ARTICLE #4 | 69
MOBILE LEARNING DEVICES AS COLLABORATIVE TOOLS TO ENHANCE
BIOLOGICAL IDENTIFICATION SKILLS IN THE LAB AND FIELD
Figure 7: Relative comparison of number of times tree app is top
rated by student [Appendix 4.2 – Q5]
All students felt the £2.49 charge was reasonable, as it “was
significantly better than the free alternatives”, but “students are
not often wanting to pay for apps unless it is a necessity.” However,
team 3 reported that “they did not make use of Tree ID”, as:
“ForestXplorer and LeafsnapHD were the combo we preferred.
ForestXplorer allowed us to go through a ‘simplified virtual key’
and look at possible tree ID’s for the characteristics we could see.
The leaf snapper tool was useful as despite not revealing specific
species, it did give us an idea of what the family could be. It also had
several photos different views of the leaves and fruits.”
Not all shared this opinion. Team 4 complained that they only
identified 5 out of 8 trees correctly “due to the leaf ID app
[leafsnapHD] giving us wrong answers”, while Team 1 noted that:
“LeafsnapHD was pointless for its picture feature, as out in the field
it refused to work and failed to upload with limited internet signal
and also saying the paper we used as a background wasn’t ‘plain
white’.” And “ForestXplorer did not work for us for the first 5 trees,
as it had frozen.”
Instead Team 1 preferred FSC trees as a starting point:
“…as it did not need internet access and so we could use it when
out of range of the wifi. This reduces a lot of accessibility problems