Higher Education m-Learning and e-Learning Scenariosfor a Geospatial Wiki

Christian SafranInstitute for Information Systems and Computer Media,Graz University of TechnologyAustriacsafran@tugraz.atMartin Ebner Social Learning / Computer and Information ServicesGraz University of TechnologyAustriamebner@tugraz.atVictor Manuel García-BarriosInstitute for Information Systems and Computer Media,Graz University of TechnologyAustriavgarcia@iicm.eduFrank KappeInstitute for Information Systems and Computer Media,Graz University of TechnologyAustriafrank.kappe@iicm.edu

Abstract:

Several fields of higher education, like geology, architecture, or civil engineering, relyon visual information in the context of learning, a considerable part of it moreover location-based.Geotagging, a phenomenon recently spreading through he online and mobile world, offersinnovative possibilities to support teachers and learners in such fields. One such approach is thecomposition of geotagged information with a collaborative environment – a so-called geowiki. A prototype for an educational geowiki, TUGeoWiki, has been developed at Graz University of Technology. This publications outlines possible application scenarios for TUGeoWiki in higher education, taking into account e-Learning as well as m-Learning scenarios.

Introduction

In the last months a remarkable movement towards geo-locating software occurred and maybe this is one of the nexttrends in the online world. Nowadays more and more cell phones are equipped with a GPS-receiver. Examplesinclude Nokia N95, Apple’s iPhone and the G1. The main intention was to bring the possibility for navigation onmobile devices, but simultaneously a new phenomenon appeared, which is called geotagging.Geotagging allows users to add global coordinates to their pictures or to track positions of their cell phones. Thisinformation is used by software (for example Locr

) or online services (for example Google Latitude

) to enhanceonline information by exact positions. Beside discussions about ethics or privacy this additional information alsooffers new possibilities for teaching and learning. Especially for such learning fields, which are strongly based ongeo-located information, like biology, geology, civil engineering, architecture and some more, lecturing achieves anew dimension.Furthermore by combining typical Web 2.0 technologies and geo-location possibilities a further contribution to e-Learning 2.0, as defined by Stephen Downes (Downes 2005), can be achieved. Wikis offer an easily useable tool for

http://www.locr.com

, accessed 2009-04-28

http://www.google.com/latitude/

, accessed 2009-04-28

Originally published: Safran, C.; Ebner, M.; Garcia-Barrios, V. M.; Kappe, F.:Higher Education M-Learning and E-Learning Scenarios for a Geospatial Wiki. - in: E-Learn - World Conferenceon E-Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare, & Higher Education ; 2009 (2009)online collaboration and mashups provide a technology of joining contents from various sources to enhance theavailable knowledge base. In this paper we present an idea how geo-located information can enhance lecturing inHigher Education.

The role of Visual and Geotagged Information in Learning

The main idea is to bring the work

on-site

in-field

back to the lecture room and keep the learners on collaborating.The research work is based mainly on two ideas:(1)

Visual and geotagged information enhances education in several fields(2)

Collaboration and sharing enhances the learning outcomeIn subjects like civil engineering, geology, architecture etc. education is strongly based on visual information. Brohn(Brohn 1983) pointed out that the “language of intuition is visual, just as the language of analysis is abstract andsymbolic.” In several research activities we were able to point out the importance of visualisations, animations, aswell as interactions for civil engineering (Ebner and Holzinger 2003; Holzinger and Ebner 2005; Ebner, Scerbakovet al. 2006). Especially for explanations of highly complex engineering models new technologies offered acompletely different way of teaching and learning. Still visualisations lacked at one particular point: The connectionof the abstract engineering model and the real world. The major competence of any practical engineer is to abstractan appropriate model from nature to develop a quantifiable mathematical model. This shows that the knowledgeabout the particular environment where a building will be placed is highly important. Different geological behaviours lead to different building measurements.According to (1) there is an obvious need to enhance learning material, especially pictures and real-life simulations, by global coordinates to combine engineering models and reality.Furthermore if learners collect real-life material there is mostly no possibility to share and collaborate on it. Bearingin mind the power of Web 2.0 technologies, wikis seem to be an appropriate tool for exchange between highnumbers of learners. Lot of different research work carried out that wikis can successfully be applied in education(Augar, Raitman et al. 2004; Caddick 2006; Ebner, Kickmeier-Rust et al. 2008). Wikis in general highly support thecharacteristics communication, collaboration and contribution to a pool of knowledge. Depending on the degree of freedom as well as the possibilities of active contributions within a learning community successful learning occurs(Bruns and Humphrey 2005; Mitchell, Chen et al. 2005). Furthermore there is an impact for graduates oncooperative developing new knowledge as solving problems (Kirschner, Van Vilsteren et al. 1997).From a learning research perspective the TUGeoWiki project presented in this publication aims to collect varioustypes of learning material, which were taken

