Learning Ecosystems

With the help of his smartphone, D. Kirk Richardson taught a class last summer on Edgar Allan Poe’s last hours in Richmond. The walking tour took on a different dimension for his Virginia Commonwealth University students when he augmented his lesson with vintage images from the poet’s day. On his iPhone, they could see Poe haunts that no longer exist and even a menu from a restaurant where he dined during his last 30 hours here in 1849. For Richardson, who teaches focused inquiry classes at VCU’s University College, it was a way of adding context to Poe’s life and “moving history out of books.” He has since adapted that mobile lesson plan to a mytourguide.com application and is showing his students this semester how to use the app to create their own walking tours. Later this month, the class will set out to digitally explore the Civil War prison camp on Belle Isle, famous hotels and the last days of Jefferson Davis.