Technology and Outdoor Education

This week we discussed two things that one would think don’t go together: Outdoor Education and Technology!

I have always questions technology and our level of reliance and some of its false claims about helping us or making our lives easier but for this reflection I am going to steer clear of this usual ramble and look on the bright side of things.

To start I am going to reflect on a few of the questions presented in this weeks class.

“History is a road map to the future” is a quote that I don’t think I have heard before. For me it makes more sense to use the quote “learn from your mistakes”. In this sense history can be a road map of learning. But with out this awareness of growth then history means nothing.

“History is written by the winner” is a quote that is very powerful and very true. We can paint any picture we want if no one is around to contest, or afraid to do so… I remember talking to my grandfather about some of the issues around Quebec trying to separate and his only remark after my long winded heartfelt soliloquy was that, in his words, “they lost the war”. Being from a generation that fought against hitler it kind of makes sense to have this stance but for many other situations the atrocities carried out by the winning side don’t justify this answer.

‘Culture is not static – it is fluid, everchanging” is another quote that resonates with me. Things change and grow and evolve. Sometimes not always for the best. Our parents show us how to do something that our grandparents did and is called a tradition. A few generations later it is called culture. As the world and communication has become easier and we have become more connected culture is changing rapidly. A new “world” culture is emerging as we have the ability to read the same articles, watch the same movies and kids can experience similar cultural phenomena even when they are thousands of miles away and don’t speak the same language.

How does thus all link to outdoor education and technology…?? Well, technology and the use of it is its own culture. Combining it with the great outdoors is just an example of culture changing and evolving. Now we have apps built in to our phones to identify plants. We can look at topographical maps and a compass all on our phones. Some would argue this disconnects us and some would argue that it allows us to learn and ask questions about our surroundings while we are in our surroundings. It means that we don’t need to have a knowledge keeper with us in the moment in order to learn and have our questions about nature answered.

We did a QR code scavenger knowledge hunt after our class thought the gardens and it was a great experience. We were all looking and learning and asking questions. Someone would look up a certain plant and then tell the rest of the group about it. If we wanted to know the name of things then we could use our phones to tell us the plant species.

I have been practicing screen capture videos, here is one of me showing where the Finery Gardens are at Uvic.

You want to make sure that the younger generation is spending more time looking at nature than looking at their phones, but all in all it was it was an interesting class..

Here is a link to some super cool plant identification apps.

https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=plant+idenctication+apps&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8