Use of mobile technologies as support tools for geography field trips

Abstract

In recent years, cellular phones and tablets have become increasingly more prevalent and popular. Due to their great mobility, light weight and ability to serve as a platform for various applications, these devices are ideal candidates for supporting out-of-classroom learning. Geography teachers in the twenty-first century must become familiar with these tools and must learn how to integrate them into their teaching, both in the classroom and in the field. Intelligent use of these tools can make classroom learning interesting and interactive and can transform the field trip into a stimulating and probing learning experience.

This paper describes a course designed to train geography teachers to use the technological and pedagogical capabilities of mobile technologies to promote learning, with the goal of introducing mobile devices into the educational toolbox for geography field trips. The primary objective of the course was to enable geography education students to plan and carry out field trips that integrate mobile technologies and to teach them how to use these technologies in the educational activities they plan for the trips.

The results of the research assessing the course indicate that technologies now available in mobile devices can be used to upgrade students’ learning abilities during field trips. The education students who took the course indicated that they planned to use these technologies on a regular basis in the future as an additional means of learning outside the classroom. They reported being able to produce activities on their own that optimally integrate the use of these technologies in field trip activities.

Keywords:

• geography education
• geography field work
• geolocation apps
• mobile education
• out-of-classroom learning