The WalkAbout framework for contextual learning through mobile serious games

Fernando Almeida & Hiram Bolaert & Shane Dowdall & Justino Lourenço & Piotr Milczarski
Published online: 8 November 2013 # Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013
Abstract Learning through games is increasingly gaining acceptance as a valuable training tool within the education and training community due to its simplicity, cost- effectiveness and essentially because most people prefer playing over learning. However, the use of games by students brings additional challenges regarding the design of games and their adoption in different learning, academic and interdisciplinary contexts, where issues such as planning, teachers and students participation have an important role in the success of contextual learning initiatives. This paper introduces a novel development framework and a learning process called WalkAbout for contextual learning mobile game systems that enables learners to practice and enhance 21st century skills, while generating and playing mobile contextual games. In our research, we investigate the main issues regarding the process of creating contextual mobile games and we detail the adopted methodology used in the design and implementation process of the WalkAbout framework. Finally, in order to preliminarily validate the platform and adopted methodology, we present and discuss the main results obtained
Educ Inf Technol (2015) 20:415–428 DOI 10.1007/s10639-013-9292-6
F. Almeida (*):J. Lourenço Polythenic Institute of Gaya, ISPGaya, Vila Nova de Gaia, Portugal e-mail: falmeida@ispgaya.pt
J. Lourenço e-mail: jml@ispgaya.pt
H. Bolaert Artesis Hogeschool Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium e-mail: hiram.bollaert@artesis.be
S. Dowdall Dundalk Institute of Technology, Dundalk, Ireland e-mail: Shane.Dowdall@dkit.ie
P. Milczarski University of Lodz, Lodz, Poland e-mail: piotr.milczarski@uni.lodz.pl
after the games development, by looking at the potential of our design approach, the software framework and the learning experience that was offered to the students.
Keywords Contextuallearning.Mobileplatforms . Seriousgames .Multimedia . Multidisciplinaryeducationalexperience
1 Introduction
Serious games have an explicit and central educational purpose and are not intended to be played primarily for amusement. Michael and Chen (2006) consider that a“serious game is a game in which education (in its various forms) is the primary goal, rather than entertainment”. Zyda (2005) proposes a similar definition, though with more detail as to the nature of the purpose: “serious games is a mental contest, played with a computer in accordance with specific rules, that uses entertainment to further government or corpo- rate training, education, health, public policy, and strategic communication objectives”. When adopting computer games—and games in general—for educational purposes, several aspects of the learning process are supported: learners are encouraged to combine knowledge from different areas to come up with a solution or to make a decision at a certain point, learners can test how the outcome of the game changes based on their decisions and actions, learners are encouraged to contact other team members and discuss and negotiate subsequent steps, thus improving, among other things, their social skills (Pivee et al. 2003). According to Williamson and Sandford (2005) when we are playing serious games, information and sensations experienced make strong impressions and let the player improve perception, attention and memory, promoting behaviour changes through “learning by doing”. In fact, internalizing something that the user did is simpler than learning during traditional frontal lessons, a so-called “passive learning” approach. In a simulated environment it is possible to reduce fear and face a new situation thus increasing user’s confidence in his competency and efficacy. There is currently an increased demand for greater interactivity to be built into learning materials, to offer a variety of different knowledge presentations and to create opportunities to apply knowledge within a virtual world, thus supporting and facilitat- ing the learning process. As a consequence, learning is becoming mobile, and location becomes an important context, both in terms of the physical whereabouts of the learner and also the opportunities for learning to become location-sensitive. The properties and affordances of one’s location vary enormously and hence other contexts become even more important, such as the task, the goal or the user; the ubiquity of network access (GPS, Wifi, Near Field Communication (NFC), etc.); the time of the year or day and even the weather (Brown 2010). Mobile learning refers to the use of mobile or wireless devices for the purpose of learning while on the move (Park 2011). Mobile devices enable learning to take place at any time, in any location, and at a learner’s pace. Klopfer and Squire (2008) describe five properties of mobile handheld devices that produce unique educational affordances: portability, social interactivity, context sensitivity, connectivity, and indi- viduality. Furthermore, several authors such as Specht (2009), Wang (2004) and Yau et al. (2010) recognizes that context is the most distinctive feature in mobile learning.
