Welcome

Welcome to the Locative Learning project's mapping website! Here you'll find the online version of the Banff Mobile History Tour created by the Grade 7 Students at Banff Community High School (BCHS) in 2007/08. Visit the History Map page, and check out the student-created presentations about Banff people, places, and events of yesteryear. You'll also find background information about the project, and regular news updates about project-related activities in the Banff community. In particular, stay tuned for news about when and where the walking tour will be available for public demonstrations.

The Locative Learning project (LLp) provides students with a unique opportunity to learn about local history and explore special places of historical interest. Using new media tools including mobile phones, GPS, and multimedia creation software, the social studies students at BCHS have researched and created their very own multimedia GPS walking tour of Banff area history. Take a stroll around downtown Banff with a cell phone and GPS unit, and the local history comes alive in the places it actually happened, thanks to the imagination of young minds and the magic of location-based technology. Best of all, these students have not only learned about local history in an active and creative way - they've also become media producers, and created a lasting legacy for their community.

The LLp began in September 2007 as a partnership between the Banff Community High School, the Banff New Media Institute's ART Mobile Lab, and Learning Through the Arts. All of us are particularly grateful to Inukshuk Wireless for providing the support which makes this pilot project possible. But most of all, we thank the students for their creativity, commitment, and spunk.

News

Locative Learning Project Videos are On-line!

We have completed and uploaded a Long and a Short version of the Locative Learning Project video. Please take a moment to view one and get a sense of all the hard work and fun that went into making this project a reality.

This is the complete version.

This is the shorter version.

Locative Learning Project featured in Legacy Magazine

Community History in the Canadian Rockies: Students Combine Stories and Technology to Map Their Town

The Locative Learning project was featured in the March/April issue of Legacy Magazine, a publication of the National Association for Interpretation. The article provides an excellent overview of the project, with excerpts from student work and insights from Angus Leech, John Scully and James Reckseidler.

You can read the article online at Legacy Magazine Online or Click here for a PDF version.

Locative Learning Project Lesson Plans Available


Learning Through The Arts has created lesson plans based on the Locative Learning Project. Lessons cover Learning Through Location, Learning Through Locative Media, Audio Media Creation and Exploration, Visual Media Creation and Exploration, and Online Mapping and Web Communities. See our Background page to download, and for more LTTA lesson plans visit the LTTA Lesson Plan database.

Banff e-History Goes Mobile

The Locative Learning Project was featured in the Winter 2007-2008 issue of the Banff Centre's Inspired report to the community.

From the article by Heather Belot:

According to Semenok the project has been a success and the students are "having a blast." He was surprised to discover early in the research process that some of the students can trace their family history to the discoverers of Banff's hot springs. "They not only learn about the history of where they live, but they'll experience it in years to come through wireless technology," says Semenok. "It's important to learn about where you live. Behind every place there is a story."

Click here to read the full article:
http://www.banffcentre.ca/about/inspired/2008/winter/e-history.asp

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Locative Learning project wrap-up, launch event and public demos for the Banff Mobile History Tour

It's been an exciting couple of weeks at the Mobile lab. On the evening of Thursday, June 5th, we celebrated the completion of the Locative Learning Project with our partners, Banff Community High School and Learning Through The Arts, as well as with the Grade 7 Social Studies students and their parents. A barbeque in the park seemed a fitting finale to a collaboration that took us often took us outdoors. While the food was being served and eaten, we gave students and parents the opportunity to the final version of the Banff Mobile History Tour for a spin. This version features audio/video media files created by the students that play when a tour participant walks into the area chosen by the students at an earlier phase of the project. If you missed this event or the public demos that followed, please take a look at www.banffmobilehistory.ca for all of the content and a mapping application - the next best thing to actually physically experiencing the tour!

The following two days, June 6th and 7th, we offered free demos of the Mobile History Tour to the public. A number of people saw our ads in Banff Centre publications and on posters around town and were eager to try the demo. Others saw the articles about the project in both the Rocky Mountain Outlook and The Crag And Canyon newspapers and couldn't resist experiencing the final product of all the hard work that the students and facilitators put into creating the tour. All of these ads and articles are available for viewing on our Press/Media page.

And just in case we hadn't had enough of tour and BBQ organization, we arranged on Tuesday, June 10th for a Grade 6 class from Canmore's Lawrence Grassi Middle School to come and take the Mobile History Tour, to get some feedback from the perspective of students who might be in a position to undertake a similar project in the future. Many of the students really enjoyed the tour and most said they'd be in favour of trying a big project like the LLP some day, which we took as very positive feedback. We celebrated their visit with, you guessed it, a BBQ down by the Bow River.

The LLP team would like to take a few lines to thank everyone who helped out with making this ambitious project a reality. The project would never have been more than just an idea if not for our generous funders, Inukshuk Wireless. And it couldn't have come together if not for the hard work of our partners, Learning Through The Arts and Banff Community High School. We'd also like to thank the Banff Community Foundation for their financial support of the barbeque and the Canmore student visits. Other thank-yous go out to The Whyte Museum, the faculty of BCHS, the Banff New Media Institute Staff, Patrick Hayes for his development of this website and everyone else who has helped over the past 10 months!