PARTICIPATORY SCALINGof a Mobile Learning Platform

kdsquire@wisc.edu • johnmartin@wisc.edu • chris.l.holden@gmail.com • djgagnon@wisc.edu • sdikkers@gmail.com

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Primary presenter: Kurt Squire from UW–Madison, here with John Martin (UW–Madison) and Chris Holden (University of New Mexico). David and Seann were unable to participate.

How can we go beyond boutique projects with technology?

Penuel, Fishman, Cheng, and Sabelli, 2011

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We’re interested in a few questions.

How can we create projects that last after grant funding goes away?

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How can we do research that supports projects becoming part of the fabric of learning ?

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ARISMAKE YOUR GAME • GAME YOUR WORLD

ARIS Website arisgames.org

ARIS Editorarisgames.org/editor

Author Community groups.google.com/group/arisgames

ARIS iOS Client search iTunes app store for ARIS (iphone)

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We think that ARIS might be a good model to look at to begin to answer some of these questions.

A Social Construction of Technology (SCOT) Perspective

Pinch and Bijker, 1984

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We’re using Pinch and Bijker’s Social construction of technology SCOT perspective (1984) to frame teachers as key stakeholders and change agents in the ongoing development and application of mobile learning. We believe innovative uses and adaptations of mobile applications provide insights into the interests, priorities, and intentions of educators and learners. So, understanding how educators “take up,” adapt, and modify mobile technologies in situ can be used to inform the next generation of mobile applications and mobile-based learning environments.

Participatory Scaling•Sustained by use•Frequent engagement of user-designers•Users dictate key features•Collaborative Design•Open Source•Community Owned

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These are some things we’re seeing in ARIS, that we think might lead to Participatory Scaling.

OUR HISTORYEnvironmental Detectives to ARIS

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Seven ARDesign Projects

South Shore Beach: (CSI)

Hip Hop Tycoon: Math

Mad City Mystery: (CSI)

Saving Lake Wingra: Civics

Riverside Game: Land Use

ClassroomCurriculum AR Games

Squire, K.D., Jan, M., Mathews, J., Wagler, M., Martin, J., Devane, B. & Holden, C. (2007)Squire, K., Mathews, J., Holden, C., Martin, J. Jan, M., Johnson, C., & Wagler, M. (forthcoming).

Martin, J., Mathews, J., Jan M., Holden, C. (2008)Jan, M; Mathews, J., Holden, C., Martin, J. (2008)

Played by ~1000 students Games to teach Environmental Sciences, Social Studies, Persuasion, Math26 classrooms (urban, suburban, rural Wisconsin)

Mathews, J,. Holden, C., Jan, M,. Martin, J. (2008)Squire K.D. & Jan, M. (2007).

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We’ve been making outdoor mobile games for learning since ~2005, using MIT’s Outdoor AR (now MITAR) platform.

MCM was about finding chemical pollutants; in SSB they found ecoli in goose poop made kids sick; SLW was about urban design and land use in Madison; Riverside did that in Milwaukee.

We found that good location-based experiences situate learning; make data and problems meaningful.

Games designed by us have limited scale.

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We worked with middle and HS teachers to create place-based games FOR THEM, but we always wanted to get the tools for creating curriculum into their own hands — and the hands of the students!

Seven ARDesign Projects

Mystery Trip Nature Hill

Greenbush History

Greenbush Story

Tree Tour

State Street

Game Unit

Student-Designed

AR Projects

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John: So, on the side, we let students go out and research their communities with mobile devices (maps, clipboards, cameras, iphones, GPS units, etc.) and helped them create their own Place-based experiences.

This was super-powerful, super-situated place-based learning.

Micah’s Greenbush game

You are Samuel Sweet, a child in the Greenbush neighborhood. You are Jewish, and it is 1959. While you were out in the neighborhood a few days ago, you heard a man telling Mrs. DiSalvo that their grocery will be torn down to make room for new buildings. So you made a petition to get signed by people in the Greenbush to stop the bulldozing.