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Context-aware mobile learning applications leverage the contextual information of the learner to provide personalized and motivating learning experiences. There are many challenges for those who would create contextual learning experi- ences with the natural environment. How can we create immersive learning environ- ments? How can we facilitate the interaction between students? How can we transmit the feeling that the user is controlling their games? How can we assure that the game is effectively helping students in their learning process? This paper presents a novel framework and the learning process to produce contex- tual learning mobile game systems that looks and responds to the identified issues above. Section 2 gives an overview of the state of the art in terms of contextual, mobile and ubiquitous learning. In section 3 we describe the adopted methodology and in section 4 we present the main results obtained in the WalkAbout initiative. Furthermore, insection 5 we discuss the potentialofour design approach, the software framework and the learning experience that was offered to the students.
2 Literature review
2.1 Contextual learning
Context can be broadly defined as the formal or informal setting in which a situation or event occurs. It can include many aspects or dimensions, such as location, date, time, personal and social activity, resources, and goals and task structures of groups and individuals. The file of context-aware computing has established a variety of context definitions, mostly starting from location or object context. Johnson (2002) defends that contextual learning and teaching is based on the discovery that students find meaning in their schoolwork when they join the content of academic subjects with the context of daily life. Zimmermann et al. (2007) give a pragmatic definition of context. For them, context of a person or an object can be defined by five distinct parts:
1. Identify context – includes information about objects and users in the real world. With respect to users, their profile can include preferences, acquired-desired competences, learning style, etc.; 2. Time context – ranges from simple points in time to intervals and a complete history of entities; 3. Location context – splits into quantitative and qualitative location models, which allow to work with absolute and relative positions; 4. Activity context – reflect the entities goals, tasks and actions; 5. Relations context – captures the relation an entity has established to other entities, and describes social, functional and compositional relationships.
Contextual learning has the power to help student’s process new information that is given to them in a way that makes sense according to their own world of memory and experience. The importance of this type of learning is that the student’s mind naturally seeks meaning and context in the subjects they are being taught. At the same time, this type of learning can occur in a number of different places: in the classroom, a
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laboratory, a computer lab, outside, or in a place of work (CORD 2001). Due to the flexibility of this type of learning a teacher can design a learning environment, which incorporates many different forms of experience, including social, cultural and psychological.
2.2 Mobile learning
There are various definitions of mobile learning but no one is generally consensual. Dewey (1996) was the first one to address this issue, and defines mobile learning as “a society which is mobile, which is full of channels for the distribution of a change occurring anywhere, must see to it that its members are educated to personal initiative and adaptability”. More recently, Ally (2005) defines mobile learning as “the delivery of electronic materials on mobile computing devices to allow access from anywhere and at any time”. Generally mobile learning has often been viewed as learning mediated through mobile technology. Due to the progress in the field of broadband communication, it is nowadays possible to use network connections nearly everywhere thus allowing a user to be online all the times. Additionally, while the computational power and the storing capabilities increase, the size of today’s mobile devices decreases. According to Bosomworth (2013), the market for mobile devices is growing more and more and in 3 years it should take over desktop internet usage. This mobile revolution is changing everyday life and offers new ways of learning. This also enables educational institu- tions and teachers to harness mobile learning solutions to offer more effective and richer learning experiences. Mobile learning has some properties that depend on the user: the user’s environment and the used technology or device. It is a very time-constrained task delivering context- oriented content. Learning is normally done on-the-fly, which means that it is very fast and occurs mostly during spare time. Thus, the information provided has to be personalized to the needs of the user. Combining contextual and mobile learning we can use context information to choose the most appropriate information or learning material. Furthermore, mobile learning includes multimodal interaction using several technologies handled on the mobile device, like speech recognition, sound, touch gestures, etc. (Pisey et al. 2012). Lastly mobile learning can also support collaboration, where the user contacts their fellow students, friends or experts. Being mobile adds a new dimension to the activities that can be supported, both because of the personal and portable nature of the devices themselves, and because of the kinds of interactions they can support with other learners and the environment. Klopfer et al. (2002) identify five properties of mobile devices that produce unique educational affordances in terms of portability, social interactivity, context sensitivity, connectivity and individuality. Mobile learning provides a potential way forward for the expansion of education programs to larger segments of the population rather than via the traditional eLearning model that has been adopted in much of the developed world. Valk et al. (2010) states that mobile learning allows a method of educational delivery that could be more cost-effective than e-learning methods, not to mention that the ubiquity of mobile phones means that many people are already familiar with mobile phone applications.
