Digital Treasure Hunts! – Using Mobile Technology to Support Fieldwork

I recently worked with my partner and her year 6 students on developing a unit of work exploring the urban geography of Plymouth in the southwest of England.

The class was a typical class with a broad range of ability. The unit of work which was planned ended with a fieldtrip to Plymouth, where students were asked to compare and contrast the rural locality which most of the students lived in with a large city.

One of the most challenging aspects of running a visit like this is how can the teacher manage and engage learners outside of the classroom. We decided that we would try something with PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants), the plan was to use these devices to deliver instructions and resources to support the students on the visit, and in doing so hopefully take the pressure off the teacher, this doesn’t sound that different from the conventional approach of using paper resources and clipboards. The difference in using the PDAs was that the students could use them to ‘unlock’ information as and when they visited locations around the city in a kind of ‘Digital Treasure Hunt’.

Resources and instructions were created in Microsoft Word and converted to PDF (Visage eXPert PDF), and then loaded onto the PDAs (model: HP IPAQ 2210). During the conversion process from Word to PDF files the resources were also password protected. Anyone viewing the instruction files would require a password to unlock them. At specific points across the city, coloured laminated sheets of card were attached to buildings (with the consent of the owners) – these sheets contained the ‘unlock’ codes for the instructions the students would need to follow at each location. When the students reached a location, they entered the ‘unlock’ code to view the instructions and associated resources for that location. The resources provide some information about the location, and the instructions, what the students were required to do, a series of questions about the location, what to look out for and an environmental survey at each point.

To view the ‘Digital Treasure Hunt’ activities for each location, click on the link and enter the ‘unlock’ code next to it:

Location 1 : g9w3
Location 2 : e8b4
Location 3 : x5p7
Location 4 : f6m5
Location 5 : p2g4

The PDAs performed well throughout the fieldtrip and added an interesting dimension to the study unit. I’m hoping to add video and audio clips for a similar visit in the future. I’ve also been looking at using mobile phones instead of PDAs with older students in my school – Acrobat Reader is also available for smartphones running the Symbian OS, I’ll keep you posted with how this goes!

Software Required

Visage eXPert PDF Standard

Available from http://www.visagesoft.com at € 49.00. A free trial is also available here

I got mine free on a cover disk from a computer magazine (keep an eye out for these)

Acrobat Reader for Pocket PC 2002

Available as a free download from here