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Education Wireless Networking Hardware

Wi-Fi Woods 85

Posted by michael from the using-pine-and-elm dept.
Mr]-[at writes "School kids in southern England have been given PDAs and pocket radios to track down and record plants and wildlife, as part of the Ambient Wood Project. The feedback has been overwhelming positive."
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Wi-Fi Woods More

Wi-Fi Woods

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  • I wonder how long they could have spent in the wood if it was a GBA or similar.
  • Like the setting for Blair Witch 2003 - Back to the Woods.

  • Gee (Score:4, Funny)

    by DrMrLordX ( 559371 ) on Sunday July 06, 2003 @03:52AM (#6376139)
    I'd love to see something like that around here if it weren't for all the booby-trapped marijuana fields everywhere. Well, in the north end of the county anyway.
    • to track down and record plants

      Looks like they're already spending too much time in those fields.
  • I'm sure the kids won't get into the software and use this for pr0n, chat, and Internet usage... Lucky bastards...

    <old man rant="1">
    In my day you had to buy scrolls that were 50' long and used your own blood to write out notes, and if you died from blood loss you were a wussie! AND WEEEE LIKED IT!!!
    <old man rant="0">

  • The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 06, 2003 @03:59AM (#6376154)
    Hmm, sounds like they should turn the volume down then.

  • Technology can be a distraction. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by metatruk ( 315048 ) on Sunday July 06, 2003 @04:00AM (#6376157)
    I know first hand, that technology in this kind of setting can be a distraction to some students. They may want to mess around with the technology rather than learning about what the teachers want the technology to teach the students. But I think this is okay, because it's okay to mess around with technology, right?

    So long as the students learn *something* I see this as valuable.
    • Distractions can be good - especially if it distracts their attention towards something worth learning.

      Of course, I can see it working the opposite way:
      "Hey! Look at the games on this thing!"

    • Ahhh, to be in college again, playing with all the latest gadgets...

      Wait a sec, I'm still in college. I just forgot for a second because at my college they throw us all at several companies. Ah well, guess I've got to wait 'till I'm back in college to enjoy my lovely high-tech tools like Turbo Pascal, Windows NT 4.0 and trying to write SQL in Access '97. Wooo, I really miss my college! I'd quit my shitty college and work at my current intern job full time if it wasn't for the potential of something better

    • Of course it is a distraction. If I give you a Porche convertible to visit your grandma, what will you be more interested in - the car or the old woman? :) Of course, after the initial period of being excited with the technology only, people gradually become excited about its applications. People around me are constantly amazed with my Palm IIIxe (this even attracts the girls :] ), but for me it is just a useful tool. Same with these forest kids and their PDAs.
      • I understand exactly where you're coming from with this. When I first recommended Dell Axims with wireless cards they were for the techs to have a convient way to close calls when they were too busy to make it to one the main computers. I was so excited, did tons of research, had tons of fun with it and it never left my side.

        Now the PHBs have found out and the software is on it's 6th revision, an they want my simple little application to do everything they can get from their computers. They even want a

  • Kids today.... (Score:4, Funny)

    by (pSyCo)CV ( 686319 ) on Sunday July 06, 2003 @04:00AM (#6376158)
    Why is it that kids today get every little tech toy that us kids of yesturday have been drooling over for years? I'm 18, and yeah.. i just bought my 1st car. But those damned PDA's are prolly more expensive then my freakin car (which i got for cheap...) But seriously, laptops, pda's, etc, etc... they get it all.. I'm only 18, and i already can talk to the kids like they're all whipper snappers.... "Back when i was a youngen, we had 8bit 2D graphics on our games, and we watched in awe! And back when i was a youngin... we watched the naked titty women on Duke3D for hours, like you will on Duke Nukem Forever when your 74! (btw, why is duke nukem forever on freshmeat?)

  • Ambient Wood Project !? (Score:3, Funny)

    by dekashizl ( 663505 ) on Sunday July 06, 2003 @04:02AM (#6376161) Journal
    "Ambient Wood Project" ??
    Wasn't that the subtitle of "Bukake Bud's Adventure #12"?

  • Comment removed (Score:3, Funny)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Sunday July 06, 2003 @04:03AM (#6376164)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • What about teachin them some math, physics and ... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by melted ( 227442 ) on Sunday July 06, 2003 @04:10AM (#6376178) Homepage
    ...and chemistry instead of wasting money on PDAs and WiFi? What about giving them some real knowledge and skills that may help them understand the world better and be more successful in their future lives? Isn't this the goal of education? How exactly being in the woods with a PDA supposed to improve their understanding of ecological concerns, their causes and possible remedies? How is it better than a good ol' book with a bunch of color pictures commented by a bunch of gray-haired scientists?