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However, if learning is to have a deep impact in the learning process, there are still several issues that should be properly addressed and considered. The former is the need of supporting temporal mobility. Dispersion in time makes it hard to define precisely the start and end of a mobile learning session. Learning scenarios should consider this aspect and support not only the spatial mobility of students, but also their temporal mobility (for example by giving the opportunity to easily stop and resume a session) (George and Lekira 2009). The latter is the importance to integrate mobile applications into global learning systems.Theideahereistoletthelearnereasilyswitchbetweenadesktopapplicationanda mobile application. For that the user interface should be adaptive and the information gathered during mobile use should be reused on desktop applications in order to adapt the learning game to each learner experience (Cochrane 2010; Paredes and Ayala 2012).
2.3 Ubiquitous learning
Ubiquitous learning (u-learning) in contrast to mobile learning is not necessarily bound to mobile devices. In general, u-learning is enabled by an environment that can be accessed in various contexts and situations. As Van’t Hooft et al. (2007) states, u- learning involves learning in an environment where “all students have access to a variety of digital devices and services, including computers connected to the Internet and mobile computing devices, whenever and wherever they need them”. Students in u-learning environments have the potential to increase their learning experiences because they can critically weight their peers’ ideas, react more intention- ally, and check the accuracy of their opinions or assertions. Students benefit by using the opportunity to engage more thoughtfully than they often do when called on to respond on demand in a classroom or on an in-class exam. Similarly teachers have more flexibility in the way they interact, with the capacity to tailor subsequent lessons and responses to meet students where they are, individually and collectively (Yang 2006). AccordingtoYahyaetal. (2010),u-learningshouldhavethefollowing characteristics:
& Permanency – the information remains unless the learners purposely remove it; & Accessibility – the information is always available whenever the learners need to use it; & Immediacy – the information can be retrieved immediately by the learners; & Interactivity – the learners can interact with peers, teachers, and experts efficiently and effectively, through different media; & Context-awareness – the environment can adapt to the learners real situation to provide adequate information for the learners.
Ubiquitous learning can be about the adoption of appropriate technologies for use in traditional education environments such as classrooms, or it may be about the align- ment of ubiquitous platforms with more ubiquitous contexts of learning outside the formal classrooms, like in workplace, in the home or in public places.
2.4 Educational-game design process
Learning can become more effective if it becomes contextual, mobile and ubiquitous. Cordova and Lepper (1996) demonstrated this concept by using some educational
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tasks, where learning embedded in a motivating setting improved learning outcomes and that engagement can facilitate learning. More recently, George and Serna (2011) structured the classification of activities around the main theories and areas of learning relevant to contextual mobile scenarios:
& Behaviourist – activities that promote learning as a change in observable actions; & Constructivist – activities in which learners actively construct new ideas or concepts based on both their previous and current knowledge; & Situated – activities that promote learning within an authentic context and culture; & Collaborative – activities that promote learning through social interaction; & Informal and lifelong – activities that support learning outside a dedicated learning environment and formal curriculum; & Learning and teaching support – activities that assist in the coordination of learners and resources for learning activities.
George and Serna (2011) established that for the creation of a successful game-based learning opportunity, the following steps of game design, elements of learning and engagement should be taken into consideration:
& Determine pedagogical approach – when designing an educational game we have to reflect upon didactical approach and related topics; & Situate the task in a model world – students should be able to discover meaningful relationships between abstract ideas and practical applications in the context of the real world; concepts are internalized through the process of discovering, reinforc- ing, and relating; & Elaborate the details – educators should choose and design learning environments that incorporate as many different forms of experience as possible (social, cultural, physical and psychological) in working toward the desired learning outcomes; & Map learning activities and concepts to interface actions and objects – the idea is to create polished products and activities valuable in their own right, enabling the learning process to occur in a real world scenario.
