Mobile City Science: Technology-Supported Collaborative Learning at Community Scale

Abstract

In a new era of digital media and democracy, there is widespread concern that technologies have incapacitated us from learning and teaching across diverse communities and perspectives. While this notion may ring true in certain contexts, this paper describes a study, “Mobile City Science,” that designed a novel learning experience in which educators and young people used mobile and place-based technologies to document and analyze the diverse perspectives of community members living in rapidly changing urban areas. The objective of this work was to teach young people digital literacies associated with “city science,” an emerging interdisciplinary field that creates data-driven approaches to complicated community issues. Participants were videotaped as they collected and analyzed information about a specific neighborhood using wearable cameras, GPS devices, heart rate monitors, and a GIS software. Early findings show that Mobile City Science uses technology to engage people with diverse perspectives around a community scale problem.