99 © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 A. Marcus-Quinn, T. Hourigan (eds.), Handbook for Online Learning Contexts: Digital, Mobile and Open, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67349-9_8 Chapter 8 Outdoor Learning with Apps in Danish Open Education Theresa Schilhab and Gertrud Lynge Esbensen 8.1 Introduction Worldwide, the use of digital technologies by children and young people for learning, seeking information, social contact and entertainment is on the rise. In Denmark, so-called iPad schools have switched traditional books for tablets, one pupil per device, introducing smart technology as an aid in formal learning (Khalid et al. 2014; Schilhab 2017a,b,c). In addition, 70% of Danish children aged seven to twelve are active YouTube consumers (Mehlsen 2016). They also communicate heavily by exchanging text, pictures and links through social media, such as Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram. The extensive use of technology coincides with a decline in outdoor experiences (e.g. Zahl-Thanem et al. 2018), which has been popularised as ‘nature defcit disor- der’ (Louv 2008). Although parental barriers such as increased perception of ‘stranger danger’ (Foster et al. 2014), increased traffc volume when commuting to school (e.g. Huertas-Delgado et al. 2017) and tight time schedules (e.g. Skar et al. 2016) also create barriers for children’s exposure to the outdoors, technology-based communication and indoor activities often seem to replace learning and playing outside. Hence, informal learning from direct experience with nature is replaced with another type of informal learning that focuses mainly on communicative skills and digital literacy. Here, we explore the extent to which app technologies may engage children in informal open education (e.g. Hirsh-Pasek et al. 2015). In the scientifc literature, arguments for exposing children to nature are diverse, although they generally share an underlying premise that nature experiences are T. Schilhab (*) University of Aarhus, Aarhus, Denmark e-mail: tsc@edu.ac.dk G. L. Esbensen Danish School of Education, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark