Mobile fieldwork and learning
Project overview
In this project, supported by the Australian Learning and Teaching Council, we are developing and evaluating innovative approaches to student learning in the field.
The motivation rests on the long-recognised benefits of fieldwork:
- The application of abstract knowledge to practical reality outside the lecture theatre
- Skills of interrogation and interpretation
- An emphasis on student-initiated learning
- Social interaction between students as a part of learning.
Three Australian universities will partner to explore new approaches to fieldwork with the catalyst for innovation being new mobile technologies. Four studies of subjects taught in the Built Environment will investigate the benefits and limitations of using multimedia resources in situ, and of students creating assessable content for a mobile medium. The varied sub-disciplines of the Built Environment provide a sound basis for extending findings to other disciplines.
The project will produce nationally applicable cross-disciplinary resources for the enhancement of fieldwork in the form of demonstration case-studies, technology development models, and guidelines for designing mobile learning activities.
Project team
- Wally Smith
- Hana Lewi (Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning)
- Andrew Saniga (Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning)
- Shanton Chang
- Diego Ramirez-Lovering (Department of Architecture, Monash Univesity)
- Lee Stickells (Faculty of Architecture, Design and Planning, Univesity of Sydney)