There are many interactive learning techniques that have already been used in game based learning. According to Prensky (2000), one of those techniques is “learning from mistakes”, where failure is considered a point where the user gets some feedback. In game based learning making a mistake is a primary way to learn and is considered the motivation for players to keep on trying. Additionally, students should also be able to assess their own activities to see how they are doing and to be able to evaluate their decisions and actions. There must be a close link between action and feedback, which will motivate students to keep playing the game.
3 Methodology
The working method for this project was design-based research. Based on the teaching, coaching and managing experiences of the participating lecturers, a rough working method was set up in which different teams of students needed to collaborate. As a part
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of the working method students were free to team up. Only one specification was given, each member must come from a different country. Initially 8 groups of 5 (or 4) students were formed and were assigned a mentor. The resulting teams were quite different in formation. One team had only male students, and another team was mono-disciplinary. All teams were then formally informed on the task at hand, to build a mobile contextual learning game given the context of the park with its themes and animals. From that point forwards an iterative process of mentoring and giving feedback started. Each morning all mentors briefed each other on the current developments and the overall impression on the progress of the project. During the day all teams were briefed and coached by their mentors. Within the whole group of students two subgroups were identified. The Tech group was responsible for the technical development of the game. On the other side, the Art group was responsible for the learning and multimedia contents. Both groups were regularly called to meet as a group with the Tech mentor and the Art mentor. During those meetings training, feedback and specific instructions were given. The training sessions addressed issues as understanding the gaming system, taking leadership, teambuilding and project management. The members of the Art group were instructed to take leadership over their team and these team leaders were informed on the long term and the short term schedules. WalkAbout IP ran for 10 working days, which is a short time to produce a full scale contextual learning mobile game. Therefore two schedules, one short term and one long term, were defined. The long term planning spanned the 10 days of the project and specified two sprints of 4 days. The short term planning was a day to day planning for the game development, game presentation and the feedback on the teams’ progress. At the end of the first sprint a game demo was presented, after the second sprint, the teams needed to demonstrate indoors a playable game using a mobile device (tablet or smartphone). During the last day of the IP all teams evaluated the working games in the field. Due to the design-based approach the team of lecturers was able to correct and steer the flow of the project. As the project provided a real educational context its results can effectively be used to improve practice in at least a likewise context. The iterative interventions, using mixed methods as training and assessments during the project, were constantly evalu- ated for their effectiveness. The evaluation was done by continuously checking the impact of the interventions on the teams’ progress and the feedback coming back from the students. This year’s IP was a reality check proving that interdisciplinary teams can actually build a playable and challenging contextual mobile game. For subsequent IP’s the framework will be adjusted and enhanced in response to the experiences from the students and the lecturers. In the second IP the focus will move towards instructional design and business plans. The aim will be to realize more complex games and study the marketability of the games. Besides generating more fun contextual mobile games, the goal of the third IP is to attract outsiders to get involved in the building and playing of the games. One achievement would be a website publishing the realized games, offering a ‘do it yourself’ tutorial to attract communities in using the framework to establish more contextual mobile games.
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4 Results
Part of the project intended to analyze the perception of learning while performing a specific task in a specific setting. The setting was an international interdisciplinary team and the task was to build a contextual learning game. During the IP the students were asked to fill out two questionnaires. Two sets of questions were proposed to a group of (Finnish) students during a Quantitative Research Methods course and they derived the final sets of questions which were implemented in the questionnaires. A total of 31 students from our initial group of 40 filled the questionnaires. Six students of 31 responses answered they had already worked in an international interdisciplinary team. These students all indicated that such a team is a powerful working environment although communication and language barriers are the main problem in such a team. Four of these students mentioned they had learned a lot through synergy. Of those students (25 of 31) who had never worked in an international interdisci- plinary team, 22 think working in such a team is very useful, although, they all expect communication and language to be a problem. Almost all (20) are anticipating to learn to collaborate with other people, having a different education, different culture, differ- ent opinion. Except for one student, none had ever built a mobile contextual game. 27 students (of 30 responses) have the opinion that one can learn a lot through building a contextual mobile game. What students think they will learn is very different. Most expectations lie in the line of the student’s current programme. An IT student expects to learn more on javascript and mobile technologies, a student from teacher training expects to learn how to deliver learning content in a more appealing manner and, finally, most students expect to learn to collaborate with people. Only a few students (two of 30) expects to learn something on games/puzzles/challenges and how they are built, one students thinks he will learn something from the context, and five students mention teamwork, time management and organization. When offered a choice of what they expect to learn during the IP they answered as follows in Table 1. Each student was asked to choose maximum three topics. A likewise question about the topics learnt by students (Table 2) was asked in the second questionnaire.
