The goal of the study reported on in this paper was to evaluate the effectiveness of a mindtool (a tool to support students’ construction of knowledge) specifically designed to improve students’ competence in differentiating several learning targets.

The evaluated mindtool, mindtool for ubiquitous knowledge sharing (MUKS), is based on repertory grids, a knowledge acquisition method that was modified to allow multiple data types, and designed to guide the students through a workflow inspired by Kelly’s personal construct notion. The students were expected to determine the best set of characteristics to be used in the description and classification of targets, and to acquire the ability to distinguish and discriminate learning targets.

Learning targets in the experimental setting were butterflies. The authors built a context-aware ubiquitous learning environment in which elementary school students, equipped with a portable device, explored a “butterfly and ecology” garden. The butterflies’ host plants were labeled with radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, allowing the learning system to detect the location of individual students and provide guidance by a wireless communication link.

Upon observation of the butterflies, the students completed a knowledge grid that described each learning target with a given set of characteristics. Students then shared these knowledge grids with other students, and teachers graded them, allowing students to modify their own grids.

The experiment demonstrated that the students in the experimental group (using MUKS) obtained significantly better results in terms of discriminating and distinguishing butterflies than did students in the control group (using a conventional ubiquitous learning approach without the mindtool).

For researchers, this paper provides evidence that supports the belief that the use of “mindtools can engage students in higher-order thinking,” which allows them to organize and reflect on their knowledge, and which fosters a combination of experiential and reflective thinking. However, the authors should have more deeply explored the interactions between the effects derived from the personal construction of the knowledge grid and the knowledge sharing activity.

This approach can also inspire educators who are confronted with the need to teach classification tasks.