ABSTRACT
This chapter describes how context-aware mobile and social technologies can be used to support learning in formal and semi-formal contexts. It also describes a study to identify how context-aware mobile technology has influenced informal learning, and classify the informal learning opportunities using a constructivist framework. The study is focused on the technologically-mediated activities of the Geocaching community, a geographically dispersed group who use mobile and Web 2.0 technologies to link the virtual social spaces of the Internet with the physical spaces in the surrounding landscape. The chapter supports the main community activity of hunting for Geocaches using GPS devices. Nevertheless, the fundamental assessment criteria were retained in order to see whether rubrics for assessing formal learning mediated by technology could provide a productive framework for analysis of informal technology-mediated learning. This constructive approach was reported both for adult Geocachers and their younger family members.