Table 1 Topics expected to learn by students
31 responses in total Absolute frequency Relative frequency
Language 14 15 %
Social 9 10 %
Communication 17 18 %
Team work 21 23 %
Technical 17 18 %
Management 6 7 %
Creativity 7 8 %
Presentation skills 1 1 %
Other 0 0 %
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In two questions students were asked how they experienced relations between teams in terms of competition and collaboration. To the question “How did relations between teams influenced your team [Competition]” one student answer “A little bit in a bad way”, 17 answered“A little bit in a good way” and 12 said “Strongly in a good way”. In relation to the question “How did relations between teams influenced your team [Collaboration (did your team receive help from other teams)]” 3 students answered “A little bit in a bad way”, 13 students answered “A little bit in a good way” and 12 students said “Strongly in a good way”. In an open question on the quality of the teams, some students complained that their team with fewer disciplines (seven ITstudents and 1 non-IT) was considerably weaker in comparison to teams with a richer spread of disciplines (IT, tourism and teacher training). Although the heavy workload, all students were explicitly enthusiastic about their participation and the overall outcome of the IP, wondering what could have been realized in more time considering what they had produced in the present small time frame. We also inquired students about the usefulness of the daily break up meetings and session with mentors. The feedback given by students is shown in Table 3. Another interesting point to analyze is the internal evaluation made by teams regarding the capabilities demonstrated by each student along the project. The overall results of this evaluation about criteria such as initiative, responsibility, time scheduling, attitude to- wardsworkingandcooperationisshowninTable 4.Thelastcolumnindicatestheaverage final score given by external experts during the presentation of the projects by the teams. When we analyze the impact of each criterion in the overall performance of each team, we get the following results depicted in Table 5. The results of Table 5 show that cooperation is the main attribute demonstrated by the teams. On the opposite side, deliver work in time scheduling and initiative were the main issues faced by the teams. There is a clear dependence between the initiative and
Table 2 Topics learnt by students
What did you learn? 30 responses in total
Nothing Superficial (a little)
In depth (a lot)
Language 0 15 (50 %) 15 (50 %)
Social 0 7 (23 %) 23 (77 %)
Communication 0 5 (17 %) 25 (83 %)
Team work 1 (3 %) 3 (10 %) 26 (87 %)
Technical 5 (17 %) 12 (40 %) 13 (43 %)
Management 1 (3 %) 13 (43 %) 16 (53 %)
Creativity 1 (3 %) 7 (23 %) 22 (73 %)
Presentation skills 0 6 (20 %) 24 (80 %)
Game design 4 (13 %) 12 (40 %) 14 (47 %)
Instructional design 5 (17 %) 13 (43 %) 12 (40 %)
Programming/coding 8 (27 %) 13 (43 %) 9 (30 %)
Graphics 8 (27 %) 14 (47 %) 8 (27 %)
Animals (context) 3 (10 %) 11 (37 %) 16 (53 %)
Environmental conservation (context)
5 (17 %) 12 (40 %) 13 (43 %)
Evolution theory (context) 10 (33 %) 8 (27 %) 12 (40 %)
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cooperation demonstrated by the teams in terms of the final results obtained by them. On the opposite side, the responsibility does not show to have a deep impact in the overall quality of work developed by the teams.
