With so many districts and even states banning student use of smart phones in the schools, as well as many nature camps banning their use, for very good reasons, I have had discussions with parents about how Seek and iNaturalist apps can stimulate a lifelong love of nature and biodiversity, only to have the conversation stop with: there are too many risks and distractions out there on smart phones to take a chance with them. My question is not to explore this very important question, rather I’m wondering if anyone has had any luck “dumbing down” a smart phone so that it can ONLY be used for using Seek and/or iNaturalist? Or does such a device already exist? I know there are GPS devices that hook up with the GPS network that can very precisely identify locations, but aren’t used for anything else. Such a device might be very cool to have for using Seek or iNaturalist without having to worry about all of the other distractions found on smart phones that help keep them out of the hands of kids, particularly pre-adolescent ones.
Most phones nowadays have a feature that let you lock it into an app and then require a passcode to leave it. On iOS it’s called “guided access”, I assume Android would have a similar feature.
The Android equivalent is “app pinning”
I know it doesn’t directly help with your question, but the vast majority of my observing on iNaturalist has been done without a smartphone at all - just a stand-alone GPS receiver, a stand-alone camera, and a computer with Internet access. My observing has not been as prolific as many others using smartphones, but then, in an educational setting, being prolific is not the point, right?
This really doesn’t address Seek-like functionality, which is really only workable on a smartphone.
As far as I know, Seek and the new app are designed to be usable offline (though syncing to iNat would require an internet connection), so a mobile device with deactivated internet access but activated GPS seems like a possibility – so tablets configured for school use might work in a situation like this?
There are Apps like Google Family Link, with their help you can determine, which Apps can be used and which Apps cannot by the kids (or your user group).
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.apps.kids.familylink
Correct, they both have offline computer vision and geomodel models included in them. Main downside is that scientific names are what’s stored in the iNaturalist model. The iNat app tries to download common names for the top 500 (I think) species in your area, but that won’t cover everything.