Learning-through-Touring: A Methodology for Mobilising Learners

This chapter presents elements of a creative methodology for learning-through-touring in the built environment. In this, the key purpose of the tour is to provide opportunities for discovery and to develop skills associated with making discoveries. The mobilised learner is introduced as a participant who interacts with technologically embedded cues that prompt change and action whilst ‘on the move’, between, in and around buildings. Three pairs of productive concepts and conceptual methods drawn from theoretical investigations and design practice: subjective archaeology / micromapping, sensory interplay / haptic referencing and critical tour guides / ground untruthing, are presented as building blocks for the methodology that was developed from projects that developed attributes of the mobilised learner. The research aims to open up thinking around what we mean by mobilised learning and how this contributes to the design of tools and services for exploring places.