Games and Learning/Topics/Case Studies/MobileGames

TBD

http://m4action.com/

http://www.futurelab.org.uk/projects/mobimissions

Readings
Spikol, D. & Milrad, M. (2008), Combining physical activities and mobile games to promote novel learning practices, in 'Fifth IEEE International Conference on Wireless, Mobile, and Ubiquitous Technology in Education', pp. 31-38 Mobile outdoor games can be seen as fertile ground for conducting novel learning activities that involve children in different tasks including physical motion, problem solving, inquiry and collaboration; all those are activities that support different cognitive and social aspects of learning. Co-design and human centric design practices have been the focus of current research efforts in the field of educational technologies but not as prevalent in mobile games to support learning. In our current research we are exploring which design methods are appropriate for developing innovative ways of learning supported by mobile games. This paper presents all those aspects related to the design and implementation of a mobile game called Skattjakt Treasure Hunt in Swedish. The outcome of our activities has provided us with valuable results that can help us to bridge the gap between learning in informal and formal settings. Moreover, we believe that involving children in the design process of mobile games may give us new insights regarding the nature of their learning practices while learning with games.

Tian, F.; Lv, F.; Wang, J.; Wang, H.; Luo, W.; Kam, M.; Setlur, V.; Dai, G. & Canny, J. (2010), Let's play chinese characters: mobile learning approaches via culturally inspired group games, in 'CHI '10: Proceedings of the 28th international conference on Human factors in computing systems', ACM, New York, NY, USA , pp. 1603-1612 http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~mattkam/publications/CHI2010b.pdf In many developing countries such as India and China, low educational levels often hinder economic empowerment. In this paper, we argue that mobile learning games can play an important role in the Chinese literacy acquisition process. We report on the unique challenges in the learning Chinese language, especially its logographic writing system. Based on an analysis of 25 traditional Chinese games currently played by children in China, we present the design and implementation of two culturally inspired mobile group learning games, Multimedia Word and Drumming Strokes. These two mobile games are designed to match Chinese children's understanding of everyday games. An informal evaluation reveals that these two games have the potential to enhance the intuitiveness and engagement of traditional games, and children may improve their knowledge of Chinese characters through group learning activities such as controversy, judgments and self-correction during the game play.

Grant, L.; Daanen, H.; Benford, S.; Hampshire, A.; Drozd, A. & Greenhalgh, C. (2007), 'MobiMissions: the game of missions for mobile phones', International Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques. Mobimissions is a location-based pervasive social game in which players use camera phones with location-based capabilities to create, share and reply to real-world missions. Missions and their responses are defined by sequences of digital photographs and text annotations. Players create missions, search locations for available missions, create responses to and submit missions for others to find. They can visit a website to review and rate all missions and responses. Feedback from a trial involving 11 players over five weeks reveals patterns of play, preferred locations for play, the limitations of location-based play, and the need for greater social awareness and exchange. Future directions for such location-based social games are suggested.