Abstract:

Mobile devices are becoming increasingly common and incorporated into our daily lives. The application of mobile technology devices in education has been the focus of the emerging area of m-learning, which has demonstrated its ability to remove multiple constraints in education and improve students learning. In this context, teachers and researchers have been inspired to employ technology to better teaching and learning, because mobile devices can change the way students learn by making the traditional classroom more dynamic and interesting.

The app Roteiro Entre-Marés offers several digital routes for exploring intertidal zones, such as the rocky platform of the Avencas Marine Protected Area. These itineraries present users with a variety of tasks as they travel through them, emphasizing biodiversity, resident species adaptations, and environmental stressors that these ecosystems are now facing. Students and teachers were asked to identify in situ the species present on the three zones of the intertidal environment, namely the upper, middle, and lower intertidal zone, while estimating their abundance in each zone, during field trips led by a researcher.

This app was used by a group of eighth-grade students and their teachers, and interviews with teachers (n=8) and students (n=23) were done as part of the evaluation process to examine how the app Roteiro Entre-Marés was used as an educational tool both during and after the field trip.

This activity and the content of the app fit perfectly into the eighth-grade school program as an introduction to the biodiversity and ecosystems chapter, according to the teachers. This simple app is an intuitive and helpful teaching resource because it corresponds to students' likes and abilities. It may be used as a learning foresight or reinforcement resource, as well as to foster skills development such as digital competences and autonomous study. In addition, teachers saw this activity as an opportunity to improve classroom groupwork by assigning one species to each student, who then had to give a presentation about the species they discovered during the activity. In this context, Roteiro Entre-Marés is a reliable source of knowledge that students can use independently. In fact, on a scale of 0 to 10, students said this app contributed an average of 8.5 to their ocean literacy knowledge acquisition.

According to teachers, there is considerable support in schools for using mobile learning to enhance science teaching and learning. As a result, employing the App "Roteiro Entre-Marés" as an instructional tool has the potential to positively impact student motivation, and teachers are more expected to continue using it in their classrooms.

Acknowledgement:
The project (FA_06_2017_011) is funded by Fundo Azul (Direção-Geral de Política do Mar).

Keywords:

Educational App, Mobile Learning, Ocean Literacy, Science Education.