As I write this, I can see a young couple admiring a small bird outside my window and it brings my joy. It also brings me joy to present my A1 project to you – Merlin: An Analysis.
The Merlin Bird ID app is mobile ed tech at its best: intelligent design and impressive functionality that promotes on-the-go learning. I’ve had a pleasure exploring the app and throwing this little presentation together, and I hope you also enjoy it also.
Please note that this website was designed to display well on both desktop and mobile devices, though I highly recommend viewing it via mobile to fully experience the included video demonstration shot in portrait mode.
Merlin and other nature identification applications are an amazing tool for students, teachers and specialists to use!
I have been an avid promoter of iNaturalist for the past 4 years and have watched it grow in popularity. I have been enjoying great success taking my classes outside to document nature using the app with it’s mobile ability. The process really helps students gain a better understanding of the environment and how biological classification works.
Bioblitz Activities:
Apps like merlin, ebird and iNaturalist allows educators and naturalists to hold local or world wide bioblitzes (biological data collection events). The largest would be the City Nature Challenge that is supported by iNaturalist that allows cities all over the world to participate in organism data collection within urban areas. I have been running the event annually in Richmond, BC for the past 4 years with great successes (https://citynaturechallenge.org/).
Digital Mobile Field Guides:
Another topic to mention is that iNaturalist allows you to create customized field guides to assist other users with identification. I was able to create field guides for local invasive species and local birds in the area of Richmond, BC (https://www.inaturalist.org/guides/11386)
Issues:
I have run into privacy issues as the app can share your location which can pose a risk for those choosing to use it close to their home. It also requires signing up for a login by using an e-mail address which is not permitted for students in some school districts. Another issue with location is that it may be giving away the location of the nesting site or private habitat of a species that was safely hidden and can now be accessed by possibly by people with negative intentions.
Mobile connectivity issue:
Many cameras now have the ability to wirelessly send images to mobile phones and there are multiple attachment lenses that can be used with cellular phones to increase access to photographing organisms from a distance. I have spoken to teachers that have a class set of clip on macro lenses that allows students to take images of smaller organisms. There is also the option of capturing moving organisms on video and taking a screen shot later.
I often run professional development sessions regularly on iNaturalist that help train users on using the app, website and participating in the City Nature Challenge, if anyone is interested to learn more just let me know!
James, that is a great photo!
My 8 y.o. son uses “seek”, which is similar but for any living thing.
My interest is in Experience Design (from the Frontiers Poll) and allowing students to go out into the world and document problems in the area they live and then design solutions to that problem to make the world a better place.
My take away from your post is the value of learning on the go. If I apply that principle to the philosophy of student learning being taken out of the context of being place based and time based around brick and mortar/traditional schooling, and instead based on personalized place, time, context and purpose, then I end up with a mobile platform that allows students to design and share a learning experience while they are out and about in their own city.
A mobile platform where students didn’t just receive information, but used their place, time, context, purpose, information to create learning out in the real world.
How can we take the good of Distributed Learning during Covid, and take it a step further? How can we use this opportunity to show what is possible for a new paradigm in education? At the heart of your post is a philosophy that we can extend in so many ways to push what could be in education.
The utilization of apps like Merlin and iNaturalist are not only great for education of casual birders and ornithology enthusiasts, but also for use by scientists and students in the field. While completing my undergraduate degree in environmental science, the need to have field guides on my person at all times was a waste of space in my limited-capacity field pack when guides like these are available. Especially given that I would always have my smartphone with me to be able to contact professors, teammates, or paramedics in case of injury. While memorization of local flora and fauna by professionals in environmental science and wildlife ecology is assumed, it is not unexpected that even the pros have to refer to field guides and go through the process of answering similar questions to those found in the Merlin app to narrow down the possible species to identify.
Furthermore, to build on the topic of citizen science, field-guide apps can help minimize the amount of training the needs to be completed, offers a reference guide to citizen scientists while they are looking at the species for identification, and also helps act as a filter to limit potential false identifications. For example, I helped contribute GIS maps utilizing open source data to an app similar to Merlin, called KEA- Learn Birds Through Play (http://kea-learnbirdsthroughplay.com/index.html), and know that including the migration, breeding, and home ranges of birds, as well as the time frames they spend in each range helps app users by limiting the search results to birds whose map data match the criteria set by the user. Verified discrepancies between reported sightings and expected ranges for species also expands scientific knowledge, and can be key to better understanding a species.
