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Week 16 - Digital

This week there will be three activities for you to complete in groups
  1. Fully online study
  2. Mobile sensor inquiry
  3. Mobile geolocation
This is a fixed-schedule station rotation. Each group will be allocated 20 minutes for each station in a specific order.
STATION 1: Fully Online Study
Prepare to online study by discussing, posting and commenting on your Location Specific Online Community. If you don't yet have one, it's time to create your own FB or G+ group to help you have local discussions and share ideas, and to make sure everyone from your location is part of that group.
  • What challenges do you assume you will face when studying online?
    • Possibly think back on your ideas from the Design Thinking Week?
  • Ideate solutions on how you can help each other during your online studies
    • Do you need a study buddy or a study group? F2F or virtual?
      • If so, suggest when and where are you going to meet? (f2f / Online?)
    • Could you give and receive review and feedback?
    • How could you maintain a weekly study routine?
    • Timer Apps for your smartphone? Something else? 
In doing so, reflect on the following:
  • How might you actively find further peers for your study group?
  • How might you work collaboratively on the second part of the course?  As well as using your location specific online community, maybe you could have Weekly Google+ hangouts or Skype meetings? Or maybe there are teachers that live or work close to you who you could meet with in a cafeteria (with a WiFi connection) to work over a drink? Maybe you can schedule meetups using Doodle?
  • How do you manage your time and gain knowledge while online?
  • How do you create and maintain an online identity?
  • Now you’ve come to the class each week, how do you remember to go online?
  • What do you want your physical environment to be like? Even if you study online, you are in a physical space of your choice.
Please consider also sharing a summary of your ideas on the national G+ Community with your location and #onlinestudy hashtags.
STATION 2: Mobile Sensor Inquiry
The increasing number of sensors available on mobile devices is opening up new avenues for inquiry-based activities that capture data from the environment. “On the opportunity side, many mobile devices are equipped with a vast array of sensors and versatile components (e.g., camera, microphone, speaker, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi), that opens the door to curricular modules that make clever use of this technology to showcase computing concepts in new ways that are more effective and more engaging.” (Dabney, Dean & Rogers, 2013).
Most mobile devices now have built-in sensors for motion, position and environment. These can be applied in many different ways. "For example, a game might track readings from a device's gravity sensor to infer complex user gestures and motions, such as tilt, shake, rotation, or swing. Likewise, a weather application might use a device's temperature sensor and humidity sensor to calculate and report the dewpoint, or a travel application might use the geomagnetic field sensor and accelerometer to report a compass bearing." (Android Developers, n.d.)
Your smartphone probably has a range of sensors that you are not even aware of. There are some apps that connect to the many sensors on your device. We strongly recommend the Sense-it app if you have an Android phone, or the PhyPhox app if you have a iOS device. PhyPhox also works on Android, but since Sense-It is designed to integrate with the nQuire-it website (see below) using Sense-It is preferable.
Join the nQuire-it Missions website and look at the existing Sense-it missions. Using a decibel meter on your mobile device, record your learning space’s noise data to the Noise Map mission.
If you have time, you could also consider what mission(s) you and your students could create for the nQuire-it website.
STATION 3: Mobile Geolocation
A number of tools have been developed for mobile devices that support game-like learning experiences linked to exploring outdoor environments. They include such features as competing individuals / teams, ‘treasure hunt’ style activities, scores/ badges for achievement and leaderboards. Some examples of this type of tool include:
At the heart of all of these apps is geolocation - being able to place the learner in a specific place using technologies such as the Global Positioning System (GPS).
We will be trying out ActionBound on this station. You will be able to create a simple location-based activity using the ActionBound website, and you can play yours or someone else's Bound with your mobile device (app). There are two videos in this weeks' media relating to this station: 
  • Actionbound Video - This short video introduces some of the features of ActionBound, an app for playing digitally interactive scavenger hunts (called 'Bounds') to lead the learner on a path of discovery. You can create a digital timeline of events or places of interest tour, with the use of GPS coordinates and/or QR codes.
  • ActionBound Demo - This demo video shows you how to create a very simple Bound using ActionBound which you can then try out in test mode on your Android or iOS mobile phone.
Using the Actionbound Demo video on the portal as an example, create a very simple Bound at en.actionbound.com (with a private account) that
  • either includes at least one GPS location and one thing to be done at that location
    • Set the location to be outdoors, within a short walk of your current location
    • Test your bound using a GPS enabled mobile device
  • or alternatively, use a QR code (it will need to be printed out or on a suitable screen)
Make sure you don’t have magnet in your mobile phone’s case, and keep in mind that accurate GPS location might take a while to locate if your phone has just been turned on. Don't set the first location of your Bound too close to the building or it will trigger immediately, before your GPS has had a chance to calibrate.
If you have time, swap and test someone else’s Bound. If you don't have time to create your own bound you could just try out someone else's.
Give Your Anonymous Student Feedback
This feedback is for the first two courses of the Postgraduate Certificate in Applied Practice programme at The Mind Lab: Digital & Collaborative Learning in Context and Leadership in Digital & Collaborative Learning.
The questionnaire is divided into five parts - Demographics, Content, Assessment, Teaching and Learning Support.
Please fill in the optional free text feedback questions if you have any specific responses. Your feedback is golden!
Student Feedback Form for Weeks 1-16
References
Android Developers. (n.d.) Sensors Overview. Retrieved from: https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/sensors/sensors_overview.html
Dabney, M. H., Dean, B. C. & Rogers, T. (2013, March). No sensor left behind: enriching computing education with mobile devices. In Proceedings of the 44th ACM technical symposium on Computer science education (pp. 627-632). ACM.
Leonhardt, D. (2015, July 2nd). A Quick Puzzle to Test Your Problem Solving. New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/07/03/upshot/a-quick-puzzle-to-test-your-problem-solving.html 

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