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MOBILE LEARNING DEVICES AS COLLABORATIVE TOOLS TO ENHANCE BIOLOGICAL IDENTIFICATION SKILLS IN THE LAB AND FIELD
1.2 The pedagogy of taxonomy
Identification is a critical skill for a biologist that is an active, experiential and exploratory learning activity( KeytoNature, 2010). Students must experience the target organism using all of their senses: smell it, touch it, listen to the way it sounds when crumpled and view it from multiple angles( tasting is not recommended as it may be poisonous), etc. Therefore, species identification brings together a unique set of skills that involve visual learning, visual thinking and visual communication( Stanley, 1996). Identification is not about the final answer, but the process used to achieve the final answer, and as such should not be done as a solitary activity. The problem here is that verbal communication is something that is often lacking between students. I have personally witnessed students sitting side-by-side in a tutorial messaging each other via Facebook, rather than engaging in oral communication. The prolific integration of technology into our lives( spell checker, predictive texting, Satnavs, etc.) means we are losing the ability to use all of our senses, to think on our feet, and question what we see, hear, feel, etc. Multi-sense learning involving the brain and our body is critical not only to science, but also develops a broader set of skills needed to cope with every day-to-day life tasks.
Species identification provides the perfect forum for a blended learning approach that brings together Kolb’ s( 1984) experiential learning cycle and Biggs and Tang’ s( 2007) constructivist model of learning activities. The learner builds on prior experiences of species from smell, touch, etc., and uses relational questioning to consider“ how is this different to the last plant?” Much of the prior knowledge used in the constructivist model of identification is gained subliminally through childhood adventures making mud pies and capturing‘ creepy crawlies’ in backyards and local woods with friends. But for a whole generation of today’ s children, the pleasures of a free-range childhood are missing( Louv, 2005). Monbiot( 2012) considers the removal of children from the natural world to be a second environmental crisis. It is therefore down to universities to educate adults in the ways of nature and to provide these childhood experiences.
1.3 iPadagogy and the iPad technology innovation boom
Mobile learning devices offer the opportunity to engage today’ s students in the process of species identification in ways previously out of reach in a field setting, and can be used as a means of bridging