Digital Technologies-Outdoor Learning (Week 11)

In our last class we focused on using digital technologies in outdoor learning. I was really curious about this class as through my experience I never had the opportunity to use digital technology outside-it was mainly just running about or games. I also noticed that this was the case during my placement.

Outdoor learning has a lot of potential and can be easily accessed throughout primary all the way to teenage years (Learning and Teaching Scotland, 2010). It offers a much more creative and interesting way to learn but also is a lot more fun for the children as they might not necessarily see it as learning but instead as playing. It is also an opportunity to do a lot of team work activities which would further improve the children’s communication skills but also for them to be more comfortable working with each other  (Education Scotland,2010)

‘The core values of Curriculum for Excellence resonate with long-standing key concepts of outdoor learning. Challenge, enjoyment, relevance, depth, development of the whole person and an adventurous approach to learning are at the core of outdoor pedagogy’ (Education Scotland,2010)

Outdoor learning can;

  1. Develop thinking skills and can aid children in making connections between the different areas of the curriculum
  2. It helps the child with personal development such as communication, problem solving skills and team working skills.
  3. It is also really healthy as the children are able to get exercise and it promotes different long term sports or activities.
  4. it improves children’s ability to be safe outside and know how to act properly to not harm themselves
  5. It can also be used by everyone, for example children with ASN can still do outdoor learning which has the potential to really improve their self worth.
  6. The children can also develop their science and biology is aspects such as nature, animals and plants.
  7. With outdoor learning you can take the children out on field trips that are low cost but really beneficial for the kids.

‘Outdoor learning experiences are often remembered for a lifetime. Integrating learning and outdoor experiences, whether through play in the immediate grounds or adventures further afield, provides relevance and depth to the curriculum in ways that are difficult to achieve indoors.’ (Education Scotland,2010)

Today we used QR scanning on the iPad and we went outside to look for the QR codes. This was a really fun and exciting task even though most of us are adults. I personally really enjoyed this task and think the children would love it so would like to try this out during my next year placement. I noticed that it was a lot easier to remember the facts given and the answers to it which can be applied to a large variety of topics. When we came back inside we created out own QR questionnaire in groups. We based ours on health and aimed it for younger children. We also took pictures throughout the outdoor activity and created a pic collage to summarise out time out. Before this we created a sample pic collage to see how to use it. I think this was a great activity both as a learner and potentially using this in the classroom with children.

References-

Education Scotland (2010) Curriculum for Excellence Through Outdoor Learning.

Learning and Teaching Scotland (2010) Curriculum for Excellence Through Outdoor Learning.

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