Mobile Games and Education: Current Projects and State of the Practice

Colleen Macklin · Eric Klopfer · Josh Sheldon · Brett Shelton · Marion Jensen · Tom Caswell · Jon Scoresby · Kurt Squire · David Gagnon · Chris Blakesley

Thu., June 11, 3:30–4:30, Old Madison (3rd floor, East/Southeast)

New software applications for Global Positioning System (GPS)–enabled mobile computers are opening up an interesting new area in education and learning. These interactive applications, such as STEP AR, Whereigo, and ARIS, run on handheld GPS receivers and allow instructional designers to create learning experiences based on a person’s physical location. Instead of presenting content sequentially or topically, an instructional game designer can give content contextual relevance with geophysical locations.

We will present projects and research taking place at three universities: Utah State, University of Wisconsin–Madison, and MIT. The following briefly describes each project.

First, a research project at Utah State University is in final stages of developing two versions of the same instructional game (completion date April, 2009). The project is being developed with The American West Heritage Center (AWHC), a 275-acre living history farm and museum, whose goal is to create an educational and entertaining environment that inspires visitors to learn, live, and celebrate the American West. The following questions guide our research:

• Does using mobile GPS–enabled computers on–site have a greater impact on learning compared to doing a similar activity from a PC? How can we design for activity–goal alignment in either case?
• Within this session, we will address these questions by presenting the results of research with local elementary students. We will offer a demonstration of both versions of the games, as well as provide footage of participants playing at the AWHC.

Secondly, research on mobile technologies for learning at UW–Madison is continuing to grow through the Local Games Lab and the ARIS project. The latter is a two–year–old research experiment designed to explore mobile learning affordances through development of an open source, web–based editor for smartphone media (http://www.arisgames.org). Through open–invitation game design jams, The ARIS group is experimenting with various mini–game designs to discover what is engaging and community building when it comes to place–based designed experiences.

This segment will highlight UW–Madison mobile media initiatives and authored ARIS mini–games that will be playable at the conference. We will also discuss implications of social mobile technology practices on civic engagement.

Finally, the MIT Scheller Teacher Education Program and The Education Arcade have been working on mobile educational games for several years. The majority of that work has been around location–based games using their Outdoor Augmented Reality platform. But another line of research and development has focused on casual collaborative games, dating back to the Participatory Simulations. Their latest take on this genre is UbiqGames (ubiquitous games). These games are designed to provide a mixture of single and multiplayer play, in a long–term but casual format. To accommodate this style of play, the games are being designed on a web–based platform that targets mobile browsers, but also can be played from fixed browsers. The first game on this platform is Pokemon–style weather game for middle school students.

The MIT segment will focus on the design criteria for the new UbiqGames platform and the first games.