Handheld Learning - learning with mobile and ubiquitous technologies

GPS – students with learning difficulties

I’ve recently been using a ‘HP iPAQ hw6915 Mobile Messenger’ PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) handheld computer with built-in camera and GPS (Global Positioning System) features. I’ve used it with a small group of Entry Level (learning difficulties) students, during their Edexcel ‘Introduction to Computers’ unit. The students are all aged 16 years and over and are enrolled on part-time and full-time faculty-based courses.

They initially used the PDA to access the Internet (via WiFi) and played the games built into the Microsoft Windows Mobile (v.5.0) operating system. They also got used to the touch screen/stylus, which wasn’t a major obstacle as many students own a touch screen sensitive mobile phone and/or a Nintendo DS.

I wanted them to use the built-in camera and GPS to take advantage of these functions. Thus, the group have taken turns to take outdoor photographs of buildings/vegetation around the college campus. They learnt to wait whilst the PDA had a ‘lock’ on orbiting satellites, so the latitude/longitude (EXIF) data was saved with the image, thus geotagging it.

They used Bluetooth to send the geotagged images to a laptop. The images were uploaded to my account on the Flickr (www.flickr.com) photo sharing website. (Incidentally, make sure you allow Flickr to ‘Automagically import GPS information as geo data’ - www.flickr.com/account/geo/exif). Once uploaded to Flickr, they clicked on ‘Organize’, then ‘Map’. This process places the photos on a world map, so they could see exactly where they were located when they took the photo. By clicking on ‘Explore this map’ they were able to view other geotagged images around the world.

The next stage is to extend the GPS feature of the PDA using Create-A-Scape (www.createascape.org.uk) to design GPS-based trails within the college campus and beyond. The group have already used a GPS-based outdoor game called ‘Stamp the Mole’. If you have problems downloading the ‘Mscape toolkit’, like I did, here is the direct link: http://www.mscapers.com/tools/mscape-2.1.exe

I would be very grateful for ideas from other people who have used GPS with students with learning difficulties within a Further Education environment.

Many thanks

Jonathan

Neil. Many thanks for responding to my query. I’ll use the mediascape software for the meantime, but may consider your software programs in the future.

In addition to the ‘HP iPAQ hw6915’ handheld computer I now have access to four ‘HP iPAQ 614c Business Navigator’ (Microsoft Windows Mobile 6 Professional) PDA/smart phone as well, which all have built-in GPS.

I’ve synchronised all five iPAQs to a central laptop, so I can synchronise files. This is achieved by a mini-USB iPAQ cable which links the iPAQ to the laptop, in association with Microsoft ActiveSync software. As a result I have transferred several mediascapes (GPS based activities downloaded from www.mscapers.com) from the laptop onto the iPAQs. I have also downloaded and transferred ‘Macromedia Flash Player 7 for Pocket PC’ (www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer_pocketpc/downloads/player.html) which is required by some of the readymade portable mediascapes.

I read through the excellent ‘mscape Help Pages’ - http://wiki.mscapers.com/bin/view/Main/WebHome - and used their easy-to-follow ‘Using Mscape Toolkit’ instructions - http://wiki.mscapers.com/bin/view/Main/CreatingAMediascapeUsingMscapeMaker - to produce a simple mediascape around the local area where I live for testing purposes.

It is claimed that “children as young as Year 6 can grasp the basic concepts and build a simple mediascape in an hour” (www.createascape.org.uk/teachers_area/guidelines/key_things.html), so I thought I’d ask some of my Information Technology students, working at Entry 3, to use it to see if they could produce a simple mediascape for use around their college.

They opened the mscape software (downloaded from www.mscapers.com/software), imported the images* and audio, and imported a local map via the ‘mscape Map Service’. Unfortunately when they zoomed in the relatively small size of the college campus meant only ‘Map’ view, featuring town and road names, was available and not ‘Sat’ (satellite) or ‘Hyb’ (Hybrid). This meant the students could only place their ‘regions’ where a road leading into the college terminated or by guessing the likely location.
*Taken whilst producing an audio-visual trail (www.symbolworld.org/learning/life_skills/it/audio_visual_trail/audiovis1.htm) before Easter.

The next stage is to test their mediascape. I’m praying for good weather (www.bbc.co.uk/weather)!

Jonathan

I setup and tested my first mediascape outside the college campus this afternoon. The mediascape covered a linear route on foot from the college to Tesco Express and back, which is a round trip of 2 miles. The initial decision was whether to setup two separate mediascapes, i.e. one for the outward and one for the return journey. I decided to produce a single generic mediascape combining both sections, to avoid confusing the user. I took photos along the route with particular emphasis on road junctions, as I knew these regions could be easily plotted. I also took extra photos outside the set route to indicate to the user if they were heading in the wrong direction. I then recorded a generic instruction for each region using Audacity (http://audacity.sourceforge.net), which I exported as a WAV file.  I opened mscape maker and created the regions, then imported my audio and images. I then transferred the mediascape to a ‘HP iPAQ hw6915 Mobile Messenger’ PDA. I tested the mediascape with two Entry Level students, who admittedly had previously walked the same route as part of their independent travel training. However, some of the issues raised during this short initial test were:
- High reflectivity of the screen made reading information difficult, coupled with fingerprints.
- Traffic noise made instructions very difficult to hear. An earphone may provide the solution, but there are dangers with being distracted near traffic etc, plus it is not permissible if the PDA is shared. (I’d hoped to add a short music clip to precede each instruction, but discovered that they overlapped each other).
I’ll report back again at a later date.

Incidentally, BBC Click has just featured a report on ‘SAT-NAV FOR PEOPLE’ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/click_online/7440387.stm . A prototype Intel GPS device works in areas with wireless broadband and features contains sensors, an accelerometer, a 3D compass and a gyroscope.

Jonathan