5 Discussion
The primary aim of this project was to get students to form international teams and work together on a project. To this end the project was a big success. From the outset the students engaged in the process. Prior to travel, a Facebook page was set up in the hope that the students would start communicating with each other. The Facebook page, introducing WalkAbout IP, was accompanied by two private groups, one for the participating teachers and one for the participating students. All students were invited to become a member of the student group in order to get to know each other and to start forming teams. The Facebook page was initially used to inform all involved about the proceedings of the preparations of the IP. During and after the IP participants used the page to publish team statuses, social activities, pictures. Students also expressed their frustrations and achievements on the page. On the first day of the project, the students arrived at the accommodation, from their various countries, at various times. They knew that the following day they were going to be assigned a team in which there would be at most one person from each country. They were informed that they could form their own teams if they wished and the lecturers would create the teams should
Table 4 Perception of students capabilities distributed by each group
Initiative Responsibility Time scheduling
Attitude towards working
Cooperation Final score (external experts)
Animal quest 4,06 3,88 4,06 3,94 4,31 3,61
Project bird 3,94 3,81 3,88 3,75 4,25 2,78
Beagle 3,88 4,19 4,19 4,13 4,38 2,50
Mobile park 3,81 4,00 3,75 4,13 4,00 2,78
A-team 4,63 4,50 4,63 4,69 4,94 4,72
Make it green 4,20 4,20 4,15 4,20 4,50 3,06
Swift 4,44 4,63 4,25 4,31 4,56 3,33
Table 3 Perception about the use- fulness of feedback sessions
Ranking How useful were the feedback sessions? [Arti/Tech break up]
How useful were the feedback sessions? [sessions with mentors]
Bad 1 (3 %) 0
No use 2 (7 %) 0
Good 16 (53 %) 7 (23 %)
Very good 8 (27 %) 13 (43 %)
Excellent 3 (10 %) 10 (33 %)
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this not happen. We were pleased to hear that they had all met up with each other during that first evening, mingled well and had happily assigned themselves to teams before the end of the night. It was felt that allowing them to form their own teams was an important part of them buying into the process. Based in observational data, was noted that the students tended to hang around with their team members and not their fellow countrymen. Unfortunately, the home country did not quite have the same experience. They were not living in the same accommodation as the others and furthermore their college was still running (evening) classes as normal. This meant that, in general, there was not the same level of participation from those students. This situation helps to understand the low score of criteria initiative and time scheduling (Table 5). A secondary aim was to see if we could get the students to produce a prototype mobile game that would have commercial appeal. Again, the project was a success on this front. While each of the seven teams was given the same context, information and set-up they produced very different but thought-provoking concepts mostly aimed at a younger audience. The variety of concepts included using logic puzzles, puzzles involving sound, moral issues, creating personal databases and education. The com- mercial aspect was evidenced as the National Park requested that two of the games be worked on further with a view to making them a permanent feature. A tertiary aim was to test the capabilities of the chosen framework, WalkAbout. Given that the entire project had to take place during 2 weeks we required a framework that could rapidly turn concepts into games. This framework was designed to use QR codes that, in essence, indexed a database that could be used in both an online and offline setting. WalkAbout is designed to be a platform independent application so a student only need know about HTML5, CSS and JavaScript i.e. no native coding was necessary. The online/offline aspect meant that a person could download a game when they had an internet connection but could then play the game offline. Once an internet connection was re-established other features such as leaderboards could be displayed. This was a highly desirable feature as it allowed games to be played in areas where there was no internet coverage or indeed where it was expensive. Thus, a typical game developed by the students involved scanning a QR code and being asked to solve a puzzle, which in turn led the student to another QR code. While the framework had its limitations some of these helped the teams focus their attention and home in on a concept quickly. It is worth noting that the students came from
Table 5 Impact of students capabilities in the performance of each team
Initiative Responsibility Time scheduling Attitude towards working Cooperation
Mean 4,137 4,173 4,130 4,164 4,420
Biased standard deviation
0,282 0,284 0,262 0,273 0,271
Covariance 0,191 0,108 0,161 0,156 0,171
Correlation 0,843 0,471 0,764 0,706 0,784
Determination 0,710 0,221 0,583 0,499 0,615
T-Test 3,498 1,193 2,645 2,232 2,823
p-value 0,017 0,287 0,046 0,076 0,037
Degrees of freedom 5 5 5 5 5
