Puzzle-based Games as a Metaphor for Designing In Situ Learning Activities

PUZZLE-BASED GAMES AS A METAPHOR FOR DESIGNING IN SITU LEARNING ACTIVITIES

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

Universitat Pompeu Fabra

ECGBL 2013, Porto, Portugal, 3 October 2013

Supporting teachers as designers of their own gamified situated m-learning activities

CONTEXT

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How can we support teachers as designers of their own situated m-learning activities?

Research Question


M-learning: learning anytime / anywhere (Rogers, 2008)

Situated learning activities:

• Educational benefits: motivation, stimulation, entertainment, exploration skills and self-assessment (Davis, 2002; Santos et al., 2011)

• Looking for promoting students’ reflection, and avoiding being focused just on achieving higher scores

• Must be aligned with the requirements of the specific educational settings: It becomes crucial to involve teachers in the design of these types of learning activities (Tornero et al., 2010)

To what extent teachers are able to design this kind of situated m-learning activities

RESEARCH PLAN

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Adopted approach: A Metaphor considering puzzle and game factors

Proposed Solution


Educational Games: Strengthen and support school achievement, motivation, encourage active learning, attention and concentration (Ke, 2008; Oblinger, 2004; Sedig, 2008)

Puzzles: Potential educational strategy to feasibly involve participants as game designers (Crawford, 1982). Engage students in the subject topics, foster students’ problem solving, analytical and memory skills (Huang et al., 2007; Bottino et al., 2008)

Board Physical space where the activity is performed

Slots Questions designed for the gamified learning activity

Pieces Options associated to each question

Puzzle Group of slots

Level Levels as geographical zone

Points Correct/Incorrect answers, consulting hints

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

Feedback Textual information associated to ranges of points

Hints Textual information of help to guide students to find the correct answer

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RESEARCH PLANDesign-based Research Methodology

Methodology involving continuous cycles of:


Design Enactment Analysis Re-design

Paper-based Templates http://youtu.be/BTSsXa_e-6M

Questionnaires

Observations

Log files

Several data gathering techniques

teachers students

Discussion Groups

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RESEARCH PLAN


Evaluations of the Proposed Approach

Evaluations in 4 Real Learning Contexts

RESULTS:

• The approach enables the creation of gamified in situ learning activities depending on the teachers’ needs

• Different design strategies: number of levels, punctuation mechanisms, hints, etc.

• Problems understanding the “level” element

Discovering L’H Discovering VicDiscovering Sant

SadurníDiscovering the

MNAC

Learning about the heritage of the city of

l’Hospitalet

Learning about the city of Vic and its art

history

Learning about the heritage of Sant

Sadurní

Learning about different pictures of

the museum

7 teachers ,using the paper-based

templates

1 teacher ,using the paper-based

templates

7 teachers ,using the paper-based

templates

1 teacher,using the paper-based

templates

74 students ,using “QuesTInSitu:

The Game”


The Game”


The Game”

36 students,using “QuesTInSitu:

The Game”

RESULTS:

• Students enjoy the proposed approach

• To offer the students the possibility of moving to next levels without completing correctly all the questions

• Discrepancies when subtracting points

• Students avoid to access to the hints

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Conclusions

• A puzzle-based metaphor to facilitate teachers the design their own gamified situated m-learning activities

• The metaphor has been positively valued by teachers and students

• The metaphor has been proved a feasible approach to define gamified situated learning activities to different contexts and educational purposes

• The use of paper-based templates have been positively valued for structuring the content of the activities

Next steps

• Creation of an authoring tool compliant with the proposed approach

• Understanding the effect of the rules information presented to the students (details regarding the adaptive functioning of the points or accessing to the hints)

CONCLUSIONS


MORE INFO. Javier Melero | Universitat Pompeu Fabra | [email protected] | http://www.javiermelero.es

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Conclusions

• A puzzle-based metaphor to facilitate teachers the design their own gamified situated m-learning activities

• The metaphor has been positively valued by teachers and students

• The metaphor has been proved a feasible approach to define gamified situated learning activities to different contexts and educational purposes

• The use of paper-based templates have been positively valued for structuring the content of the activities

Next steps

• Creation of an authoring tool compliant with the proposed approach

• Understanding the effect of the rules information presented to the students (details regarding the adaptive functioning of the points or accessing to the hints)

CONCLUSIONS


MORE INFO. Javier Melero | Universitat Pompeu Fabra | [email protected] | http://www.javiermelero.es