Abstract:

Having knowledge of how to apply technology in learning effectively plays an important role in teacher professional development and this kind of knowledge is related to the three teaching-specific knowledge domains, that is the integration among content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge and technological knowledge, as it is called Technological Pedagogical and Content Knowledge (TPACK) (Kajonmanee et al., 2020). This research study aims to explore methods for incorporating mobile technology into biology field trips to support note-taking and sharing activities.

There is a gap in the research literature as most of the studies concerning design guidelines for field study have focused on how to improve the learning experience in the field trip rather than studying how to enhance the use of mobile technology in the field, e.g., Yeh et al. (2006), Kukulska-Hulme, (2007), Rost and Holmquis (2008) and Ryokai et al. (2011) and Kärki, et al. (2018). Also, most studies focused on the school level and less focused on the undergraduate level. Therefore, this research aims to fill the gap by studying the impact of the quality of using mobile technology on capturing and sharing experiences in the field for biology students at the university level.

It presents the result of this qualitative study is to determine what methods and tools students use to capture and share their notes on the field. Therefore, develop a useful guideline for the development of mobile technologies useful to support note-taking and sharing activities.

The study design consisted of two research phases and two case studies from two Universities in Germany:
Phase 1: Observation of 14 undergraduate Biology students attending the Marin ecology field study trip.
Phase 2: Interview with 13 undergraduate students who took part in the Marin ecology field trip and 14 undergraduate students.

The results of this research provided an understanding of generic by identification of the undergraduate biology students' needs and requirements during field trip learning activities, i.e., it was observed that all groups of students take a number of devices with them, these include a mixture of traditional and modern tools such as note and sketchbooks for note taking. Also, it was identified what makes mobile technology good to use in the field, i.e., the system must provide a GPS link function to link the taken notes with a location automatically.

Students generally showed a positive attitude in using mobile devices in the biology field experience as a learning tool, especially in capturing multimedia data such as photos and videos. However, there were some difficulties during the use of mobile devices for students in the context in a practical and efficient way, e.g. due to the nature of the surroundings like the weather condition or geographic environment.

This study aims to develop an overall understanding of the undergraduate students' needs and requirements in their fieldwork experience, leading to the establishment of design guidelines for adapting mobile technology to assist students in capturing and sharing their experiences on field trips. Consequently, mobile technology design and educational contributions are two significant contributions to this study.

Keywords:

Mobile Technology, Experience, Field Trip, Note Taking, Biology.