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a wide variety of backgrounds including tourism, teacher training, applied informatics, games development and telecommunications and there was a wide variety in program- ming skills. That said, each team needed at least one good programmer, as there were many technical issues that needed to be solved during the duration of the project and unfortunately, the documentation was poor. This was offset by having the framework’s creator available during the first week of the project. The need for a good programmer meant that there was a big variety in successfully implementing games. While some managed to produce a fully working prototype others had to abandon the framework altogether and concentrate on the concept. While WalkAbout performed admirably we have learned that we need to be careful in our selection of students so that we get a reasonable balance of technically skilled as well as creative thinkers. Furthermore, it was felt that it would be a good idea to introduce the framework to the technical students in advance. This initiative would help students to increase their learning competences in technical skills, which is one of poorest criterion scored in Table 2. With regards the methodology, it was felt that we managed to bring out the best in the students. They fully engaged with the project and the words ‘Intensive Programme’ was truly fitting. The feedback sessions were considered very useful by our students (Table 3) and let them to share their thoughts and issues regarding the game design and implementation processes. While the output of the students was undeniably excellent there were concerns that maybe it was too intensive. There wasn’t much time set aside for relaxation. Also, there were many instances of students staying up all night working and while they did this out of love of their project one has to question whether this is a desirable feature of future projects. We should also keep in mind that, for most students, this is taking place near the end of an academic semester and when they return to their own college they must re-engage in their normal studies. In looking to the future we need to review the balance between the desirable aspects, the limitations and the goals of this project which include:
& The feeling one gets from producing a high quality and commercially viable product; & The experience of working intensively, within a diverse team, and acquiring the knowledge that this is usually required if a quality product is going to be produced; & The experience has to take place in under 2 weeks; & The primary goal is to get students working in international teams; & The acceptance that some students are nearing the end of their studies and we should not send them home completely exhausted.
While our existing process does a good job of balancing these it is felt that final point needs to be improved. Although efforts were made to allow thorough communi- cation and information towards the students months before the start of the IP, a lot of the information was not received by students. Optimizing communication will allow us to prepare ourselves and the students more and better for the upcoming IP.
6 Conclusions
TheWalkAboutframework has inspired lecturers and studentsof differentnationalities and multidisciplinary domains, from IT fields to design backgrounds and social sciences. The
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WalkAbout framework was deployed and tested by 40 students in total from five interna- tional partners at Parque Biológico of Gaia during 2 weeks of an IP programme. This IP assembled students in the creation of serious and contextual mobile games. Based on a social constructivist view they collaborated in international and interdisciplinary teams. Aiming at the creation of a contextual and mobile game they explored game design, user- interface design, instructional design, multimedia authoring, mobile networking, mobile platform, near field communication (NFC) and quick response (QR) tags. The main focus of this project was not the IT part, but the content creation and the interdisciplinary tasks that created an opportunity for different profile students to cooperate.By focusing onthatsynergy, we could transcend the purelytechnically aspect and make the IP work effectively. Within this IP the mobile devices were used to enhance the behaviouristlearning process.The use ofmobiledevices to present teaching content specify questions (stimulus), obtain responses from learners (response), and provide appropriate feedback (reinforcement) fits within the behaviourist learning paradigm. Additionally, the organization of the students in multicultural and multidis- ciplinary working groups incentivated the acquisition and transfer of knowledge. The results of our project show that given a system to build contextual mobile learning games, an interdisciplinary group with relative technical skills is able to build a challenging and marketable game. Furthermore, the tested framework enables the quick and simple development of any new contextual game approach, as it was shown during the roll-out of the WalkAbout IP. The current framework also makes the game execution totally independent of network coverage and only requires the minimum of hardware to be executed. As future work, building on this year’s experiences, we expect to adjust and enhance the game system, select potential new functionalities, research more complex sets of game rules and adaptability, and study business models where tags are sponsored. Furthermore, the concerns related to network disruptive situations could be addresses, in order to enable real time interactions between players or teams, strongly enriching the game experience. A live connection to social networks could promote the competiveness and enable a faster game spread among all the potential users. Additionally, we also intend to increase and optimize communication among stu- dents and prepare them better to the intensive 2 weeks of an IP project.
References
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