Ethnobotany and iNaturalist start up spring 2020
This term featured an expanded up front early exposure to digital resources in the course and iNaturalist. Day one still landed during and drop. I handed out the syllabus, the final examination, and a sheet listing some of the useful apps related to the course.
The weather was good, so I took the class out for a short introduction to the plants on the east end of the campus. I later generated an iNaturalist bounding box for the area of the walk which includes some of the plants seen. I noted as I worked on the bounding box the absence of the larger trees in the box on iNaturalist. The trees are more challenging to capture in diagnostic photos.
Fall 2019 I attempted to introduce iNaturalist by having the students first engage in identifications and then engage in observations. Two separate issues arose. One was that a profile with no observations may be ruled a spam account by the spam detection engines in iNaturalist. Two was that the students seemed to have difficulty grasping the task of being an identifier. Perhaps identifying has to come after observing in order for it to begin to make sense. I also had the sense that not enough time was put into getting the students comfortable in iNaturalist.
This term I slotted a three day stretch of digital technology starting on the second day of class. The first day introduced Schoology and the online support materials such as the flora. I also pulled up the link to the bounding box for the plants seen on the first day demonstrating some of the potential usefulness of iNaturalist in the class. Running a show and tell demonstration of the online support materials took 30 minutes.
I then had the students with smartphones download the app, log in, and share their username with me. A handout explained what I preferred to see in terms of a username. This process took a little more than half an hour, which did not leave enough time to engage in observing with the app. I had anticipated this in the syllabus, hence the three days of digital. Day two would be observing, day three we return to the laboratory to work on identifications, ensure that cultivated plants are properly flagged.
Over the weekend a student signed in and then uploaded an observation without a location. I stumbled into this observation only because a second observation was posted by the student with a location and this turned up in the Explore feed of iNaturalist for Pohnpei.
Tuesday I formally introduced observing with iNaturalist, starting with the presentation of what the screens look like in Android.
I went over the observations handout lightly. I still do not have a good idea how to engage in the observing activity. If I keep the class of 27 together then we will have 27 observations of the same Spathoglottis plicata. While these would be by 27 students using 27 different cameras on 27 different phones and therefore not a violation of iNaturalist guidelines, this would violate some of the perceived spirit of the platform. So I let the students split up and go where they wanted to go. Those without a smartphone with the app stayed with friends who had a phone.
This meant that issues encountered while observing were not resolved in the field unless I happened to be near that particular group.
There were still uploads without photos and locations, but that is what Thursday is for, cleaning up the observations.
I was concerned that iNaturalist's zero observations anti-spam systems might flag the students' accounts because the accounts would have zero observations for the five days from Thursday to Tuesday. This does not appear to have occurred. A few students made observations, but even those who did not make observations did not run into difficulties with their zero observation accounts. After the class on Tuesday a number of the students made further observations.
Some observations lacked a location, some a photo, some lacked a location and a photo. There were also errors in marking the cultivated plants as cultivated.
The design of returning to the laboratory on Thursday, the "third day" of technology in the ethnobotany classroom, proved very valuable. I began by sharing the observations made with the class, including some I had intentionally left as "Unknown." I covered how to edit an observation including adding an image that did not upload and how to manually specify the location. I then showed how to use the computer vision properly - to select the recommended genus rather than species. As I did this I showed how the View option could be used to access the taxon page and a range map would show whether the recommended identification made geographic sense. I showed too other identification tools such as the identotron. I also reminded students to flag cultivated/captive plants. I also requested that a cheeseburger be deleted ruling that the lettuce was no longer located where the lettuce had been grown.
No student had to make an observation, although many did. There was no requirement to observe and no required number of observations. Some students who had not previously done so used the period to download the app and make observations. More observations came in over the following weekend, including a species I had not previously known. No student was told to make further observations, some are doing this of their own accord, engaging with the plants around them outside of the class, outside of school hours. And that is a real plus.
I choose to follow all of my students and I built a tracking URL as well. The complication, as was the case last term, is that a couple of students set up new accounts when they forgot a password from the week before. I have only learned of this after the fact by stumbling into their observations when they are geolocated to Pohnpei.
In retrospect the three day stretch in tech was necessary. Day one to download and set up logins, day two to observe, and day three to clean up the observations. Day two still needs work. The class needs to go to some specific location with a bunch of wild plants within WiFi range. Perhaps up between the public health program building and the dining hall.
