M-Fieldwork for Information Systems Students

Fieldwork has long been identified as providing students undertaking professional studies with a means of implementing theory into a real world context. In recent years some educators, particularly in the health sciences, have introduced mobile devices to support students' fieldwork learning. In many ways there is a natural link between fieldwork and mobile technology. In this paper we report on a trial to introduce mobile support into the study of information systems in the field. The experience showed that mobile devices can assist students collect data in richer, multimedia formats and make subsequent classroom presentations of their field study much more interesting. However, it also revealed certain usage and deployment issues with the mobile devices themselves which have implications for device selection and educational design.