    I can't freakin' believe some shcools are wasting money this midlessly.

    • Maybe they are teaching the children that life isn't just about boring book studying. They are probably teaching the children how to interact with each other and the world around them. I would hazard a guess that the children might actually enjoy a break from the classroom once in a while and it probably makes school a bit more interesting.

      School doesn't have to be long training course for a job.

    • Re:What about teachin them some math, physics and (Score:5, Insightful)

      by metatruk ( 315048 ) on Sunday July 06, 2003 @04:52AM (#6376246)
      I can't freakin' believe some shcools are wasting money this midlessly.

      I dunno. Technology is cheap relative to the cost of paying teachers, administrators, etc. Like it or not, technology is becoming more and more a part of our world. Pervasive technologies such as 802.11 and PDAs will continue to grow. Giving kids technology like this at a young age will only make them more comfortable with it when they are older.

      Just because that's the way school was for you when you were growing up does not mean it has to be that way for kids now. Just because things are different does not mean they are worse.
      • Just because that's the way school was for you when you were growing up does not mean it has to be that way for kids now. Just because things are different does not mean they are worse.

        I agree fully. I was 13 before I had a computer at home, a C64 with a tape drive that I bought myself. Now my youngest son tells me that his school (they live with me summers) has a kindergarden computer lab.

        Of course, I think my kids are ahead of the curve with computers. They have their own linux box and I take a lit
    • Since when did real knowledge and skills come out of a book?
    • In Michigan we're mandated by the state to integrate technology (i.e. electronic computing devices and related software) into ALL areas of the K-12 curriculum. We had to develop our curriculum in each educational area to include technology of all types, including devices like PDAs, computers, data recording devices, etc. so this is not something brand new. The issue isn't really why they're getting technology, it's whether or not they're using it to better their skills. That said, I am 100% for teaching c
      • Yeah, when I was at school (we're talking early nineties) the problem with the way they taught computing was that they didn't integrate it into the rest of the curriculum, so you never actually got to use it in a real-life environment, meaning that it was impossible to learn.
        So you'd have the "technology" teacher, probably with a background in woodwork, saying 'Yes, so this is a spreadsheet. Er, if you had a ny data to process, you'd see how useful it was...'
        Meannwhile we're writing down all the results of

    • Re:What about teachin them some math, physics and (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Of course, 'mucking about' with PDAs and wireless is likely to inculcate precisely he kind of "knowledge and skills that may help them understand the world better and be more successful in their future lives"

      Moreover being able to record data, take it back to the lab, shove it into databases etc, is the starting point for some interesting ecological logging work.
    • "How exactly being in the woods with a PDA supposed to improve their understanding of ecological concerns, their causes and possible remedies?"

      The last time I "did science" with a group of kids, we gathered data in the field, then analysed it in the classroom (using math of the statistical persuasion to do so). PDAs reporting back to base station are being used by scientists today, so the kids are getting a taste of the real thing.

    • How about teaching them how to make fire and how to skin a mammoth? PDA is a tool and they use the tools to learn about ecology.

      Ten years ago everyone though that desktop computers and networks are unnecessary and kids should write with pencils and go to the library for information. Today we understand that it was stupid to think so, but some people now claim that PDAs and WiFi are useless.

      I am sure that in 2015 another melted will grumble at children using their computer-to-brain interfaces and memory im
      • Well, some people have learned this. Keep in mind that even some college professors won't accept references from any sort of Internet source.
      • I still think everything should start with a pencil and a blank sheet of paper. This allows the mind to grow freely without using any technological crutches. Applicability of techologies to technical problems is very limited. Sure you can draw up, say, a bridge in AutoCAD. But in order to do that you have to have some fundamental knowledge about materials, structures and their mechanical strength. There's still no computer program that can help you learn this stuff better than you would learn it with a penc
        • Well, and I think everything should start with a piece of ochre and an empty cave wall. You claim that handwriting have some magic properties that are not reproduced in computers. I would really like to see some references to research on such properties, because as it is I am not in the very least convinced.

