Week 4 Case Study

“Experiencing the Past through the Senses: An M-Learning Game at Archaeological Parks”

This case study caught my eye right away because it is in the field that my youngest daughter is in. I really like the way they have used mobile technology to make a hard to envision topic much more real and interactive. Making the learning experience fun by structuring it like a treasure hunt game was a very good strategy.

The target audience for this is middle school students ages 11-13.They have used what is called an excursion-game technique to transform a traditional visit to the park of ancient settlements and made it mobile and interactive using mobile phones equipped with GPS and the gaming software that runs on the cell phone.

The game in this study is called Explore and its objective is to help young students learn history while visiting an archaeological park in Egnathia (had to google this and it is in southern Italy http://www.museiostunifasano.it/Index.php?en/149/the-archaeological-area-of-egnathia). The students are able to move around the park solving a mystery and finding hidden secrets. The game provides the student with 3D reconstruction of historical buildings, objects and places and provides the sounds to help make the experience more immersive.The game has three main phases:
• Introduction- game master gives description of park and explains the game. Each group impersonates Gaius, a citizen of Egnathia.
• Game- students form into groups and explore the park, searching for key sites by following clues. Each group receives two mobile phones, a paper map of the park and a backpack carrying a pair of loud speakers. Loud speaker are connected to the first phone and provide contextual sounds. They follow the text and sounds to discover the given sites. If they need help finding the a place they can use the first mobile phone and ask the Oracle ( a software that provides game hints). At the end of the game the students receive God’s gifts which are 3D reconstructions of correctly identified places.
• Debriefing- students review and share what they learned.

The interactivity of moving through a real park and using their own constructivist discovery to put the clues together gives them the opportunity to collaborate, use their own imagination and emotions. The 3D visuals and contextual sounds also help to give the student an immersive learning experience. Of all the case studies this was my favorite use of mobile te