Geolocation

Geolocation is a term quite new in society and in some countries even more than others. Although it is hard to find a dictionary where Geolocation is defined, the Internet is quicker in being updated and we have other sources to find a definition. The ^{Oxford Lexico (2019}, parr. 1) states that geolocation is “the process or technique of finding the exact location of a person or device using the internet”. Meanwhile, the acronym GPS does appear in the dictionary as a system which allows knowing the position of an object due to the reception of signals sent out by satellites. This is curious considering that GPS is just an instrument within the theoretical concept of geolocation (^{Beltrán López, 2015}).

The different positioning systems that exist must be analyzed to, later on, precise which one would be the most adequate for education. Drawing from ^{Rodríguez Aguado (2011}), the positioning systems existing nowadays are:

It is obvious the broadness of the topic of geolocation and the multiple technologies that emerge from it. This technology has been a huge step in the evolution of society. However, it also comes with some critical issues that should be considered as it is in the case of privacy. People may have privacy concerns related to geographic tracking (^{Junglas & Spitzmuller, 2005}; ^{Kaasinen, 2003}; ^{Minch, 2004}). However, it is remarkable that privacy concerns seem to diminish somehow in a student population regarding pop-out messages which they accept without previous checking (^{Olmsted-Hawala & Nichols, 2018}). Universal Declaration on Human Rights (^{United Nations, 1948}) article 12 states that “no one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honor and reputation” (p.4). Thus, all people have the “right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks” (p. 4 443). Years ago, any intrusion could be punished and so could now.

Privacy is linked to the obtainment, distribution and the non-authorized use of personal information (Wang et al., 1998, cited in ^{Flavián & Guinalíu, 2006}). It goes hand in hand with the perceived security that people have of believing that their personal information will not be manipulated (^{Flavián & Guinalíu, 2006}), even though there is a possibility that people could access to the geolocation data collected. Therefore, worries can emerge because of personal information implied and people becoming more vulnerable, consequently. However, as it has been argued above, this would be a violation of the law and would be punished.

The use of geolocation devices in the school can be a controversial topic. On one hand, it can generate some insecurity due to the fact of sharing your location without being 100% sure that nobody will get this data for an unlawful purpose. On the other hand, it can be an enormous source of security for parents as they ensure their children are localized and cannot get lost. In fact, this was put into practice in different cities, such as China (^{Huang et al., 2014}), to deal with parents’ worry about children’s security. Geolocation was introduced as a control tool, not in education but in all fields where the children were involved. A mobile monitoring system was tested to allow guardians of children to view their positions. The purpose was to keep the child in the guardians’ eyesight but did not have accurate data of the orientation of the child. This means that as less information can be collected about the children’s position, there is a higher level of data security. But, therefore, it is less precise.

All possible measures could be put into practice to avoid any interference and even more in an educational environment. As it was done with the Safety Monitoring system for children used in China, the monitoring system could belong to different departments, and children’s parents, guardians or other people would not have the right to use them. However, it is really hard to ensure 100% privacy because, as in all fields, there can be people violating the law. Any type of intrusion against the right of privacy is documented as criminal records (Agencia Española Protección Datos [^{aepd], 2019}) and can be sanctioned depending on the kind of offence, the consequences caused and intentionality.

Geolocation in education

Geolocation in education is a freshly, wide and little covered topic. More used in didactics area than in the organization of field trips and outdoors activities. From a pedagogic perspective, a further explored use of geolocation is the contextualization of knowledge: using any instrument to locate themselves or topics studied geographically (^{Gros Salvat & Forés Miravalles, 2013}), starting with physical maps and evolving with the introduction of technology as google maps. Another utility of geolocation has been in the well-known activities of geocaching, very extended with the expansion of gamification in education.

In terms of school organization and management, little research exists about the topic, so there is no clear evidence of possible uses. Considering that school organization impacts positively in students’ performance as it constructs the environment where students’ learning occurs (^{Gutiérrez Ruiz et al., 2017}). The tools used in an organizational level for organizing field trips, therefore, are essential for successful results. ^{Robinson et al. (2009}, p. 44) suggested that “it is the role of leadership not only to select or develop tools but to ensure that [they] … actually help the users achieve the intended purposes”. The use of geolocation can be beneficial if it is used adequately with specific and clear purposes.

Education must be adapted to the needs of students and society. Technologies are already a big part of everyone’s lives as we are living in a digital era and many fields are changing with the introduction of technology. In the education field, it could also be introduced in terms of school management to benefit from it to promote a key element, autonomy. Educational professionals support the theory of socio-constructivism studied by ^{Vygotsky (1978}) as the education base. Therefore, learning should come from students’ active role, experience, interaction and autonomy (^{Gros Salvat & Forés Miravalles, 2013}; ^{Leiva Olivencia & Moreno Martínez, 2015}). All students should be autonomously competent as it is a key element in education that underpins an individual’s ability to make choices, personally evaluated as good and which is, in fact, affected by the school management and organization.

