ERA: Enhancing Fieldwork Learning in South Wales

Posted on September 18, 2011 by John Lea
Jamie using a Netbook on a local wireless network to view a set of shared photos taken on smartphones from by his colleagues.

The ERA portable wireless toolkit being demonstrated at Margam Field Studies Centre as part of the HEA's Enhancing Fieldwork Learning showcase event last weekend.

This weekend we’ve been at the Field Studies Council’s Margham Discovery Centre,ย  on the hills overlooking Port Talbot steelworks. The Enhancing Fieldwork Learning project kindly invited us to demonstrate ERA technology to key UK fieldwork education practitioners alongside an engaging 2-day programme of presentations, discussions and traditional Welsh weather.

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ERA field trip at Plymouth ‘GEES Learning and Teaching’ conference

Posted on August 5, 2010 by John Lea

On-site video feed at Devon Great Consols.

On July 7th, the ERA team and our Plymouth University GEES collaborators John Maskell, Paul Lunt, Jason Truscott, Matt Sharples and Alison Stokes demonstrated the use of remote learning with ERA technology at the Devon Great Consols site. A minibus load of delegates from both the GEES Subject Centre 10th Anniversary Conference and the GEES Early Career Lecturers Workshop were shown a remote investigation of the site, delivered by John Maskall and Paul Lunt, with Matt Sharples as camera operator.

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Plymouth University trials ERA

Posted on July 18, 2010 by John Lea

Remote students at Devon Great Consols

At the end of June, we conducted some experiments to evaluate the performance of ERA-assisted fieldwork compared to the same fieldwork task being performed by students visiting the site directly. Four groups of students volunteers visited Devon Great Consols to perform an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) task related to a fictional plan to exploit metals available in the waste heaps on the site, left over from its time as an arsenic extraction plant in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.ย 

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ERA introduction video

Posted on July 18, 2010 by John Lea

Here’s a 2 minute video we produced for our field trials in Plymouth as an introduction to the ERA project.

ERA Introduction Video

ERA Introduction Video, 14MB download, x264. Will play with VLC or Quicktime.

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ERA visits Plymouth to demonstrate at GEES

Posted on April 16, 2010 by Trevor Collins
ERA set up at Devon Great Consols

ERA 'Student' set-up at Devon Great Consols mine

On Monday 29th March (2010) we (John and Trevor) visited the Higher Education Academy’s Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences Subject Centre based at the University of Plymouth. We met with John Maskall and Jason Truscott, and showed them the portable wireless network toolkit we’ve been developing in ERA.

Here is a video clip and some photos from the demo we did at the Devon Great Consols Mine.

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What No 3G?

Posted on February 24, 2010 by Paul Hogan

Although research was carried out into 3G connectivity and the obtaining of 3G hardware once in Nicaragua in reality it was not possible.
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Summary

Posted on February 24, 2010 by Paul Hogan

Now back in the UK I can reflect on the trip and what was achieved.
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Masaya volcano: Day 12

Posted on February 19, 2010 by Paul Hogan

Today was spent on the Nindiri plateau, there is nothing to report on ERA or the iPhone but I will provide another photo gallery of today’s trip.
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Masaya Volcano: Day 11

Posted on February 19, 2010 by Paul Hogan

Today was spent with Mel, Julian and Sam collecting sulphation plates from areas where Mel had place them one to three weeks ago.
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Masaya Volcano: Day 10

Posted on February 18, 2010 by Paul Hogan

Today was a great success for ERA with a complete suite of tests completed!

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