Firstly I am just very excited because I never knew this app existed and it’s amazing. I just keep buying bird books for the country I’m in and lugging them around in my backpack!
I love the fact that you highlighted how mobile applications that aren’t focused on education can still have educational value, even if it isn’t in the classroom sense. We’re so constrained to the idea of learning between walls that sometimes we overlook all the wonderful stuff we can learn outside as well.
Your site was easy to navigate, and I love the points you included from the Jeff Manker article towards the end š
Such an invigorating A1! Thanks for creating and sharing š
Hi Jamie,
It sounds like you’re a bit further down the road as a birder than I am – which I’m envious of. There’s something so cool about exploring an area with paperbacks to guide you, but they definitely take up space and aren’t as versatile. I’m glad you were able to find value within my resource, and I agree that Manker had some really good points (that I hopefully didn’t butcher too much by paraphrasing). Thanks for checking it out!
Hi James, it was fun going through your presentation. I never heard of Merlin, but now Iām very excited about downloading the app to my phone. Every year, our school will have outdoor education trips for students. Students learn about the environments around them during the trips, and one of the activities is to identify different trees in the forest guided by the local instructors. Iām thinking of recommending the app to our experiential learning coordinator so that we can plan some interesting activities for our students going on the outdoor trips. Thank you for sharing!
Hi Ceci,
I’m glad you enjoyed it. I think it’s so great that your school is getting kids outside and exploring the world around them. By the way, did you check out Megan’s A1 (https://blogs.ubc.ca/etec523/2020/06/20/a1-learning-about-the-natural-world-with-inaturalist/) on iNaturalist? I definitely should have included it in my analysis as it’s comparable to Merlin in many aspects, but I guess I was too excited to focus on birds. In general, I just love the idea of citizen-scientists and having students know that they are contributing to something meaningful.
Hi James,
Thanks for the reply. I haven’t got to check out Megan’s presentation yet, but will definitely do sometime this week. We have two more days of school and then summer break, and I’ll have more time to explore the wonderful resources here. I’m very excited about learning all these new things and ideas. Appreciate your recommendation š
Thank you for this analysis, James!!! I had Merlin on my phone but I didn’t have space to download the bird packs, so I haven’t been able to use the app. Your demo gave me an idea of how it works, and at some point I’ll have to free up enough space (or just get a new phone!) I think I’ll see if there’s a desktop version, though! I absolutely love birding and since I’m relatively new to Ontario, I’m always coming across new species that I’ve never seen before and need to ID.
Thank you also for including the link related to Birding while Black. I am definitely going to check it out.
I’m glad you enjoyed it, Mel. I’ve been chatting occasionally with a friend out in Ontario, and we’ve both gotten quite envious of the each other’s local birds. I definitely recommend finding some space on your phone to check it out. I now want to download the app that attempts to identify birds based on their sounds (the Bird Song app I highlighted briefly). I was in a park with my wife the other day and heard what I suspected was a Northern Flicker (a type of woodpecker), so I played the sound in Merlin and it was near-identical, but it would be nice to use an app to help confirm it.
As for the Birding While Black piece, I’ve seen more and more stuff pop up recently on social media, and there are recently formed groups that look to highlight and promote black birders and biologists.
Neat app!
My camera can pair to my phone and transfer images so this could be useful on my mobile device. I suppose in a class setting I could share the photo in Teams or in some sort of shared folder and then students could identify the bird. This seems like quite a few steps, but it could be a lot of fun and educational to go birding with my class!
Hi Jonathan,
Definitely one area that I would have discussed in greater detail if given the time and space for it: the ability to quickly and easily transfer photos from digital cameras to phones. If I were able to do that effortlessly in the field, it would be a bit of a game changer for me. Unfortunately, I think it would mean purchasing a new camera, which likely isn’t worth the high cost.
Thanks for checking out my site.