The self-determination theory notes that students’ academic functioning depends on autonomy (^{Cooke et al., 2018}; ^{León et al., 2018}) claim that children dislike rules restricting their behavior and are likely to break them due to their feeling of obligation. Despite the consciousness about the importance of autonomy in learning, there is no clear of it. All in all, it is agreed that an autonomous learner does not react to teachers’ stimuli but adopt an active role in learning (^{Thanasoulas, 2000}). It is not letting things happen but being involved, interacting with the world. In education, Omaggio (1978, cited in ^{Thanasoulas, 2000}) suggests awareness of their learning styles, active role, maturation and risk-taking to improve autonomy. Following a critical and constructivist theory where self-directed learning is promoted to allow students to build up knowledge, learner’s autonomy assumes a more social and political character. That is, they realize the social context in which their learning is embedded and all it means, students become independent, undeceiving preconceived ideas and constructing their own thoughts (^{Thanasoulas, 2000}).

Although there are few studies on using geolocation services as a tool to organize field trips, there are already some applications for this purpose. Nevertheless, schools have not taken part in this new trend. In 2018 the application called RoundApp Kids was presented by Mildmac Advanced Solutions which can identify when a child moves out from the previously established area of work. Other important tools that have been used in some countries are Smartwatches which do not only give information about the children’s location but also can broadcast what is happening around them. Unfortunately, the easiness to spy children because of the big amount of information provided by those devices and their multiple functions were important issues leading to its removal. Germany is a good illustration of this, parents’ use of Smartwatches to listen to teachers’ lectures caused its prohibition in 2017. Nevertheless, the trigger was that third persons’ privacy rights were being transgressed. Hence, a responsible and correct children’s monitoring system which does not involve other people should exclusively include children’s location.

A lot of uncertainty exists about resources that could be used in schools because of the lack of engagement of schools with this innovation. However, with a cautious search, few location services can be found, for instance, SOS-KIDS, a business run by a group of three Catalan entrepreneurs. It stocks schools with devices similar to medals that students have to wear, and which are connected with a specific application. Teachers having the application can track students at all times. All in all, it can be affirmed that there is a lack of studies regarding the use of geolocation to facilitate school organization, an issue very important to deal with in the 21st century. However, there is a need to study the perceptions and views from the parents, teachers and the students regarding the issue and if this is a possible path to feel safer of more autonomous in field trips and outdoors activities.

Security

Multiple items on the survey measured the extent to which the different agents involved in the school feel secure during field trips and their thoughts on geolocation tools. It is suggested that students and parents are keen on the introduction of geolocation devices as almost everyone answered positively to the possible incorporation. Meanwhile, teachers and the directive team have diverse opinions. Some of them support the idea of incorporating this innovative equipment, yet the rest rejects it. Following this, the greatest amount of people would be in favor of the change proposed in the paper.

Students and parents commented they would feel much calmer if they knew that pupils could be localized easily during school trips. Considering that all students interviewed admitted experimenting fear about the possibility of getting lost, they all used the term tranquility to describe a situation where geolocation devices were used. Furthermore, parents agreed on the fact that they suffer when their children go on an field trip and, even more, two of them explained a situation they went through where their children got lost.

There was quite high support on the incorporation of geolocation tools since they highlighted that they would feel more relieved. As one interviewee put it: We could expand the area in which students move and we would be even more relaxed (Teacher 8). Nevertheless, a small number, of those interviewed argued that would be too much control or that controlling students is a job to be done by teachers. Tied to these arguments against the incorporation of geolocation devices appeared the fear of using technology to manage private information.

Furthermore, it appears that parents differ in the level of trust they place in the teachers’ supervision. Closer inspection allows seeing that few parents trust 100% their children’s school. Although no parent showed a low trust in teachers’ supervision (level 1 or 2) when grading from 1 (very low) to 5 (very high) their trust in teachers’ supervision, most of them revealed in other questions that they believed teachers are not able to control all children or have them at sight. Some parents even answered using terms such as impossible or difficult.

Generally, parents recognized being aware of the troubles in controlling students because of pupils’ tendency to get distracted. They noted it is teachers’ obligation and they should be prepared. However, they apparently are not completely sure all the teachers accomplish this requirement. On the other hand, the majority in the directive team shared the same opinion regarding trust, stating a very high level of reliance. Only one member of the target group considered trusting in a level above the mean. Meanwhile, a high number of teachers recognized how profoundly difficult is to maintain all children at sight.

