First, you must identify a social need from your immediate context that your student can address.

It is also necessary to keep in mind any educational project your school may have.

In the case of MHM, the final product will be a game or a collection of content, which is made up of many points of interest with georeferenced information about the chosen topic.

In the end, it will all depend on the target audience of your “final project.” The key here is the group’s creativity and knowledge about the opportunities different technological tools can offer.

You, as the teacher, can decide what project topic to choose by adapting the project to another activity you have done in a different class, or by creating a new project. The decision can also be made with the students themselves.

Next it´s time to specify the content that will be worked on, and what competencies the students will acquire through the preparation, realization and evaluation of the project. Some of these competences are directly related to the type of content worked on, but there is also another set of competencies that is linked to three thematic areas involved in the methodological core of MHM: project-based/Service-Learning projects, collaborative group work and the use of digital tools.

Depending on the learning objectives established, the content, competencies and values ​​or attitudes that you want to evaluate must also be specified. Because your students will work individually and in groups it is important to take into account this double dimension.

Working on projects allows you as a teacher many opportunities for evaluation. Apart from typical student evaluation done by the teacher, you could also incorporate different evaluation modalities for the students: self-evaluation; evaluation between pairs; and within groups (co-evaluation).

We suggest the use of rubrics that allow students to become participants in their own learning process by making them more aware of their advances and difficulties (both in individual and group work). This will enable you to make the necessary decisions to reorient or reinforce the required competences. This will undoubtedly help to increase the degree of student involvement in their own learning process.

Because we want to evaluate the process not just the final product, it is important to give the students continuous feedback during the entire development process of the project.

Apart from the specific resources needed based on the project topic you have chosen, you must also keep in mind the basic technology needed for the realization of the project: mobile devices with connectivity to internet (ideally, you would have a device for every group of three to four students). We will use the devices in these ways:

First, as an audiovisual recording tool (to take photos, videos and audios) and to create the content of your itinerary.

Once the route and the geolocated points have been edited the devices will be used to test the content.

To create the necessary spaces where the information can be collected in a shared way: Google Drive, Moodle, Blogs, etc.

To access the platform of geolocalized content MHM, the setting from which you will create and edit the final product of the project with your students: https://mhm.mobileworldcapital.com

The next step in the development of the project takes us to the project planning stage: deciding what we will do and when we will do it.

We suggest that you establish a sequence of activities that takes into account three main parts:

INTRODUCTION

Motivational and introductory activities of the proposal. If you decide to involve students in this preliminary phase also include activities about the decision-making process related to the project design.

DEVELOPMENT

The main activities needed to realize the tasks to achieve the proposed learning objectives and to create the geolocalized itinerary of digital content.

Given the dynamic of working by projects, in this part we should develop activities that include:

Organization of group work and distribution of tasks.

Research and comparison of information.

Contact community entities that collaborate or participate in the project.

Content creation in diverse formats.

Publication and dissemination.

CLOSURE

Project completion activities that take into account the presentation and use of the finished product for the project beneficiaries, as well as the project evaluation mechanisms for the competences learned and the evaluation of the results of the project.

Once the pace and length of the activities has been defined, you will need to specify the development process of the project on your calendar.

As the students are given more opportunities to participate and lead the project, you will also see that the students become more motivated and involved in the project. Because of this, we suggest counting on the students as much as possible from the beginning, giving them the opportunity to be responsible for the planning and management of some aspects of the project.

Depending on the learning objectives established, the content, competencies and values ​​or attitudes that you want to evaluate must also be specified. Because your students will work individually and in groups it is important to take into account this double dimension.

In the creation of working groups, it is advisable to establish criteria that will result in heterogeneous groups with enough capabilities to carry out the assigned tasks. It is important to seek, whenever possible, maximum diversity within groups in terms of emotional profiles, styles of learning and competences needed to develop.

Once all the elements in the project preparation phase have been finalized you can proceed with the work plan.

The work plan and calendar establish the work pace, it is important to be attentive to any adjustment that you deem necessary as the activities are being implemented.

It will be useful to have a large sheet of butcher paper in the classroom where you can keep a written record of the actions carried out.

Copyright

It is important to remember that if you are doing interviews and taking photos of third parties it is essential to have their formal agreement to be able to use this content in the dissemination materials that you are creating.

In this step students need to look for people that have not participated in the development of the project to be external collaborators and test the final product to make sure it works. It is useful to take notes of all the improvements you can observe, as well as those improvements the collaborators notice when completing the MHM route.

In this step, it is necessary to transfer the experience of the collaborators who have tested the student’s product into specific improvements. This phase of the project must be given importance so that the students are aware of the purpose of the project’s final product. Giving what they do meaning is also representative of the value they place on their learning.

In the case you decide to do a service-learning project, a highlighted point is that the project always focuses on giving back to the community. This aspect is not only intrinsic to the social service that is hoped to offer, but it also contributes to give visibility to the work done by the students, increasing their sense of and their level of satisfaction.

To encourage student engagement involve them in planning their projects dissemination, or the project of the entire class if it’s a collaborative project.

In regards to the communication channels, we suggest using those that the school has access to, which is usually a school website or blog. Occasionally teachers might also have institutional contacts with other schools, or with a network of teachers. Additional communication channels could be those of the collaborating community entities, or those of other citizen entities, as well as local administrations and local media. For these reasons it is essential to foresee what communication channels will be used to disseminate the project and in what moments of the project development and implementation they should be utilized.

Independently from the digital spaces we use to advertise the project, we suggest creating a website or blog for the project. Creating a designated space for the project will allow you to freely manage the information and updates published as much as necessary. The students themselves can also easily update this type of space (for example, the group of reporters could be responsible for this dissemination space).

Once the communication channels have been decided on it is also important to define in which stage of the project implementation you want to disseminate information. Our recommendation is to communicate the progress of the project from the beginning, and not limit yourselves to advertise the result or final product.

Once all the planned activities and the game or collection of georeferenced content has been completed, it’s the time to evaluate and reflect on the work done. This reflection will help give meaning to the experience lived by the students. Given the service-learning nature of our project this assessment must have a double dimension:

The evaluation of the working groups and of each one of the participating students, in relation to the established learning objectives for the activity. This is the moment to compare with the students what they have felt and experiences doing the project with the knowledge and skills they have acquired.

Evaluation of the service-learning project at three different areas:

Approach and realization: Here it will be useful to jointly evaluate all the students: what aspects of the planning and development of the activities has worked; and what we should revise for future projects.

In relation to the work dynamics and collaboration with the entities of our community: It’s important to compare with those that have participated how they value the experience and what aspects they think could be improved in future collaborations.

The impact and usefulness of the service generated in relation with the results of our work. In this area we suggest taking into consideration the evaluation of the beneficiaries of the service by designing a data collection instrument with the students that allows to measure, for example, the degree of satisfaction of the people who take part in our georeferenced route. This could be through a simple questionnaire, which we could create online and add to the end of our route.

In this final phase, it is also time to acknowledge and give thanks for the effort made by all the project participants: students, teachers and collaborators. A final joint closure and celebration activity can be a good time to positively reinforce the students work by recognizing their successes and achievements.

Project continuation: The overall evaluation of the project and the impact of the service offered will be useful in assessing whether or not to repeat the experience. Depending on the type of content created, you could consider updating or expanding the published information annually.