DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY IN THE CLASSROOM AND THE FIELD: COGNITIVE AFFORDANCES AND HINDRANCES

Digital devices are ubiquitous in modern developed societies. They facilitate communication among individuals in most demographic groups, and especially among today’s college student population. However, many educators have been reluctant to adopt digital technology as an educational tool, even going so far as to ban digital devices from classrooms. The authors have taken the opposite approach, adopting digital technologies at the earliest opportunity, in lecture, laboratory, field, and informal education settings. Classroom tests show that carefully designed lesson plans involving digital devices offer affordances rather than hindrances to the learning experience for many students. Banning their use in class is as futile as trying to stop professors from checking their messages during faculty meetings!

Our approach to digital technology in geoscience education focuses on evaluating hardware and applications that are currently available and testing solutions in local and distance education settings. Where existing solutions have proven impractical or ineffective, we custom designed and/or coded new solutions and tested them iteratively. Examples of off-the-shelf solutions include use of Google Earth’s built in geoscience content such as the volcanoes and earthquakes layers. Examples of custom designed solutions include EarthQuiz, a game-like challenge that include a course module management system. Hardware and software for digital field mapping has been available for the past twenty years, and the authors have tested many of these solutions for field education with varying success. Modern apps with tablets and handheld computers provide off-the-shelf solutions, but we have had to customize methodologies for the specifics of field geology to allow a workflow where the technology aids student learning rather than limiting it.

New opportunities for enhancing cognition with digital technologies include augmented reality, using apps such as FreshAiR and equipment like Microsoft’s HoloLens. Equally exciting are the potential for improved 3D visualization through the use of digital models of landforms, outcrops, and structures. As always, the opportunities enabled by new digital technologies will require iterative development and testing to yield the most successful educational approaches.