Thursday: Configuration and Demonstration

Mark demonstrating the ERA system to Bob and Di, tutors for students with additional requirements at the OU geology residential school

Today we had a morning checking over kit, and trying out further configurations. One of the benefits of working alongside an Open University residential school is that we’re getting to visit a lot of authentic field sites and trying out different configurations in quite an intense schedule. So this morning we dedicated some time to documenting where we’d got to and trying some new configurations.

Another great aspect of the residential school is that we get to spend some time with tutors and students and are offered valuable insights into what their learning and teaching goals are. This year, two of the tutors (Bob and Di) working with the Additional Requirements students have kindly agreed to try out the system with a selection of their students on Friday. So the afternoon is spent setting up and running a small demonstration with Bob and Di to show them what we’re doing and getting their feedback, ready for a live test with some of their students at the Howick field site tomorrow.

Things seem to go pretty well and Bob and Di gave us some great feedback and thoughts on how they teach, what messages they are trying to get across, and how they found using the kit.