Supporting Field and In-class Collaborative Learning: Towards a Generalized Framework

Field activities and collaborative learning are prominent educational approaches. Various devices have been used to implement these approaches. For example, mobile devices have been excellently employed to facilitate outdoor learning, as desktops and laptops have been for indoor collaborative learning. But the use of laptops and desktops for group activities has some limitations like support for limited number of learners who can use a device at a time. Recently, interactive multi-touch tables with shareable interfaces and large displays have reached the market. We propose to integrate all these technologies in a common framework to provide a seamless learning environment providing assistance for learning both indoors and outdoors.