2001).

The tutor made an iBook as an artefact (Bennet, 2014) which was shared with the students via dropbox before the field trip - the students downloaded this onto their iPads and this was the core information artefact as the students accessed the tasks at the various sites. This iBook included maps, images and text as well as tasks for the students to undertake during the time in the field.

Whilst on the visit the students collected a variety of data using the devices, this included notes, images, video, screencasts, narration to camera as well as tracking data on an individual they had identified before going on the visit. Finally they will use the devices (and the data they have collected) to create "artefacts of achievement" (Hopkins and Burden, 2014) once they have returned from the visit- though some were able to start this on the bus between trips and travelling too and from the site.

The use of the iPad changed both the nature of the student's experiences and many of their own thoughts on how such visits should take place and they were much more comfortable with the notion of them (and ultimately their own students) being "digital citizens".

The use of devices can thus be divided into these three main areas:

1. The device as a curator of materials to use on the visit, created before the visit
2. The device as a collector of data whilst on the visit
3. the device as a creator of artefacts after the visit, though this may also be during

We will be presenting on this theme later on the year at the ISL conference looking at the use of iPads in the creation on eBooks and also in their use as an enhancer of field work across disciplines.

References

Bennett, S (2014) Hull University Battlefields vists - an eBook, Hull, Hull University
Falk, J and Dierking L (1997) School Field Trips Assessing their long term impact, Curator 40/3
Hopkins, P and Burden, K (2014) Work in progress
McCormick, R and Scrimshaw, P (2001) Technology, Pedagogy and Knowledge, Education, Communication and Information Volume 1:1