Evaluation report

August 2007
Avril Loveless, University of Brighton
Tim Denning, Keele University
Tony Fisher, University of Nottingham
Chris Higgins, Oxford Brookes University

The full version of this report is available to download in pdf format - see box below. On this page you'll find the report's executive summary. There is also a research overview flyer available (1.5mb pdf).

Executive summary

Create-A-Scape

The Create-A-Scape website (www.createascape.org.uk) provides a set of resources to enable teachers and pupils to create digitally-enhanced, personalised learning experiences known as mediascapes, which are collections of location-sensitive texts, sounds and images that are geo-tagged or ‘attached to’ the local landscape, rather like superimposing a ‘digital canvas’ onto the location. These are created using the mediascape authoring toolkit developed by HP Labs in Bristol. The projects described in this report used an early version of the software, which did not offer all the functionality of the recently updated version available on the website[1].

The evaluation study

The report is a ‘snapshot’ of Create-A-Scape activity in schools in spring and summer 2007, generated during a small-scale research project which provided the opportunity to investigate its use and to develop a theoretical framework for learning and teaching with mediascapes. It articulates three distinctive theoretical perspectives: creativity; a sense of place; and teacher knowledge.

The following key research questions underpinning the project focused on description, theory and responsive evaluation:

1. How have teachers and learners encountered, engaged with, and used the Create-A-Scape website and resources?
2. How has the concept of mediascapes made a distinctive contribution to:

• teacher and learner creativity
• the elicitation, development and expression of a sense of place
• teacher professional knowledge?

3. What further developments of the website and resources could be made in order to improve them in the light of user evaluation?

Methodology

The three research questions were explored through two data collection methods:

• a survey questionnaire
• selected site visits with interviews and, where possible, observations of the mediascapes.

Throughout the report, the Create-A-Scape resources described are the earlier version of the software available on the Create-A-Scape website, and all names of institutions and respondents have been anonymised.

Since the site was launched, 130 users have both downloaded the Create-A-Scape software and given their e-mail addresses. Those who did were invited to complete an online questionnaire focusing on the users’ professional context, expectations, usage, sustainability, problems, obstacles and future directions of mediascapes. Twenty-two users responded. A sample of eight projects for site visits were identified from the questionnaire responses, in order to explore the relationship between the process and products through interviews with teachers and learners, and engagement with the mediascapes created. Of those, five sites were viable for visits. These were:

• Cragham Local Education Authority, where a consultant supported pupils in middle and high schools in using Create-A-Scape to make tourist guides within a wider PDA project and an initiative focused on Thinking for Learning.
• Paradise Hill Primary School, where a class of Year 4 pupils were engaged in a cross-curricular immersion day to encourage writing through role play in the school grounds associated with the story ‘Kensuke’s Kingdom’.
• William Ellyott Secondary School, where Year 8 pupils in a tutorial group devised a digital guide to the school campus, working in pairs and drawing upon expertise in ICT and music technology.
• Melborough Local Education Authority, where an ICT consultant created a ‘Moonwalk’ in the school playground to support mathematical activities.
• Beechdale Special School, where the ICT subject leader is supporting pupils in making and evaluating a digital campus guide for new students to the school.

Key findings

1. The respondents to the questionnaire included primary and secondary teachers, teacher educators, postgraduate research students, others involved in community education projects, and a person active in higher education. Some respondents were aware of the possibilities of mediascape activity and were just moving on to the latest development in the area. Others were discovering a new idea and were interested to explore its potential.

• many respondents commented on the positive effects on pupil engagement, involvement, enthusiasm and motivation
• the possibilities for presenting audio and visual material together were felt to be appealing, and it was mentioned that the activity encouraged outdoor learning
• the ease of use and the good level of support from guides and tutorials on the Create-A-Scape website was remarked upon
• the resources were used in a wide range of topics in many curriculum areas, and usually in a cross-curricular manner, integrating areas such as literacy, mathematics, geography, social studies, languages, arts and ICT
• the organisation of groups of students was very varied, from paired activity in tutorial classes to whole year groups and clusters of local schools
• the response of the pupils involved positive and the experiences with Create-A-Scape were described as “enriching, engaging and eye-opening”.

2. The main difficulties in using Create-A-Scape were:

• obtaining and calibrating the base maps
• loss of the GPS signal so that mediascapes froze in use
• problems seeing the PDA screens in bright sunlight.

