Being able to accommodate activity's formal purposes as a critical factor when designing for...

Being able to accommodate activity's formal purposes as a critical factor when

designing for 'location-based learning games' at scale

Javier Melero, Davinia Hernández-Leo, Josep BlatInteractive Technologies Group

Universitat Pompeu Fabra

BIIML14 – Bristol (UK), 6-7 March 2014

OUTLINE


1. Introduction

2. Location-based games design: A puzzle board metaphor

3. Teachers’ designs: 3 real case studies

4. “QuesTInSitu: The Game”

5. Implementation of the designs: Impact on students

6. Discussion and conclusions

INTRODUCTION

3

• M-learning: facilitate informal learning in formal context (Pachler, Bachmair, & Cook, 2010). Students can learn anytime and anywhere (Jones & Jo, 2004; Vinu et al., 2011)

• Location-based games: approaches based on pervasive mobile learning that support contextualized learning (Avouris & Yiannoutsou, 2012)

• Benefits: access to contextualized information (Avouris & Yiannoutsou, 2012); communication, analysis and interrelation of real place (Roschelle, 2003); entertaining and stimulating (Cabrera et al., 2005; Davis, 2002); and effective in terms of increasing the motivation to learn (Yatani, Onuma, Sugimoto, & Kusunoki, 2004)

The comprehensive integration of educational games in formal learning settings is still a challenge that shapes several interdisciplinary

research problems in the domain of GBL


INTRODUCTION

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• For learning games to be relevant in formal education they need to be aligned with the curriculum and adapted to teachers’ requirements depending on their particular educational situations

• Some research works have been done to support the development of location-based learning games: “Treasure-HIT” (Kohen-Vacs, Ronen, & Cohen, 2012); “ARLearn” (Ternier, Klemke, Kalz, van Ulzen, & Specht, 2012); “Mobilogue” (Giemza & Hoppe, 2013)

• Issue: current tools do not allow the customisation of elements, such as scores, that can be relevant to formal learning contexts


Providing with flexible and customizable approaches to involve teachers as designers of their own location-based games can make

significant difference to foster designs at scale

LOCATION-BASED GAMES DESIGN

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A puzzle board metaphor for designing location-based learning games

• Motivation: to provide teachers with a framework for the customization of their own location-based games adapted to their requirements depending on their particular educational situations

• The structural design of location-based learning games is often inspired by board games (Nicklas et al., 2001; Schlieder et al., 2006)

• Conceptual model based on puzzle boards for designing educational games (Melero & Hernández-Leo, in press)

• Metaphors to simplify and represent the abstraction of a conceptual model (Lakoff, 1993; Neale & Carroll, 1997)

A puzzle board metaphor


LOCATION-BASED GAMES DESIGN

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A puzzle board metaphor


Board Physical zones (indoors or outdoors)

Slots Questions designed for the location-based learning game

Pieces Options associated to each question

Puzzle Groups of slots

Level Each level contains a puzzle

Points Correct/Incorrect answers, accessing hints.

Bonus Extra points when all questions from a level have been correctly answered

Feedback Information associated to ranges of points

Hints Information to guide students to find the correct answer

TEACHERS’ DESIGNS

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Using paper-based templates for designing location-based games according to the proposed puzzle board metaphor

3 real case studies


Discovering L’H

Discovering Vic

Discovering the MNAC

Learning about the heritage of the city of l’Hospitalet

Learning about the city of Vic and its

art history

Learning about different pictures of

the museum

7 teachers 1 teacher 1 teacher

Extracurricular activity in the

school

Activity associated to a

subject, as part of its formative assessment

Activity associated to a subject, as a

summative- assessment

activity

TEACHERS’ DESIGNS

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Designs contained different amount of levels, questions/level, and hints, and were based on the following design criteria:

3 real case studies


Discovering L’H Discovering VicDiscovering the

MNAC

50 points more1 point more250 points more

10 points less0.3 points less the first attempt, 0.5 point the second one, 1 point the third one.

100 points less

50 points less0.2 points less 100 points less

50 points more

1.5 points more when all the questions correctly answered at the first attempt, 0.75 points otherwise.

Proportional to the number of questions

Short text about the context related to the question

Short text about the context related to the question

Suggestions rather than clues (ask people, look at the bottom of the statue, etc.)

Short sentence of the museums room

Short sentence of the geographical zone

General information about the zone and particular information about the questions

Points Correct Answers

Points Incorrect Answers

Points Hints

Extra Bonus

Hints Content

Levels Information

QUESTINSITU: THE GAME

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A gamified mobile application, compliant with a conceptual model of puzzle board games design, that supports assessment in situ.


Initial Screen

This screen shows the logo and the name of the instance of the location-based learning game

Route Screen

Screen showing the map and the location of each question. Here the students can also access to the level’s information screen

Level’s Information Screen

Screen showing the textual information associated to a level

Questions’ Screen

This screen shows the list of questions for a given location. Questions can be answered as many times as needed. The students can also access to the hints associated to each question

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTSsXa_e-6M








IMPLEMENTATION OF THE DESIGNS

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Overall Results

• 74 students (Discovering l’H), 64 students (Discovering Vic), 36 students (Discovering MNAC)

• Students enjoy the proposed approach: better results were obtained from the students playing outdoors (especially from Vic) than those who played in the museum

• While the design of positive points and extra bonus were broadly accepted by the students in the diverse cases, the design of the subtracted points provoke more discrepancies among cases

• Students avoid accessing to the hints; they prefer to discover the correct answer by other means. Students from l’H found less useful and appropriate the hints than the students from Vic or MNAC

Impact on students


DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS

11BIIML14 – Bristol (UK), 6-7 March 2014

• Puzzle board metaphor as a framework to design location-based learning games

• Teachers could follow different design strategies: from points similar to games (“Discovering l’H”, learning activity) to points similar to traditional tests (“Discovering Vic”, formative-assessment activity).

• Impact on students:

• Engagement. Context can affect students’ engagement (e.g. being controlled by external people (case MNAC) or not, having limited amount of time to solve each level (case MNAC) or not, etc).

• Subtracting points. Clear explanation in the rules of the game, meaningful points (e.g. students were familiar with the scoring based on a traditional test-based approach, direct impact in students’ marks)

• Hints. Perceived usefulness of hints could directly depend on the designed strategies (suggestions vs. small descriptions about the questions)

THANK YOU!!Questions? Suggestions? Doubts?


Javier [email protected] Technologies Group (GTI)

http://www.javiermelero.es

Being able to accommodate activity's formal purposes as a critical factor when designing for...

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