The University of Nottingham's February Trials at Haddon Park School
Figure 1: An example graph generated from the heart-rate monitor on the tablet computer.
Figure 2: A screen from the web-based activity showing the recovery time recorded by each group (one group failed to make a measurement), ordered by level of self-reported fitness activity.
Stamatina Anastopoulou, 4th May 2008
The UoN focused on the topic of fitness and investigated how an inquiry investigation could be set up within the school settings. the case study was designed across a school classroom, sports hall, and library with year 9 students of a local Nottingham school, using off the shelf technology. The main aim of the study was to incorporate inquiry learning activities within an extended school science environment in order to investigate opportunities for technological mediations and to extract guidelines for the design of personal technology to link inquiry learning across different settings.
Two sets of technology were developed for the trial: the mobile data collector (adapted to project needs) and visualisation tool, and a web-based analysis tool.
The data collection tool comprised a Sunto heart-rate chest strap connected wirelessly to a box that generates a stream of heart-rate data. The box is connected to the USB port on a Samsung Q1 tablet computer running a custom Java program to continuously generate the heart rate as a graph (Figure 1). It also sampled the heart rate every 0.25 seconds to produce a comma-separated stream of data.
The web-based analysis tool, running on desktop computers in the classroom, enables each group of students to see the heart rate data collected for the group and by other groups in the class, along with photos taken by the group (Figure 2). It takes the students through a sequence of steps to view and then analyse the data in order to answer questions related to their investigation.
The intervention went through many iterations, as the UoN staff and teachers discussed issues related to the inquiry, the content and the logistics of the investigation. A set of evaluation activities were also carried out the outcomes of which provided valuable insights for the development of the technology to support their inquiry in the future.
The UoN has organised a feedback session with pupils and teacher from Hadden Park High School. 7 pupils and 3 teachers were given the chance to talk about past experiences of inquiry, one being when the PI project offered them technology and another being a geography lesson on volcanoes. They offered their opinions on aspects of their experiences like working with groups, anonymising their work, carrying out homework or carrying equipment at home. The aim was to identify issues that might not have been addressed in the past intervention as well as explore possibilities for future activities.