on-site

in the field

by visualising the global coordinate on GoogleMaps automatically in any contributions. By using the mashup technology (Tuchinda, Szekely et al. 2008) contentand location can be shared by teachers as well as students and instead of writing essays for their own learners theyshare their experiences, pictures and observations online in a number of articles.In this publication we would like to address the following research question: How can a geowiki be used for lecturing in Higher Education?

TUGeoWiki – a Collaborative Tool for Geotagged Information

As shown in the preceding chapter, learning in certain fields like Geology can benefit from the integrationof geospatial with visual information.Another technology enhanced learning approach proven to enhance especially informal learning is theapplication of Wikis as collaborative online tools (Granitzer, Stocker et al. 2008). Wikis are a technology developed by Leuf and Cunningham in 1995 (Leuf and Cunningham 2001). They are designed to provide a simple tool for knowledge management, with users being able to collaboratively create and edit pages. Another of the centralaspects of a Wiki is the revision history tracing every modification to a specific user. Recently, tools like wikis are being used to support collaborative aspects in e-Learning (Fucks-Kittowski, Köhler et al. 2004).The potential integration of the two concepts of geospatial (visual) information and collaborative work witha Wiki in order to enhance learning performance and experience has been researched at the Graz University of Technology for two years. The key goals for this research were the development of an (a) lightweight, (b)geospatially focused and (c) collaborative learning approach.

lightweight

we want express that our approach is meant to implement only the mostnecessary aspects of a full geographical information system (GIS) necessary for the educational purpose. The termmoreover describes the intended user interaction as being as unobtrusive as possible and based on well-knownsoftware and usage paradigms.The term

geospatially focused

refers to the GIS related part of the approach, as it is focused on providingand working with geospatially related information. Students can benefit in their learning process from the extensionof such information with geospatial information (

geotagging

) and the creation of a link to real-world space.Finally the approach researched should be intended for collaborative work on such geospatial information.The application areas include the search for, and work with, but also the compilation of information in the course of informal learning scenarios.In the course of this research a geospatial Wiki application has been developed (Safran and Zaka 2008).TUGeoWiki is a Web-application based on the open source MediaWiki

software used in Wikipedia. The originalapplication is extended in two ways.On the one hand TUGeoWiki modifies the MediaWiki paradigm of

pages

for the individual entries in theWiki into

places

. By definition every entry in the geospatial wiki is bound to coordinates and relates to a real-world place. This is achieved by extending core data structure of the MediaWiki software and by adding

special pages

toview and add information bound to geospatial coordinates (Mediawiki 2008).These special pages are designed as mashups with Google Maps

, or Microsoft’s Live Search Maps

.Additionally a link to the MediaWiki Geohack extension is created, which offers the display of the coordinates innumerous other map sources (Wikipedia 2008).On the other hand TUGeoWiki provides a mobile application for the usage

in the field

. The mobileapplication offers the possibility to search for

places

in the vicinity of the current location or relate images to certain

places

. It supports the use of internal and external GPS sensors for the identification of the mobile device’s currentlocation. The mobile application serves as a tool for the communication with the TUGeoWiki server and thussupplements the usage with a mobile browser (see Figure 1).

Figure 1:

TUGeoWiki mobile application architecture

The current version of the mobile application was developed using the Java Mobile Edition (Java ME)

inorder to be compatible with a wide number of mobile devices. Currently extended versions are implemented asnative applications for Android

and Symbian OS

devices.

Learning Scenarios with a Geospatial Wiki

The first successful evaluations in the course of civil engineering excursions revealed, beside potentialimprovements, the need for a closer inspection of possible learning scenarios with a geospatial wiki in higher education. These scenarios are used to describe possible applications of the geowiki and their impact on the learning process.

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