Augmenting Learning

Mobile Simulation Games for Learning

Eric Klopfer
MIT Scheller Teacher Education Program
Media Lab
The Education Arcade

http://education.mit.edu/ar
STEP Pedagogical Frameworks
•  What kind of learning environments?
•  Create highly engaged, motivated students
•  Provide immersive environments, relevant
problems
•  Facilitate collaborative, project-based learning
•  Game-like, active, “Hard Fun”
•  A teacher heard one child using these words to describe the computer work: "It's fun.
It's hard…" I have no doubt that this kid called the work fun because it was hard
rather than in spite of being hard. [S. Papert, 2002]

•  Applicable to formal and informal settings,

extending learning beyond walls of the school,
beyond hours of the school-day
STEP/TEA Games R&D
Why Games?
•  Games model the way
that “good” learning
happens
•  Need new technologies
to teach new ideas
•  The gamer generation
is growing
Learning From Games
•  What Video Games Have to
Teach Us About Learning and
Literacy (Gee)
•  Video games (even violent
ones) model good learning

Got Game (Beck and Wade)

• People who grew up playing games
are better adapted to the modern
workplace

Everything Bad is Good for

You (Johnson)
• Games involve critical thinking and
problem solving - despite their image as
“mindless”
Games? Learning?
How many volts
do I need for
my laser canon
to kill 3 x 6
opponents?

6
The Legacy of Math Blaster
•  Edutainment
•  Where play is the
reward for learning

•  Instead learning
should be playful

7
“Labyrinth”

8
Learning Games
•  Learning games do not need to be
•  On the console/desktop

9
Mobile Games
•  Rise of mobile platforms for video
games
•  Nintendo DS, PSP, Cell Phones
•  $11 billion+ industry by 2009
•  >50 million Nintendo DSs sold
•  Educational mobile games
•  Expected to grow >25% per year
•  Reach $185 million market by 2012
•  DS, mobile phones, PDAs, iPods
•  Learning anytime anywhere
Mobile Learning Games?

11
Mobile Learning Game Hype

12
Mobile Games
•  Facilitate a new type of game
•  Don’t just port big games to the small
screen - situate games
•  Combining constructivist and
situated learning paradigms.
•  Mobile learning games can be:
•  Social
•  Authentic and Meaningful
•  Connected to the Real World
•  Open-Ended/Multiple Pathways
•  Intrinsically Motivating
•  Filled with Feedback
Learning Goals
•  K-16 - 21st Century Skills
•  Engage in authentic science
•  Foster collaborative learning and
communication
•  Capitalize on game play motivation
•  Solve complex problems with complex
solutions
•  Informal Education
•  Encourage deeper and broader
interaction
•  Connect with real surroundings
•  Connect and collaborate with others
•  Training
•  Promote teamwork and collaboration
•  Facilitate role playing
•  Provide new perspectives on real
problems
•  Allow safe play
Palmagotchi - Anytime Anywhere
•  Virtual pets with Biology
•  Birds and flowers +
•  Like Darwin’s Finches in the Galapagos
•  “Every man is an island”
Palmagotchi Game Play
•  Foraging
•  Mating
•  Managing Risks

•  Mobile Web
Augmented Reality

•  Combines physical &

virtual world contexts
•  Embeds learners in
authentic situations
•  Engages users in a
socially facilitated
context
Augmented Reality?
•  “Augmenting” the real environment with
location specific information provided
through technology.
•  Immersive helmets
•  Handhelds
•  Phones
•  Terminology
•  Pervasive or Ubiquitous Gaming
•  Time and Space?
•  Hybrid Reality
•  Mixing technology and real space
Helmets v. Handhelds
•  Light augmentation
•  Providing a small amount of “augmented”
information. The environment and real
people are integral and “real”.
•  Heavy augmentation
•  The environment is used as a physical way
of navigating through virtual space.
Environment can represent anything.
Heavy v. Light
•  Imagine that MIT is…

Contaminated with a Toxin An Underwater Aquarium

AR: Environmental Detectives
•  First Example - Part of G2T
•  “Environmental Detectives”
•  Players briefed about rash of
local health problems linked
to the environment
•  Need to determine source of
pollution by drilling sampling
wells, interviewing virtual
witnesses
Why not use a virtual environment?

VS.

• We can make multiplayer online games that recreate the

locations and problem-solving in AR games, BUT
• Communicating face to face is different from online.
• A bility to use the environment differs
Ability
•Different
• Different criteria are applied in decision-making
Socio-Scientific Issues
•  AR combines real and virtual
•  Opportunity to engage in problems that
combine real and fictitious elements
•  Also combine subjective and objective
information
•  Scientific data
•  Public opinion

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TimeLab 2100
•  The year is 2100, the world
needs your help!
•  You are part of TimeLab, an
elite group of historical
researchers.
•  Your mission is to go back in
time to the year 2008 and
research climate change to
make recommendations how to
battle the global warming
effects observed in 2100
Timelab Video

25
Timelab2100 – Which Laws?
Players consider possible laws to add to the 2008
Cambridge election ballot, thinking about:
•  How much the law will help? (IMPACT)
•  Will the law pass? (POPULARITY)
What about cost? $$$
The
High simulation
impact tries to include this:
•  assuming the government has funds
Impact

Some impact Law?

