MOTEL: Designing a virtual geo-tagging framework for use in higher education

Abstract

Higher Education students are highly mobile; they move between learning venues such as lecture halls, the field, labs, home, and excursions. In order to understand how students used technology to support them in their different learning venues, we carried out ethnographic flavored field studies where we followed biology students and faculty in their learning/research activities at the University of Bergen, Norway. We identified both a need for support in their activities and for data transfer between various learning venues. Based on these studies, we have designed MOTEL, a framework for a virtual geo-tagging. This paper discusses our views on mobile learning, describes our field studies and the resulting design decisions, and introduces the MOTEL framework.