Improvements requested were:

• easier ways of obtaining maps and images to use as part of the mediascape
• the ability to use other asset formats such as video, PowerPoint slides and simple html[2]
• to have transparent map regions available in the school version of the software
• the ability to associate multiple resources or multiple layers of resources in a given zone.

3. Creativity, sense of place, and teacher professional knowledge were useful in analysing and describing the activities in the projects visited. Creativity was recognised in the interaction of people, communities, subject areas and creative processes.

• the activities seen in the five sites all demonstrated imaginative ideas from the teachers and pupils
• the purposeful fashioning of these ideas into full mediascapes was observed in the activities designed by teachers and pupils
• the evaluation of the experiences as creative and original ideas was still in the early stages in each of the projects, although it was clear that evaluation processes were intrinsic to the cycles of activity.

4. Sense of place was recognised in the complex interaction between people and their physical surroundings; the meanings, and their derivation, which individuals and groups attach to places, including locally embedded personal geographies and shifting identities among young people. A potential spectrum of possibilities arise through the use of mediascapes. These range from activities such as observation and route-following of treasure trails and orienteering, to the (re)construction, expression and communication of deeper meanings associated with a sense of place. In this study, there was limited evidential material about the elicitation, enhancement and communication of individual and group sense of place to work on, as there was little direct access to learners and learner-authored mediascapes. However we suggest that the potential in mediascapes is considerable.

5. Teacher knowledge was recognised in the use of conceptual inputs; the representation of content and pedagogical content knowledge; the knowledge of learners and education settings; the expression of teachers’ personal identity, beliefs and values; the engagement with professional communities; and the exploitation of resource and policy capital.

All the teachers and consultants offered considerable scope and depth in their professional knowledge. Despite the differences in their length of teaching experience, they demonstrated sophisticated knowledge and understanding in being able to offer teaching skills which not only facilitated the planned learning outcomes, but also enabled the learners to engage in metacognitive reflections on their learning experience. This was often tacit knowledge rather than clearly articulated, and there is potential to support teachers in the design of the learning experiences.

6. Our engagement with the case studies suggests some emerging characteristics, which might constitute aspects of a potential taxonomy of types of educational mediascape-related activity.
These are as follows:

• authoring: learner/teacher/other
• place context: real or imagined
• curricular context: formal or informal learning
• location: on or off a school site
• structure: tightly structured or offering considerable flexibility
• collaboration: individual/pair/group.

7. We noted in all cases that the application of the technology offered interesting and new learning possibilities, enabling associations between location and assets (place and media files) to be developed. This adds layers of information to the experience of places, and enhances imaginative engagement through the GPS-triggered introduction of multimedia components. Further development of the technology should allow greater personalisation of the individual experience of these media components.

Recommendations

We have seen some signs from these ‘early adopters’ that there are possibilities for developments in curriculum and pedagogy to coalesce around the concept of mediascapes. These resources have the potential to act as a ‘centre of gravity’ for inter-disciplinary working in the formal curriculum, as well as supporting more informal learning and potentially enabling greater personalisation, flexibility and inclusion. Mediascapes can be inherently integrative for pedagogy, curriculum and technology in a wide range of learning contexts.

We suggest that this assertion needs testing through a model of intervention and research analysis in order to design mechanisms for widening the depth and scope of the use of the materials. These would not be schemes of work or lesson plans, but ‘pedagogical templates’ or ‘prompts’ which would offer connections, questions and starting points to support interdisciplinary activity.

The recommendations arising from this small-scale evaluation focus on developments in the technologies, in research focus and in policy approaches.

a) technical developments

• facilities for aggregating mediascapes from different authors into a group mediascape or into a content repository
• alternative ‘triggering’ of media events (eg infra-red beacons)
• automatic geo-tagging of media objects created in situ on the same device
• multi-layered assets at each trigger zone that can be searched and browsed.

b) research into learning

• develop theoretically-informed pedagogical templates to support teachers
• conduct research on/establish how the specific affordances of the technology (hardware and software) contribute to the elicitation, development, enhancement and communication of a personal sense of place.

c) policy

• pursue, wherever possible, opportunities to create flexibility in the curriculum to support teachers wishing to experiment with innovative, integrative approaches
• clarify the requirements for work beyond school sites in order to support teachers in making the most of the opportunities
• use the network of strategy consultants and others to foster opportunities for the use of these innovative, integrative approaches
• provide use of appropriate technology for schools to be able to experience mediascapes.

top of page