Footprints in the sky: using student track logs from a “bird's eye view” virtual field trip to enhance learning

Abstract

Research into virtual field trips (VFTs) started in the 1990s but, only recently, the maturing technology of devices and networks has made them viable options for educational settings. By considering an experiment, the learning benefits of logging the movement of students within a VFT are shown. The data are visualized by two techniques: “animated path maps” are dynamic animations of students' movement in a VFT; “paint spray maps” show where students concentrated their visual attention and are static. A technique for producing these visualizations is described and the educational use of tracking data in VFTs is critically discussed.

Keywords::

• virtual field trip
• learning analytics
• geovisualization
• Google Earth
• tracking

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Mary Fargher (Institute of Education) and Anne Srokosz (University of Southampton) who provided helpful educational advice and assistance with finding volunteers. Thanks are also due to the four anonymous reviewers for their useful comments on how to improve the paper. We would also like to thank the volunteers who assisted in the work both at University College London and Southampton University.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a Google^TM faculty research award grant: “Identifying Learning Benefits of Google Earth^TM Tours in Education”.