Buffo is anxious to see you. "Bulldozers are running over the building. They're tearing it down!" Together, the two of you have over 75 signatures, but you're too late! The Italian church is already being torn down. The Greenbush will be destroyed.

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Micah'sGreenbush Game

(2005)

Start

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In 2005, I worked with a few 5th graders who created an Augmented Reality (historic fiction) interactive experience based on a local neighborhood that had been razed in a city “urban renewal” project.

This was a one-player, one-role tour.

Micah: “I never really knew how much 25 fifth graders could accomplish. We did masses of research.

This year, I pushed my achievements to the limit.”14Friday, May 3, 13

David Gagnon

“Can I build a web-based AR game engine?”

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Then we met this guy

ARIS 0.5 (2009)16Friday, May 3, 13

Who had an idea for a class project

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that became bigger

PHP tables

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at first, creating an ARIS activity required PHP

Drag & Drop

ARISgames.org19Friday, May 3, 13

But now, it’s easy to use, with a browser-based drag-and-drop editor.

community between developers, between educators

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And it has an active decentralized community that chips in for tech support.

Games 713Players 536Authors ~500

Games 2159Players 4649Authors 1750

Games 5654Players 13916Authors 4284

June 2011 February 2012 April 2013

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Which is why, we think, more and more folks have been designing games with it.

PLAYER LOGS

The Sun Never Sets on ARIS

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Here’s a snapshot from April 26, 2013. The people are clusters of players.

5654 Games

13916 users

26 States10 confirmed countries

5 continents10 confirmed countries

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And these are games

MENTIRA

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So, let’s give a few examples, starting with Chris Holden

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Chris: So far, I’ve had two major projects at UNM doing place-based mobile game design. The first was Mentira, a game I developed with Julie Sykes, asst. prof in Spanish and Protuguese.

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It’s based on a soap opera-style narrative

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Players begin at home, or wherever they are

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And then have to go to the neighborhood where it’s situated

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There, they meet characters, and the story unfolds.

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And they come back to the classroom for more collaborative work.

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Because it’s a server-based environment, we’ve got player logs that we can look at

LOCAL GAMES ABQ

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Based on that success, I started working with students and other instructors designing local games.

Digital Graffiti Gallery

Curating ephemeral art

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Students created games on campus documenting artifacts that disappear quickly

UNM Self-Guided Tour

Collaboration across Campus

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And a campus tour

Art Beyond Question35Friday, May 3, 13

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And games have been created for use in other courses.

ActivitiesMentira Basic Spanish - Game as Text

Example/Demo

Local Games in ABQ Student Design Studio, Create Tutorial Materials

Visitas de la Colonia Faculty Partnership - Game as Production Environment

OSET Workshops Visibility, Path to Official Adoption, Recruit partners

Open Mobile Lab Low bar for entry, get help

Local Games Blog Project ideas, asynchronous communication

Community Workshops Extend participation beyond UNM

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I’ve spent the last few years making games with the ARIS platform, and making the ARIS platform. This is to explore what is possible in the creation of certain kinds of hidden worlds using several AR mechanics. Geolocation is the primary one - responding to the importance of place mentioned above - but facsimile dialog, QR codes, and now image matching are others.

We also borrow heavily from the language of game studies in developing and using ARIS. In particular, it allows us and others to create worlds where players have agency - roles and goals as they say. This speaks to creating context around tools as mentioned before.

STAR SCHOOLS ARGH PROJECT~$1.3M

EXPERIENCED DEVELOPERS @ MIT

MENTIRA~$10K

NO PROGRAMMERS

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The cost difference between our earlier projects and later ones is significant.

DESIGN KITSNO PROGRAMMING, FREE, SCOT

EXPERIENCERAPID PROTOTYPING, PLAY GAMES, GO PLACES

COLLABORATIONCROSS-DISCIPLINARY, -INSTITUTIONAL, MULTI-AGE

COMMUNICATIONAVOID SILOS

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And we think we’re on to something.

UW–MADISON SITUATED LEARNING

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John can talk some about what’s happening at UW–Madison, where the Department of Academic Technology and the Engage Program are working with instructors in a Situate Learning Award.

