Creating a digital learning ecosystem to facilitate authentic place-based learning and international collaboration – a coastal case study

Abstract

Authentic, place-based experiential learning is essential for students of ecology, whilst an understanding of broader human impacts is necessary for effective conservation efforts. Creating future environmental leaders requires fostering such understanding whilst building transferable skills in collaboration, communication and cultural competence. Mobile technologies and collaborative digital tools can connect students across broad geographic locations, allowing them to share experiences and build a common understanding of global environmental challenges. Within this concise paper, we report on the initial stages and proposed next steps in building a learning ecosystem, consisting of a digital platform and embedded tools, to facilitate undergraduate learning in coastal ecology across universities in Australia, Hong Kong and South Africa. Using here a framework guided by design-based research (DBR), we discuss the design and development of these digital tools in context, and their proposed integration into upper undergraduate science curricula across locations.

Learning from ‘failures’ in the development of mobile and technology-enhanced learning initiatives

“…Within the context of an existing project in development that seeks to develop a mobile learning system for collaborative field-based learning across international institutional contexts (Bone et al, 2020), I describe below just one of these critical success factors defining several subfactors and assessing their feasibility in context.…”

Mobile learning in higher education environmental science: state of the field and future possibilities

“…Our review criteria only identified two studies in ecology disciplines, both of which utilised an existing enterprise application for species identification (Pfeiffer et al 2009;Thomas and Fellowes 2017). There remains ample opportunity to develop collaborative mobile learning systems that use custom-built applications for field data collection and are integrated with the learning management systems, such as those in development in collaborative international projects (Bone et al 2020). We strongly encourage the exploration of the potential for mobile learning in these contexts, and the publication of other projects that have incorporated mobile tools in ecological and environmental sciences curricula.…”