eMapps.com context and results

1
eMapps.com context and results

• Serious Games on The Move
• 24 June 2008
• Robert Davies
• MDR Partners, UK

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eMapps.com

• EC IST FP6, Call 4, October 2005-March 2008
• e-Learning, New Member States
• 8 countries, 17 schools
• European Schoolnet, Manchester Metropolitan
  University
• SMEs Cross Czech, MDR, Ciberespacio
• Age group 9-12
• Games mobile technologies
• New, enriching experiences for children
• Creativity in the classroom and outside
• Good practice for new teaching
• Targeting policy makers, teachers, parents,
  children

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Country co-ordinators

• Czech Republic CELN
• Estonia Tiger Leap Foundation
• Hungary Berzsenyi College
• Latvia Mezzazile
• Lithuania Imotec
• Poland ICIMMS
• Slovakia Elfa
• Slovenia UL

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eMapps.com strategic objectives

• Significant impact on validating new learning
  paradigms in both school and informal settings
• Contribute to strategic thinking about school and
  curriculum reform process in NMS and Europe

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eMapps games concept

• Real environment/any location
• Indoor/outdoor
• Real time
• Using mobile devices and Internet technologies
• Wide possibilities for communication, social
  networking and creation of multimedia content
• Played (competitively) in teams
• Elementary and secondary schools

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eMapps game characteristics

• Different from regular computer games
• Affordable to create
• Take the players outside their classrooms
• Involve real world and real people
• Blurring with alternate reality, defined in game
  story
• Players can create and upload their own content
• Game Masters (and designers) are usually
  teachers
• Freedom to experiment/adapt within platform
  constraints
• Levels, tasks, clues, challenges
• Game master interventions
• PC mobile devices
• Web 2.0, Chat, blogs and casts, map-based
  technologies

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Expected results

• Web-based game learning platform
• A Childrens Living Map of Europe
• Competent teachers able to disseminate results
• Summer schools
• Handbook/toolkit
• Conferences
• Evaluation public results
• Exploitation open platform available
• www.emapps.com

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Kids are different today (Prensky, 2001)

• Operate at twitch speed
• Parallel processors rather than linear processors
• Conduct multiple conversations using technology
• Choose graphics and animation over text
• Random accessors of information
• Active not passive
• Expect reward for effort
• See play as work and work as play
• Expect fantasy and reality in equal measure
• View technology as life, not a separate activity

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Games and mobile technology in learning

• People learn best when they are motivated and
  entertained
• games provide a flow experience
• playful experimentation to develop understanding
  of the world and our place in it
• Equip learners with powerful, mobile tools for
  access, creation and use of content
• Use location to trigger events

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Mobile learning characteristics

• Ubiquitous
• Western Europe one per person since 2006
• Sophisticated mobile devices enable rich learning
  content
• Costs for learner (nb NMS)?
• On demand
• Flexibility to access learning in best time and
  place
• Teacher can feed back
• Typically blended
• Used as part of a wider set of learning
  interventions
• Not e-learning on a phone
• Bite sized learning
• Short segments, simple, structured, easy access,
  task-based

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Digital games and learning

• Nearly 60 of UK teachers willing to use games in
  class (NESTA Futurelabs, 2006)
• Potential remains largely unrealized
• false starts and misunderstandings learn from
  past
• Need to align principles of games with
  educational theory and learning outcomes
• possible to create effective blended game-based
  learning

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Games and learning simplifying the argument?

• Increase in IQ across all cultures with
  standardised testing
• attributable to education, nutrition etc?
• cognitive complexity of mass entertainment e.g.
  video games?
• Children are not the problem
• 90 of children surveyed play computer/video
  games
• Widespread criticism of school education systems
  in many parts of Europe
• If schools are failing and games are effective
  learning tools and students like games..

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Why are games good for learning?

• Successful games can help people learn large
  amounts of content
• Games use established learning theories and
  principles
• play is an effective learning paradigm hard
  fun
• players resolve challenges and problems learner
  autonomy
• help is only hints, not answers constructivist
  not didactic
• scientific method gather data, hypothesis, test,
  revise
• Not all games have the same learning outcomes
• Card games - matching numbers, platforms
• Jeopardy-style games - information, facts,
  concepts
• Arcade style twitch games speed, visual
  processing
• Adventure hypothesis testing, problem solving

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Approaches to learning game design

• eMapps approach bottom-up
• eMapps teachers (and students) take on game
  designer role within platform constraints
• Templates and portfolios
• Commercial games integrated into school- based
  learning
• More cost-effective than building from scratch
• Quality maximised (game play or flow)
• Can match course content (history, geography,
  civil engineering, physics, maths, economics)
• But limited topics, content incomplete/
  inaccurate

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Challenges

• Manageability of games in the school curriculum
  and timetable
• Or is this an extracurricular activity?
• What is learned?
• Higher order skills or curriculum-oriented
  knowledge (e.g. history)or both?
• Assessment framework
• Can policy makers be convinced?
• Reform of curriculum frameworks

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Challenges (2)

• Can teachers adapt to changed role?
• knowledge and authority status
• skills in ICT/game management
• What IT integration and support do schools need?
• access to computers, phones/handhelds etc
• how does the eMapps.com platform function in a
  school environment?

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Challenges (3)

• How does partnership actually work with informal
  settings and institutions
• What role do parents/carers/community play?
• How important are specific content access
  structures?
• Multi-school or international game play
• Learning content repositories etc
• Google
• DIY

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Is it worthwhile?