FOLKLORE 10041Friday, May 3, 13

John: In Folklore, an activity was designed where students self-organized into groups of five and were given one iPad (with an unlimited data plan) per group. In the first two weeks, they had an overview of course themes, and were tasked with identifying those themes depicted on campus in a place, a piece of folk art, and two stories (interviews) of a significant campus event for a student. They were given two-and-a-half weeks to use an ARIS activity on the iPad to document and geotag these things, and to tag them with 1) the folklore theme they address. 2) their class rank (freshman, sophomore, etc.), and 3) their username. They also were asked to comment on two others’ notes, and to visit the location of at least one peer’s note.

FOLKLORE 10042Friday, May 3, 13

It was a Quest-driven assignment (very easy to create) that use the Notebook to let users add geo-mapped images, text, video, and audio — and tag them. Then go back to the classroom to reflect with others via this Data Visualization tool.

FOLKLORE 10043Friday, May 3, 13

To encourage community-building and collaboration, the assignment had students comment on each others’ notes, and “like” them (if they wanted). This helped with assessment as well. We discuss this more in the paper.

SUSTAINABILITY

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The second case at UW–Madison was in a class on Sustainability, where two graduate students built an elaborate three-role collaborative interactive tour of six buildings on campus where six issues in sustainability that the course covered throughout the semester: electricity, carbon, LEED, waste, water, and health. The buildings represented a range of challenges for these, from age of building (oldest and newest on campus) to primary usage (from offices to science labs). Students self-grouped into threes, each taking on one of three roles that had an associated “superpower” — the Engineer could “see through” walls and floors to understand hidden infrastructure, the Naturalist had “Nature’s language” and could communicate and understand natural systems, and the Historian had “time travel” and could talk to the ghosts of characters that once inhabited the buildings and campus.

Each group was tasked with following a linear tour of buildings with game-like activities and individual and group challenges at each (e.g. “Use a utility meter and this Jan 1 reading to calculate the electricity used in this building since then”). They were given a short survey after each building, and a longer one at the end of the activity. The 2-3 hour activity was revisited in class discussion throughout the semester as course themes were covered (e.g. “Remember when you were in the mechanical room of [oldest campus building], and saw defunct wood fired boilers next to the current steam pipes...?”). As this paper is being written, the course is still underway, so only preliminary results from surveys are available for analysis. Initial evaluation is bolstered by author observations over six implementation sessions.

FIBERS CLASS45Friday, May 3, 13

Map out where on the prairie the fibers for their projects come from

In Fall 2012, Hark and her project assistant, Art Department MFA student Angela Richardson, wrote a proposal to explore using digital media to do field research with students in Hark’s Sustainable Forms class. Hark and Richardson worked with the ENGAGE team to design learning activities through which students would address the issue of sustainable practice by developing a deep understanding of a particular, local place.

STUDENT-CREATED GAMES46Friday, May 3, 13

Instructors found that many of the students want to create such an activity to showcase course concepts as a final project. There have been >120 students doing this since 2011, more than half (60+) in Spring 2013.

LIBRARY47Friday, May 3, 13

And departments outside of courses are getting into it as well. Here’s one created by Ian Benton in the Library to teach literature research on the Web of Science.

THEN, NOW, WOW

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Much of the funding that supports this mobile-enhanced learning that we’re using in the university, comes from partners outside of the university, who fund tools that can get folded back into platform. It’s an awesome model for an open-source tool.

Participatory Scaling•Sustained by use•Frequent engagement of user-designers•Users dictate key features•Collaborative Design•Open Source•Community Owned

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So, that’s what we’ve got. There’s more in the paper, of course, which we’re happy to share.

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Come talk to us more in person about this and other video games for learning at GLS.

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Oh, and while you’re in San Francisco, check out some of the local games that we found here (we had no idea and involvement in them, so we can’t vouch for what you’ll find) — like Nightbirds.

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Golden Gate Park Quest — BlackGirlsCode

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This one we knew about — California Dreaming, by Juan Rubio, Barry Joseph (Global Kids)