Hi guys! This week we were looking at the benefits of outdoor learning and the different technology applications we could use to enhance that learning. Unfortunately, we didn’t pick the best week to head outside as there was snow and a very cold wind, but other than that we had a really fun and interesting class. We used three different apps for our outdoor learning; QR reader, PicCollage and Photobooth.

QR Reader is an app that allows you to create treasure hunt kind of activities. You can create questions, links to websites, video links, map locations, phone numbers and a few other things too.  All of these different types of questions, links etc. are then given a unique code, the code acts as a barcode and when it is scanned through the app the question that is specific to that code appears.  Our treasure hunt task was based on Red Nose Day and we had 7 questions based on all things to do with the charitable day such as ‘on what day was the very first Red Nose Day event held?’ PicCollage is an app where you can use pictures from the internet or that you have saved to your device to create all different styles of picture collages. Our task was to create a few collages, one was to have five pictures of ‘minibeasts’, another was to have five pictures that summed up that day, the third was to have a collage that was a visual representation of the two times table using objects we found in nature and the last one was to have five pictures of different types of leaves we had found.  Photobooth is a camera app that gives you lots of different options for what style of camera you want to use.  Some options include; thermal, mirror and there’s also an option for props such as funny glasses or moustaches.  Our task for Photobooth was to use the mirror option to take pictures of different animals/insects we found as well as anything else we thought was interesting.  Then we were to use the thermal option and take pictures of any ‘minibeasts’ we found.  We didn’t find much but I thought that this kind of activity would still be quite fun and interesting for the children.

I think that outdoor learning is a great thing to do because it can increase the children’s interest in the subject, it gets them out of the stuffy classroom, even if it’s only for a few minutes, and into the outside world which they can relate to.  Outdoor learning can be used for lots of different aspects of the curriculum, it can be used for art, if you were doing a project with leaves or twigs etc. for autumn of Halloween.  Topic work can also be done outside, for example, say your topic was ‘from farm to plate’, you could go to a local farm for a school trip and learn all about what happens there on a day to day basis.  Outdoor learning doesn’t just mean going out into the school playground and walking around for half an hour talking about nature, it can be used in many areas of the curriculum within or outside of the school environment.

The Curriculum for Excellence say that “Different outdoor learning experiences offer opportunities for personal and learning skills development in areas such as communication, problem solving, information technology, working with others and thinking skills.”  They also go on to say that “learning outdoors can make significant contributions to literacy, numeracy and health and wellbeing”.  They say that “in literacy there are opportunities to use different texts, the spoken word, charts, maps, timetables and instructions.  In numeracy there are opportunities to measure angles, calculate journey times and bearings.  In health and wellbeing there are opportunities to become physically active in alternative ways and to improve emotional wellbeing and mental health.  Therefore, outdoor learning offers many opportunities for learners to deepen and contextualise their understanding within curriculum areas, and for linking learning across the curriculum in different contexts and at all levels.”  There is also a rather interesting article on outdoor learning that is linked below, if you want to have a look at it, it’s quite interesting and makes a good point.  https://www.tes.com/news/school-news/breaking-views/learning-outside-classroom-builds-character-and-helps-children

Until next time

Chloe x