• eMapps games can easily take 100 hours to design
  and 20-30 hours to play
• Manageable through saved games, transitions but
• Is the amount of potential learning justified by
  the work and time needed to implement the game?
• Dissemination across Europe policy makers and
  practitioner
• Convince parents and teachers

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Theories of learning where eMapps.com fits

• Informal Learning
• Constructivism (vs objectivism)
• Discovery/experiential Learning
• wonder, surprise, feelings, peer/personal
  responses, fun and pleasure
• Situated Learning
• Collaborative Learning
• Independent Learning
• Visual Cognition and creative thinking
• Inclusive Learning

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Informal learning what is it?

• Happens outside formal education institutions
• e.g. libraries, museums, cultural institutions
• USA is ahead
• EC projects such as AITMES and Il Greco
• Not about things which are learned in formal
  education
• Happens in a different way
• casual or accidental rather than organised
• Has a different purpose
• participation in leisure
• not related to passing examinations?

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Some learning outcomes that eMapps. com supports?

• Investigation of real world
• Through access, analysis, interpretation of
  information sources
• Improved achievement and depth of learning
• Problem-solving, goal-related behaviour
• Increased technology capability and skill
• Communicative skills
• Collaborative skills
• Softer skills e.g. resilience and persistence
• Emergence of mentoring and teaching skills

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eMapps.com school surveyOwnership and use

• Most common games platforms owned
• PCs (boys 83 girls 75)
• mobile phones (boys 60 girls 77)
• Proprietary platforms (consoles) owned
• Sony Playstation, Game Boy owned by significant
  lt20
• Xbox, PSP etc still at a low level of use
• 90 of children use one or more game platforms
• 60 used PCs for playing games
• mobile phones used for gaming by 43 of children
  who owned them

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Games platforms used by boys
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eMapps.com school survey Games played

• Over 150 game titles cited
• Average 2.8 per boy 2.0 per girl)
• Peer emulation and/or access to specific titles
• Fewer attractive games available for girls
• Boys action, military strategy and sports games
  dominant Girls play them too but mobile phone
  games more popular and sports games less popular
• 53 of boys played games every day 27 girls
• 55 of children had Internet connection at home
• 80 of these had broadband
• 50 children see games at school as part of
  learning
• more girls than boys

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Favourite games boys and girls
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eMapps games using initial prototype

• Looked like this.

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The Rep Game
Used by teachers for creating content to be
uploaded to each level of the desk game
Teachers create multimedia content, video, audio,
text, photos (normally part of their curriculum
that will become part of the game)
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The Desk Game

• Teams of players look for clues and create
  content in order to pass to a higher game level
• Children upload their multimedia work produced
  during the game play.

• Teacher plays a role of Game Master and can see
  at anytime any of team desks and promote players
  to the next level.

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GIS map
Each game is played in a territory based on
vector map and ortophoto.

• Teachers and children can pin any position in the
  territory based on UTM coordinates.

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• Pin based on UTM coordinates from GPS, routes
  tracks

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What effect do the games have what we evaluated

• Evaluation of the impact of the games
• Pedagogy
• Impact on school
• Cost and budgeting
• Technology
• Cultural issues

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Evaluation methods

• Teachers
• Observation
• Questionnaires
• Children (and parents)
• Focus groups
• Structured class discussion
• Small group discussion
• One to one feedback
• Childrens stories or diaries about their
  experiences

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Is this trainable?

• After first summer school June 2006
• 8/21 teachers confident they could create a game
• 13/21 quite confident
• Back at school
• 21/21 found both school managers and colleagues
  interested in what they were doing
• 16/21 thought easy to integrate into school
  curriculum
• 13/21 thought easy to integrate into school
  timetable
• 15/21 thought purchasing equipment from school
  budget would be a problem

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What the children learned..according to teachers

• New facts across a range of curriculum subjects
• game can be cross-curricular
• geography, history, local studies, folklore/myths
  
• New technology skills with handhelds, platform,
  ICT
• Improved generic skills, especially
• teamwork and cooperation,
• analytical appraisal
• collaborative decision-making, negotiating
• independent decision-making
• planning
• navigating
• Self confidence and self-reliance

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Big issues for resolution

• Time
• Cost
• Safety
• Usability
• more in workshops

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eMapps main outcomes (1)

• The children had fun wanted to play the game
  again
• The teachers enjoyed the experience
• Curriculum, cross-curricular fits were identified
• Positive learning outcomes were identified
• Positive feedback from parents

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Main outcomes (2)

• Difficult to mainstream immediately
• Need for extended multiplier pilots
• Need to validate business and implementation
  models
• Evaluation of first prototype and its
  implementation raised specific issues
• Addressed in a re-engineered platform now
  available from University of Ljubljana

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Exploitation partners at national and European
level

• Ministries and Local/regional education and
  cultural authorities
• Education service agencies
• Education research and innovation institutes
• Commercial suppliers to education and culture
  sectors

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Service based exploitation?

• TELCO or mobile service supplier?
• Exploit childrens familiarity with/access to
  mobile devices
• Service suppliers looking for education oriented
  content and services
• How will they see potential of eMapps style
  mixed reality games GPS, location based?

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Workshops this afternoon

• Theme 2 - embedding games into school life and
  into curriculum
• Theme 3 platform and tools

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For latest information

• Availability updates on eMapps website
  www.emapps.com
• Contact national partner (see website)
• Contact eMapps co-ordinator
• romana.krizova_at_ crossczech.cz
• rob.davies_at_mdrpartners.com