to cover these laws
• Low
individuals
impact consider cost as part of
law’s popularity
Not
Likely Maybe Likely
Popularity/Likelihood of Becoming Law
Timelab 2100 - Walkthrough
•  Introductory characters
•  remind players of their tasks
•  familiarize players with devices,
icons, interactions, game
mechanics
•  meet expert guides – Matt &
Anne (MIT grad. students)
•  practice reading shared dialog
Timelab 2100 - Walkthrough
•  Divide into tracks to research
laws
•  Visit 6-7 people/objects that
relate to particular laws
•  Read the interaction of Matt &
Anne, sometimes with other
NPC’s
•  Evaluate where on the impact/
popularity grid each law falls
Timelab 2100 - Walkthrough
•  Sample law interaction
Timelab 2100 - Walkthrough
•  Sample law interaction
Timelab 2100 - Walkthrough
•  Sample law interaction
Timelab 2100 - Walkthrough
•  Sample law interaction
Timelab 2100 - Walkthrough
•  Sample law interaction
Timelab 2100 – Back Inside
•  Students have ~10 minutes to discuss which laws to
nominate to go on the ballot & prepare presentations
•  Each group has 30 seconds to nominate one or more
laws
•  Each student has one sticky note to vote which laws
go on ballot
•  For each of the top 5 laws, roll a die to see which
ones pass
Timelab in Action

35
Timelab 2100 – Local & Civic
•  Designed to bring to play some features of
MIT’s campus yet remain somewhat general
•  Designed with the help of MIT experts in global
climate change and city governance
•  Opportunity for more involvement with the
environment (get kids to take eyes off device)
POSIT
Game is focused around a single yes/no
policy question (fictionalized). For example,
“Should we build a biohazard level 4 research
facility in our community?”
•  Briefing - Potential biohazard facility in Boston
•  Roles - Playing realistic roles from scientist to
resident
•  Initial Opinion - Opinions “in role” are registered
•  Collecting Data - Players collect information
from virtual characters, and real artifacts/places
•  Sharing Opinions - Players share information
that they have collected to convince others of
their [character’s] point of view
•  Influencing Others and Changing Opinions -
Influence key individuals to sway the vote
•  Final Decision - voting
Outdoor AR: In Schools
•  Teaching math and literacy to middle school students
in Milwaukee, Madison and Boston
•  Teacher-customized (using templates) or teacher-
designed games
•  Moving towards student-designed games
•  Authoring toolkits allow customization of a
simulation’s location, content and timescale.
StarSchools
•  AR Simulation Games for Mathematics and Literacy Learning with
Emerging Mobile Technologies
•  UW Madison / MIT / Harvard University
Why Do We Need AR Toolkits?
•  Heavy v. Light

Lots of real
world learning
here
Why Do We Need AR Toolkits?
•  Localization

Lots of real
world learning
here
“Moving” Games

•  The “same” game is not really the same when it

is played somewhere else

•  !=

•  Experiences that incorporate local information

create the best experiences and can motivate
learning
AR Games Diversity
•  Across wide range of
subjects…
•  Public Health/Disease Outbreak
(Charles RiverCity & Avian Bird Flu)
•  Forensics (Mad City Murder)
•  Historical Exploration (Battle of
Lexington)
•  Mathematics (Alien Contact)
•  Economics (Hip-Hop Tycoon)
•  …across locations
•  Local Communities (e.g., geographical
tours)
•  Schools
•  Museums
•  Science Centers
•  Zoos/Nature Conserves
•  …and across time
•  Beyond normal “class time”
•  Over extended period of time
Outdoor AR Toolkit
•  Grab map and GPS coords from Google
Maps
•  Drag and drop objects, NPCs, triggers, etc
•  Customize dialog and media by role and time

Beta version now

available
http://education.mit.edu/ar
AR Editor - ZSI
•  Multi-dimensional space
•  NPCs
•  Time changes
•  Objects
•  Event triggers
•  Roles
•  Locations
 Outdoor AR: Features
•  Scenarios can include one or multiple
player roles
•  Participants interview virtual
characters by walking to their real
world location (audio, video, images
and text).
•  Collect data from underlying models
using simulated equipment and gather
information from items within the game
•  Gates allow participants in outdoor
simulations to enter real buildings.
•  Collect evidence for optional in-game
conclusions or to prepare for off-line
discussion.
Other Editors – 7 Scenes
•  Waag

46
Other Editors - Mscape
•  HP and Futurelab

47
Need for “Editor Jr.”
•  Kids learn by creating and sharing games
•  Need to reduce the complexity
•  Time
•  Cognitive load (teacher and student)
Editor Jr.
•  Reduce complexity (constrain choices)
•  Make a particular type of game
Editor Jr.
•  Structure Task
Editor Jr.
•  Structure Task
LIONS Context
•  NSF-AYS funded
program
•  After-school and
summer program at
9 sites
•  Based in University
City, Missouri public
schools:
•  88% non-white
•  60% free/reduced
lunch
LIONS Goals

•  Learn STEM skills

and careers
•  Engage with the
community
•  Promote service
-learning
•  Develop teacher
capacity
Why Mobile Gaming?

•  Addresses LIONS goals

•  Provides a rich
technology experience
•  Promotes collaboration
•  Leverages existing
LIONS program
strengths:
•  Geospatial technologies
•  Place-based education
Leveraging Game Experiences

•  Students’ personal
game experiences
tend to be rich but
specific...

•  ...With support they

can be abstracted
and broadened.
Pride in Games

56
The Key to the City
•  The key to the city has been stolen. Can you
recover it?

57
A Series of Clues

58
Conclusion

59
One More Editor
•  Building games in the field
Thanks to:
• US Department of Education
• Microsoft iCampus
• National Science Foundation
• Missouri Botanical Gardens
• Columbus Zoo and Aquarium
• Judy Perry, Josh Sheldon,
Marleigh Norton, Lisa Stump, Eric
Rosenbaum
• TEP MEng and UROPs

• education@mit.edu
• http://education.mit.edu/ar
• http://educationarcade.org