Fourth-graders, in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, are on a special school project with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; they are observing and recording the behavior of humpback whales from shore, explains C/Net. They record the whales behavior on small, handheld wireless device called an Indigo, made by LearningSoft
For example, one kid would call out whale behavior like “breach,” which is an out-of-water leap, followed by a back flop that’s typically meant to jettison barnacles off the whale’s body. And another child would punch “B” into the device. “We switched every 30 minutes, but I liked doing the whale watching, yelling ‘breach, breach, breach,’ and my other friend just liked doing the typing,” said Josiah, a 10-year-old at Kealakehe Elementary School.
NOAA scientists taught the students how to identify up to 10 different whale behaviors, along with the individual markings on a whale’s fluke.
All of the data collected until 2 p.m. that day went to help NOAA’s program to track the health and population of humpbacks, and will be included in its 2007 Whale Survey.
Florida-based LearningSoft developed the Indigo devices, and has run pilot tests of the technology in the last year, placing them in schools in Hawaii and Georgia. Schools in California, Indiana, Ohio and Arkansas have adopted the technology.
LearningSoft’s parent company, the Jacoby Group, also set up a nonprofit foundation this week called Every Hand, with the goal of widening adoption of Indigo to every K-12 student in the U.S.
Indigos are essentially wireless handheld computers that are networked to a laptop. In the case of the whale field trip, the laptop traveled with the group.
From a central computer, an instructor can send discussion topics, quiz questions or assignments to each student’s handheld. When kids respond on the Indigo, the data is sent wirelessly to the PC so that the teacher can assess immediately how students comprehend the curricula, either by an individual student or in aggregate.
The device can act as an assessment tool, electronic book reader, Web browser, podcast player and word processor. One Laptop Per Child and Intel’s ClassMate PC (right) have similar, more powerful, laptops.
The range of interactive, educational software is poised to explode. The Open Source Lab at Oregon State University is one such facility, providing development and distribution of Open Source Software (such as FireFox), worldwide.
Virtual historical tours might be created with students gathering local content on field trips. Teamed up with the local Audubon Society, your park system might be mapped for multi-media virtual tours, complete with live birdcams like OwlCams and available over cellphones or muni hotspots.
I hear bird songs, whales and insects.
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