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Technology makes study more interesting and fun.
Task: find monuments and graves of important people and answer some questions
Tool: mobile guide ARTOUR on Sony Xperia tablet S
Users: 7th grade pupils from Maribor primary schools
Reactions:
"It was fun."
"I have learned interesting things."
"I didn't know Maister is burried here."
Using mobile guide as learning tool
Yes, we have tried to use mobile guide application ARTOUR in completly new way. To teach young children about important people, heritage and history. And as it turned out, it was a complete success.
The project sparked as an idea in March 2013 in Maribor, Slovenia. While discussing how to organize a learning day for young pupils of two elementary schools, team members came across the idea to use mobile guide as a tool. It should make the learning day more attractive for them.
How did we do it
A new guide with special set of points was prepared in ARTOUR application. Each point had hints and geographical location of the monument or grave. The exact name of the monument or person was changed.
To get the full name of the person and discover some other details, pupils had to find the grave by using map mode.
The most important part was actually hiding important information (name or complete photo), which meant you have to walk to the point (by using map or Augmented Reality mode).
As you can see in the case image on the left side, title of the point was changed to something related. The monument is dedicated to the Russian prisoners who died in the winter run through Maribor during WW2. Yet, the name of the monument, as well as the real size and look, was not visible in the mobile guide. It was just written, Prisoners run.
Pupils had to walk to that monument to find it's real title and some other details.
Mobile guides are great teaching tool
The complete experience was great fun, yet important for several other reasons:
1. Pupils could use modern technology they like to use, which makes them more motivated for learning.
2. They were walking around, discussing many other aspects of cemetery with their teachers, get the real life experience. The memory effect is much better.
3. Learning to use maps in an unknown teritory is preparing them for many real life experiences.
Children loved the experience and our mobile guide. Within minutes, many of them installed the application to their own smart phones and started discovering the important points on their own.
As we could have learned by joining their experience, mobile guiding applications can be a great tool to get pupils and students motivated for learning and engagement.
Mobile learning is certainly one of the most interesting aspects we plan to develop in future in ARTOUR.