THE BRIEF

Mobilised Learning Environments


What does it mean to be a mobilised learner? 

How can we design to engage people in learning about and through their environment?

This project explores both of these questions by focusing on designing using an open‐source electronics platform.

Sensors and feedback

Does the environment sense us or do we sense the environment?

Both. We can think about the ways in which the environment

responds to human activity and the ways in which we sense

our surroundings.

We can use electronic gadgets to sense the environment and we can

use our own senses too. For example, if we were to monitor the

levels of pollution on Trafalgar Road in Greenwich we could install a

carbon monoxide sensor and/or we could ask pedestrians to comment

on the air quality.

If we wanted to gather data on how light or dark a street was at night

we could use a light sensor, but how could we sense how safe the

street f elt, for this we would use people as the sensor. In this way

we can argue that both gadgets and humans are able to harvest

environmental information that provides useful feedback to learning

more about environments.

Citizen Sensing

Citizen sensing is an emerging field where citizens are empowered by technology

to monitor their own environment. Traditionally environmental monitoring

was something that was undertaken by officialdom, an agency usually linked

to Government ‐ they chose what they wanted to sense and were in charge of the

data they collected. 

Citizen sensing turns this on its head; it allows citizens to

monitor their environment for elements that are of concern to them. Opening

up or democratising sensing means that ordinary people can learn about and

understand the world around them better and can be a part of the decision

making in improving environments for  all.

Project Brief

Over the next four weeks you will be involved in designing a project  that

uses electronically controlled sensors to harvest environmental information.

You will need to research what it is that you want to monitor and how the system

you design will respond to the data collected.  You will have the opportunity to

work out how this might be done using the Arduino prototyping platform.

Your outcome will be a prototype circuit and a project blog that describes its

Development and conceptual applications.