Activity 1

Capturing the daily round & exploring personal geography

In Activity 1 you will learn how to collect your physical movement data using a free and award-winning application called OutdoorActive. You will also be introduced to concepts and questions in human geography and topics relevant to the ethical use of personal data. This page begins with guiding questions and key concepts that support an exploration of your personal geography. Also included is an instructional video showing how to download and use OutdoorActive to collect your physical movement data and advice on how to structure this activity and address technical issues that often arise when people collect their own physical movement data. This page also shares an instructional video that provides an overview of concepts such as personal geography, the daily round, and the quantified self important to critical spatial inquiry. This page concludes with different academic and news articles/media learners can explore prior to participating in this activity. Exploring personal geography takes time. So, it is recommended that learners who are willing collect their physical movement data over a period of at least one day and if possible, one week.

Guiding Questions

  1. What is location-based data and what are different ways location-based data are used in contemporary society?

  2. What can personal mobility data tell you about who you are?

  3. What are the different constraints that influence your mobility (e.g., what powers or authorities condition your mobility)?

  4. What places do you visit daily, where do you spend the most time, and what is the nature of your learning in those places?

  5. How do places and people you interact with along your daily or weekly “round” create a distinctive personal geography (e.g., your identity in relation to society)?

  6. How do technologies that collect and use personal data about you work (e.g., advertising recommendation systems)?

  7. Who has the power to design and develop these technologies? Do you have any control over your own data?

Key Concepts

  • Personal geography: a way of combining personal experience and spatial practices to understand how one thinks about and moves through space and how a personal sense of place might emerge from it. If space is measured, place is made.

  • Personal data: information that is collected and processed about you relating to where are you, what are you consuming (e.g., financial records of purchases), and who do you know and talk to in your social network.

  • Physical movement data: a set of GPS points that represent your location at regular intervals of time. Your life takes place, there is no time out (but you can turn your phone off).

  • Daily round: the places and paths you visit on an everyday basis. These make up everyday routines, habits, and patterns that are recognizable in your physical movement data.

  • Quantified self and other: when your personal data are assembled, they provide an image of who you are and what you do (i.e., your quantified self). But who assembles these data? Are the data yours or an image of you collected by others (i.e., you are a quantified other)?

How to collect your physical movement data

In this instructional video, Natalie Robbins outlines how to use an award winning, free mobile application called OutdoorActive to collect your physical movement data.

 

Collecting Movement Data (from 1 day to weeks)

After you download OutdoorActive, it is recommended that you practice by using OutdoorActive to collect a track in a brief walk (e.g., with your class). It will help you prepare to record your mobility data for a longer period of time, and you can explore how to stop and save your track data (see instructional video for guidance). After you feel confident using OutdoorActive to record your movement data, it is recommended that you collect your physical movement for at least one day and, if possible, one week (or more). With more data, you will have a richer experience exploring your personal geography. Your movement data belong to you. When you share them, others can make discoveries about where you go and what you do along your daily round. As a learner, you have the right to opt out of collection or sharing movement data.

Overview of Concepts for Critical Spatial Inquiry

In this video, Professor Rogers Hall provides an overview of concepts such as personal geography, the daily round, and the quantified self/other important to critical spatial inquiry.

Readings