Regarding the possible issues, they imagine those devices could have, but the participants did not find any. There were 5 issues echoed. The two that came up the most were the excess of control children would experience and the excessive reliance on the devices and, hence, the increase of distractions. Talking about these ones, some interviewees said: There are no drawbacks for the school, but I am not very comfortable with the idea that children become robots… (Parent 19) and Teachers may rely too much on the devices and lower one’s guard (Parent 16). This can be summarized in a word used oddly by the teachers and not the parents which is privacy. However, just two of the parents involved in the study considered this as an obstacle for the introduction of the devices.

Other concerns arisen were on the possible mechanical failures or the increase in costs. The last inconvenient was exposed by a parent and, in fact, not expected. A participant reported that it does not promote the responsibility and autonomy of students (Parent 11) and the same utterance was used by two teachers. Interestingly, members from the directive team were the ones who pinpointed fewer problems in case of using geolocation, in fact, the only worry highlighted by one member was the lack of improvement of students’ responsibility (Directive team 5).

In spite, all the directive team declared they have no difficulties when organizing, half of them considered that introducing geolocation could reduce possible issues emerging from it. Concerning teachers, a common view amongst interviewees was that they feel they can carry out the activities planned during field trips because they do not spend much time dealing with troubles in terms of management.

Contrary to the previous answers, a considerable amount of those who were interviewed indicated that geolocation would be advantageous to reduce difficulties arisen while arranging outdoor activities. Furthermore, some of them reaffirmed their answer with terms such as totally.

When participants were asked for their willingness to have geolocation devices incorporated in the school, a good acceptance to this possible change and innovation arose, although there were different answers, these weren’t categorically diverse depending on the group. However, a greater distinction between variables is visible with parents’ and teachers. In the case of the directive team, special attention should be given to those hesitating which agreed on having a practical trial with the devices before giving a definite response. Some of the respondents whose answer was yes highlighted that the technology should be used in specific activities, mainly in outdoors and large areas. Wholly, whilst a minority mentioned that they would not want these devices saying there should be specific and positive arguments for me to support the idea because I think it is too much control (Parent 21), a significant majority agreed on the introduction commenting that it would be interesting to try them (Parent 3, Teacher 6 and 9), I would love it (Parent 23), I would like to have them available when needed (Parent 15) or Yes, if it is helpful for teachers and avoids students getting lost (Parent 8).

Autonomy

So far, the focus has been on the security felt by the four groups taken as a sample. Below, results will be shown related to students’ autonomy. When pupils answered the question concerning their sensation about having opportunities to have autonomy during field trips, it was noticeable the increase of responsibility they have as they grow. Those whose response was sometimes were the ones in higher grades. Although this latter comment, all participants admitted they have few chances to decide.

When talking about the conditions that teachers put during field trips, all students stated there were several requisites to follow. The one concerning them the most was the size of the area where they can move around. Interviewees shared the opinion that they would like a bigger zone where they could move. A general awareness of the necessity to have some limitations were visible but, at the same time, they appeared to be sure there are too many. Participants suggested having a larger area destined to work or pass their free time during school trips would be positive. What is striking, it is a mention of liberty. Two students talked about the relationship between a large area and freedom. One individual reported If we had a bigger area, I would feel freer but also scared to get lost (Student 5). They value that having a big area would provide more freedom and autonomy to them, but they acknowledge the risks it can bring.

In association with this, strong evidence of their willingness to have a bigger space to go across came into sight. In response to the question concerning the size of the area, all those interviewed indicated that they would like it. Talking about this issue, different participants said: Yes, because we can play more, discover and investigate (Student 2), Yes, because we are too close to each other (Student 3), It is more interesting because you can investigate more and different things, you can share your discoveries and then learn from everyone and about everything (Student 5), and I would feel freer and we could take a look to diverse things (Student 6).

What is more, students were asked to give an argument why field trips should be promoted. They all coincide with each other saying that it is a way to learn in a different manner from the routines to which they are accustomed to. Nevertheless, one student stressed the idea of workload in the management of school trips. Quoting her own words, although field trips are interesting for learning, their organization implies a lot of work in terms of authorizations, teachers, among others (Student 5).

Note: Compilation based on the data analyzed by the authors.

Figure 1: Students’ words about field trips benefits 

Finally, participants had to tell at least the first three words that came into their minds when thinking about field trips and, afterwards, what or how they can learn during those outdoor activities. Those words were collected and organized in four different groups, as in Figure 1, labelled with methodology, security, content and abilities/skills, as they emerged from the data. For the first one, all the words related to how the learning is were included, for instance practical. Insecurity was gathered those linked to actions they have to do in outdoor activities to ensure protection, such as attention. For content, there are the ones which give information about the type of knowledge they can achieve, by way of illustration it is meaningful. In the case of abilities/skills, there are the learnings and personal growth they affirm doing during school trips as autonomy.