The weather was good, so I took the class out for a short introduction to the plants on the east end of the campus. I later generated an iNaturalist bounding box for the area of the walk which includes some of the plants seen. I noted as I worked on the bounding box the absence of the larger trees in the box on iNaturalist. The trees are more challenging to capture in diagnostic photos.
Fall 2019 I attempted to introduce iNaturalist by having the students first engage in identifications and then engage in observations. Two separate issues arose. One was that a profile with no observations may be ruled a spam account by the spam detection engines in iNaturalist. Two was that the students seemed to have difficulty grasping the task of being an identifier. Perhaps identifying has to come after observing in order for it to begin to make sense. I also had the sense that not enough time was put into getting the students comfortable in iNaturalist.
This term I slotted a three day stretch of digital technology starting on the second day of class. The first day introduced Schoology and the online support materials such as the flora. I also pulled up the link to the bounding box for the plants seen on the first day demonstrating some of the potential usefulness of iNaturalist in the class. Running a show and tell demonstration of the online support materials took 30 minutes.
I then had the students with smartphones download the app, log in, and share their username with me. A handout explained what I preferred to see in terms of a username. This process took a little more than half an hour, which did not leave enough time to engage in observing with the app. I had anticipated this in the syllabus, hence the three days of digital. Day two would be observing, day three we return to the laboratory to work on identifications, ensure that cultivated plants are properly flagged.
Over the weekend a student signed in and then uploaded an observation without a location. I stumbled into this observation only because a second observation was posted by the student with a location and this turned up in the Explore feed of iNaturalist for Pohnpei.
Tuesday I formally introduced observing with iNaturalist, starting with the presentation of what the screens look like in Android.
Darall captures and image of Centella asiatica
I went over the observations handout lightly. I still do not have a good idea how to engage in the observing activity. If I keep the class of 27 together then we will have 27 observations of the same Spathoglottis plicata. While these would be by 27 students using 27 different cameras on 27 different phones and therefore not a violation of iNaturalist guidelines, this would violate some of the perceived spirit of the platform. So I let the students split up and go where they wanted to go. Those without a smartphone with the app stayed with friends who had a phone.
This meant that issues encountered while observing were not resolved in the field unless I happened to be near that particular group.
There were still uploads without photos and locations, but that is what Thursday is for, cleaning up the observations.
I was concerned that iNaturalist's zero observations anti-spam systems might flag the students' accounts because the accounts would have zero observations for the five days from Thursday to Tuesday. This does not appear to have occurred. A few students made observations, but even those who did not make observations did not run into difficulties with their zero observation accounts. After the class on Tuesday a number of the students made further observations.
Some observations lacked a location, some a photo, some lacked a location and a photo. There were also errors in marking the cultivated plants as cultivated.
The design of returning to the laboratory on Thursday, the "third day" of technology in the ethnobotany classroom, proved very valuable. I began by sharing the observations made with the class, including some I had intentionally left as "Unknown." I covered how to edit an observation including adding an image that did not upload and how to manually specify the location. I then showed how to use the computer vision properly - to select the recommended genus rather than species. As I did this I showed how the View option could be used to access the taxon page and a range map would show whether the recommended identification made geographic sense. I showed too other identification tools such as the identotron. I also reminded students to flag cultivated/captive plants. I also requested that a cheeseburger be deleted ruling that the lettuce was no longer located where the lettuce had been grown.
No student had to make an observation, although many did. There was no requirement to observe and no required number of observations. Some students who had not previously done so used the period to download the app and make observations. More observations came in over the following weekend, including a species I had not previously known. No student was told to make further observations, some are doing this of their own accord, engaging with the plants around them outside of the class, outside of school hours. And that is a real plus.
I choose to follow all of my students and I built a tracking URL as well. The complication, as was the case last term, is that a couple of students set up new accounts when they forgot a password from the week before. I have only learned of this after the fact by stumbling into their observations when they are geolocated to Pohnpei.
In retrospect the three day stretch in tech was necessary. Day one to download and set up logins, day two to observe, and day three to clean up the observations. Day two still needs work. The class needs to go to some specific location with a bunch of wild plants within WiFi range. Perhaps up between the public health program building and the dining hall.
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