          I think that you will learn about materials, structures and their mechanical strength better through some (of course) real-life experience, some books (e-books are just fine) and a liberal dose of Ponti [chroniclogic.com]
        • Heh. The thing is, with pencil and a sheet of paper you're not constrained by the medium. You can draw, you can write formulas, you can write as fast (or faster, if you learn stenography) as you can type. Your input device doesn't require batteries, can be used anywhere by anyone and contains just the essence of the information your teacher tried to communicate to you. For me it's an invaluable tool. Having graduated with honors using a pencil and a notebook (paper kind) I don't need to be convinced it's th
    • Last I heard, biology was a hard science as well. As are botany and zoology, two things these kids are getting a heads-up on.

      Frankly, I can't think of a much better way to encourage kids to "understand the world better" than by getting them out in it and teaching them to make accurate observations. It certainly would get them off on the right foot in any science-based career.
    • See, the trick is to get them lost in the woods for three weeks, with only their native wits and their trusty PDA. Using their wits they can do things like hunt down game, build fires, and navigate using the stars and tree moss as guides. With their PDAs they can... er... um... schedule their day of hunting and fire-building.

      Valuable life lesson: When push comes to shove, technology counts for jack. Sure, it's drastic. But I can't think of any other way to drive the lesson home.

    • I've been interviewing teachers for a project I'm working on. Much to many teachers' frustration, it's often the parents who insist on ineffective teaching techniques. ("If it's not hard and unpleasant, then they can't be learning anything.") As a result, the best opportunities for learning are missing from most classrooms.

      The phrase "giving them some real knowledge and skills" indicates a common but misguided understanding of how people learn. You can't unzip a kid's head, pour in some knowledge from

  • hmm (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 06, 2003 @04:40AM (#6376223)
    This is cool except for a couple things:
    • I read no compelling reason why they could not have used more traditional inexpensive technologies, for example walkie-talkies and notepads.
    • this was an experiment on children.
    • It's about integrating technology and learning:

      1. learn about biology

      2. learn about uses for current technology

      The teachers already know about #1 and #2. Kids don't.

    • Re:hmm (Score:3, Insightful)

      by cyberwench ( 10225 )
      Every study on teaching methods and how kids learn is an experiment on children. They kind of have to be, otherwise the information gained wouldn't be all that useful. That sort of thing goes on all the time.

      One of the reasons for using the PDAs and wireless networks was that the kids were getting feedback - the identifications and extra information were uploaded to their PDAs. Walkie talkies and notepads would have worked as far as reporting their info, but would have been less useful for feedback.

  • Give them some digital cameras and GPS too. (Score:4, Informative)

    by mikeophile ( 647318 ) on Sunday July 06, 2003 @04:52AM (#6376247)
    The kids could make a really impressive multimedia presentation with all their data later.

    Adminsitrators with the purse strings really eat that kind of thing up and it would go a long way towards justifing the expense.

    A GPS unit with each child could allow the teacher with a laptop at their base to actually see where they are at all times.

    Damn, why couldn't classes have been this cool when I was a youngun?

  • The object of the hunt the snark game is... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 06, 2003 @05:17AM (#6376280)
    >>to enable pairs of children to collaboratively discover and reflect upon new kinds of experiences in mixed reality spaces.

    Didn't they use LSD for that in the 70s?

  • Waaaaaaah! I want to be a kid again! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Trurl's Machine ( 651488 ) on Sunday July 06, 2003 @05:29AM (#6376303) Journal
    I'd love to write an essay "Deconstructing the quake. The semiotics and metaphysics of an outdoor wireless LAN multiplayer session in the woodland".

  • faculty member (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    who took part in this study recently joined Indiana University [indiana.edu] that is why I am posting AC (I am getting my masters here).

    The main problem I see with this experiment is that it makes the assumption that the kids will be more productive/learn more when placed in this tech ambient environment. But won't kids be just as productive if you just place them in the woods by itself? I remember when I was younger, we would love going on trips that put us outside, out of the classroom, and no ambient tech was
    • ... that they're using the PDA's as log books.

      They're also getting instant feedback on an identification and more information about the plant/animal they reported.

      A major advantage of this is that they can get this information while still looking at the plant. This both helps connect the plant with its identification in their mind and means that if specific info is needed to determine the ID, they can do it right away.

      Making the correct observations in order to try and identify something back in the lab
    • You do realise sussex is in the uk right?
  • If a bear wi-fis in the wood, does he get connected?
  • Suddenly there is a graph showing a large concentration of students around one or two plants. After a period of a couple months (when the plant is mature) suddenly it disappears off the map (harvested). The next day the students seem a lot more chaotic in their movements on the GPS system. One of them however, managed to write out the numbers 4:20 on the GPS display based on his movements. The teachers are still unsure what this strange behavior means.

  • Don't think Professor Sprout [harrypotter.com] is going to like this too much.

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