Assignment #2: Extending the learning outside the classroom using mobile

technologies.
Irwin Tollefson - OLTD 508 - Mar 18/2017 |1

Extending the learning outside the classroom using mobile technologies

This assignment involves using an activity or lesson that I already use and improving it
so that the student can extend their learning outside of the classroom. This is an
assignment that I have been considering for a while, as an extension to an existing
activity that I already use with Grade 10 Social Studies.

Original Assignment: Take a British Columbia historical figure that we have talked
about within the BC history section of Grade 10 Social Studies and take a more in depth
look at their contribution to BC history. The students are required to give a brief
summary of their chosen persons life and find at least 10 things about this person that
are not found in the textbook. It is designed to be a self-directed research project and
the student is allowed to create a project of their choice. I have received essays,
powerpoints, concept maps, videos and posters from the students. There is an oral
portion of this assignment as well, the students are required to present their findings
concerning their historical figure to the class.

Area of Teaching: Grade 10, Social Studies, all students would be approximately 15
years of age.

Resources Required: School supplied iPad minis (15) with the native apps including
Camera - to take the pictures,
Photos - to store the photos,
Notes - to take short written notes.
Non-native/pre-loaded apps: All SD79 iPads come preloaded from the district with these
apps included for student use.
Voice Notes: this app allows the student to record voice notes directly to the
pictures that they take with the camera allowing them to easily remember the
information associated with the picture.
Book Creator: This easy to use ebook creator allows the students to create
ebooks using their own photos, text and voice memos. The finished product
can then be uploaded to any cloud storage system or saved within the iBooks
app on the iPad itself.
ownCloud: An open source, cloud based, locally hosted storage solution that
is very similar to Dropbox. It allows the teachers and students to share files
and documents within a sandboxed environment.

School district bus for 30 students and 4 adults.

Assignment #2: Extending the learning outside the classroom using mobile
technologies.
Irwin Tollefson - OLTD 508 - Mar 18/2017 |2

Tours booked at Discover the Past (ghost walk tour) and the Old Cemeteries Society
of Victoria (Ross Bay Cemetery tour). Each tour is 90 minutes long and would require
bus transportation from downtown Victoria to Ross Bay Cemetery. The class would be
divided into 2 main groups and the tours would happen simultaneously for each group -
smaller group = more interactive tour.

Improved Assignment: After completing the British Columbia history unit for Grade 10
Social Studies, I will be taking the students on a field trip to Victoria. While in Victoria,
they will be participating in two separate activities. The first activity involves a Ghost
Walk Tour with Discover the Past Walking tours located in Downtown Victoria. The tour
is 90 minutes long and led by one of the staff with Discover the Past. During the tour,
the tour guide leads the students through downtown Victoria, showing them the most
haunted buildings while discussing the various historical events and figures associated
with the area. The second activity is a historical tour of the Ross Bay Cemetery where
tour guides from the Old Cemeteries Society of Victoria will provide a historical tour of
the cemetery, stopping at the grave sites of as many of the historical figures of BC as
possible.
The new assignment will be to create a narrated slide show, using Book Creator
or another app of your choice, outlining the places visited and the historical figures
discussed as they relate to the tours. The figures and events outlined must be in
chronological order as per the history of British Columbia, not necessarily the order that
they were discussed during the tours. All slides will be pictures taken during the field trip
to Victoria and be narrated with information from either the tour guides or information
from any other source, not including the textbook. The students will be in groups of 2 or
3 and will use the iPad minis supplied by the school. Each group must take original
photos during the tour and record the information from the tourguide either on paper, or
within the voice memo app on the iPads/phones. Finally, the finished products will be
uploaded to an Owncloud based, Dropbox like, cloud storage folder set up by the
teacher so that the students can share their work.

Quinns 4Cs: Clark Quinn outlines that mobile learning brings four Cs to learning.
These Cs represent Content, Compute, Communicate and Capture and this new
learning activity meets the 4Cs through its construction.
Content is accessed through the nature of the field trip itself, the students are
being taken on a trip to one of the historical centres of our province and the tour guides
have been specifically asked to include as much about the major historical figures of the
area in their tour. Ross Bay Cemetery is the home of very many of BCs historical
figures and the tours that are given are extremely educational. The students, through
Assignment #2: Extending the learning outside the classroom using mobile
technologies.
Irwin Tollefson - OLTD 508 - Mar 18/2017 |3

the notes app, either text based or audio, record the information that they discover
through the tour.
The information is Captured via the use of the mobile devices through pictures
and the recording of either text or audio to outline the points discussed by the tour
guides. This portion of the exercise is designed to help the students relate the historical
information given to them through the classroom work to the real live stories of the tour
guides. Seeing the resting places of these figures also helps the students to discover
that these were real people and not just names on a page.
The students will need to Communicate their learning through the creation of
their ebooks and through sharing the finished products.
Finally, the students would be given time in class to research the historical
figures, allowing them to use the Compute C. They would search for their chosen
figure using a search engine of their choice via a web browser and based on the
information that they enter they would find out more information about their person.

I believe that the new and improved activity will allow the students to participate in a
field trip which will show that the history of British Columbia is not just a story in a book.
Through the historical Ghost Walk Tour and the Ross Bay Cemetery Tour, the students
will begin to understand that there are real people who lived and contributed to the
history of this province. The original research project sometimes felt like a make work
project for the students. They need to learn how to research and convey the information
that they find but often students just go through the motions. With the addition of the
mobile devices, in this case iPads, and the trip outside of the school, I believe that the
students learning will be impacted in a more real way. Allowing them to take pictures of
what they feel is important to their learning, and find information related to those
pictures will allow them to create the deeper learning connections that are necessary.
This type of activity will also show them that they can actively learn at any time they
choose. The main take away that I am looking to achieve for the students is that history
is alive, all we need to do is look for it.

References:

Quinn, Clark. Designing mLearning. (Video file). Retrieved from

http://www.worklearnmobile.org/mobile-experts/designing-m-learning-clark-quinn-
quinnovation/