ARTICLE #4 | 75
MOBILE LEARNING DEVICES AS COLLABORATIVE TOOLS TO ENHANCE
BIOLOGICAL IDENTIFICATION SKILLS IN THE LAB AND FIELD
dangers of using free apps are that support may be discontinued.
For example, the Here&Near app used in this study has not been
updated since 21 June 2012 (Dvoychenko, 2012), and subsequent
upgrades to the iOS in 2015 have disabled the share facility rendering
the app defunct. I contacted the Here&Near app developers, but
never received a response, so I am now unable to share revisions to
the tree tour with the teaching set of devices (cue more tears) – I
got around this by manually altering the tour on each device, but
this is not a sustainable solution so its back to drawing board.
But there is hope for the future. The IEEM (2011) report has put
species identification on the main agenda, and Warren et al.
(2015) have re-engaged academia in the state of play. Things are
changing. The abandoned Biological Recording course was rescued
by Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU, 2012), and Reading
University offer a unique Masters programme specifically targeting
species identification skills that is “designed to offer students a
stepping-stone into Ecological Consultancy” (University of Reading,
2016). Indeed, students are becoming more targeted at developing
employment skills, with a study by France et al. (2016) identifying
that students could make clear links between the use of mobile
apps and the development of graduate attributes, and thereby
employability skills. Making tree ID “fun” and relevant to future
careers is half the battle.
Figure 9: Outdoor Wi-Fi coverage on Keele campus denoted by
pink shading (Courtesy of Keele Estates)