Play with Learning

iPad vs Textbooks

With all the debate about technology in classroom, this infographic from Online Teaching degree offers an interesting perspective.

Created by: OnlineTeachingDegree.com

Where was I? Location-based Stories

I’ve been thinking about location-based stories with some very bright students at the University of Bradford [I'm privileged to spend about 10% of my time lecturing].  I thought I would share the simple overview that I gave to them.

As David Polinchock over at FutureLab comments, location-based stories have exists as long as people have told stories but social and mobile media have transformed traditional methods and opened up exciting new possibilities.

There are at least 3 broad categories of new location-based stories:

• Static
• Wandering
• Virtual

Static

broadcastr

Static stories are pinned to a single physical location. New York-based Broadcastr sees itself as “an answer to the transient nature of social media” by “unlocking pictures and audio relevant to where you are.”  It aims to create an historical archive of stories around the world, in addition to providing instant access to stories happening at the moment.  The site allows you to listen to stories tied to specific places as well as share you own tales.

Although you can visit Broadcastr from anywhere via the web, the real impact of it is consuming the stories in situ – the act of standing in setting of the recollections is a powerful emotional experience.

The Getting Closer app by Krissy Clark makes that process easier by automatically triggering audio replays when you arrive physically at the location.

The Street Museum app by the Museum of London does a similar thing with historical photographs linked to places in the UK capital.

Other digital artists have extended this idea to link sites together to create journeys.

Wandering

kidmapped

Tim Wright‘s ‘Kidmapped‘ is a great example of using technology to retrace some literary steps.  The project follows chapters 14–27 of Robert Louis Stevenson’s ‘Kidnapped’ and the story of David Balfour running for his life across the Highlands, sometimes accompanied by tough and rebellious Alan, sometimes pursued by the English army. Tim says that it ” seemed so visceral and exciting to me that I wanted to try it for myself.”

Tim’s blog combines the retelling of the story in the original setting with his own experiences of travelling the path and an invitation to join in either in person along the route or online.  It’s a very intimate but accessible insight into the literature that provides a new way of understanding classic literature.

we tell stories - 21 steps

The We Tell Stories initiative by Penguin and Six to Start explores original digital storytelling techniques and one in particular focusses on location-based tales.  Chris Cummins’ story The 21 Steps (based on The Thirty-nine Steps by John Buchan) tells of Rick, a man with a checkered past who finds himself mixed up with a dangerous organization that wants him to smuggle a mysterious vial into Scotland. A blue line traces Rick’s path across satellite images from Google Maps as you work your way through the story by clicking on location markers.

The Langwitches blog has some very useful instructions on using Google Maps for digital storytelling.

Virtual

da vinci code webquest

Stories don’t have to stay in real world locations to encourage travelling: the web provides a treasure trove of places to visit.  Bernie Dodge coined the phrase “WebQuest” to describe a structured online exploration across multiple sites and it’s as good a term as any to talk about virtual location-based stories.  Although mainly used to define consciously educational activities, the framework offers an interesting way of linking virtual sites into a coherent story.  Random House’s The Da Vinci webquest is a simple example of how a multitude of websites and related activities can be tied together but still it’s more of a treasure hunt that a ‘proper’ story (that is, one that enjoys any of Aristotle’s Six Elements).  I’d love to hear of better examples.

One of the questioned raised during the session was whether placing a story in its actual setting detracts from its ability to fire the imagination.  Its an interesting thought.  All too often new technologies are used lazily as a shortcut to ‘novelty;’ we’re left feeling dissatisfied by superficial projects that haven’t undergone the rigour associated with tradition forms of ‘published’ media.  For me, the real potential for location-based stories is in their ability to make experiences deeper and more moving – and that’s worth working at.

Game Mechanics and Learning Theory

To bring together the series on how learning theories overlap with games, I’ve drawn up a table of how game mechanics relate to the ideas about how we learn.

By using and combining various definitions of game mechanics (Wikipedia, SCVNGR & Gamification.org), it is possible to map how dynamics correspond to the various learning theories.  This is not an exact science but does suggest which mechanics can be used to encourage particular ways of learning.

Of course the risk with any sort of exercise like this, is that it becomes formulaic and is wrongly perceived as a rule for creating “learning” games.  I don’t believe that is the case. Every game needs to be looked on a special case: as soon as you try to bottle the essence of play, it tends to evaporate.

Social Learning and Games

farmville sheep

In this final look at how each of the major learning theories relate to games, we explore the ideas behind social learning.  In the social and contextual approach to learning, the outcome is for the learner to become socially accepted and to be an effective member within a community.  This is what is commonly referred to as learning in a community of practice (COP)[1],[2].

In the Social and Contextual approach, learning does not occur solely within the learner, but in the group and community in which they work.  Learning is a shared process which takes place through observing, working together and being part of a larger group, which includes colleagues of varying levels of experience, able to stimulate each other’s development.  In this view, rather like cognitivism, individuals only learn from more competent others but the emphasis is now on being part of a larger system.  Crucially, this system includes the learner, other people around them, the equipment they use, the technologies they work with, the procedures they work with and the overall culture of the workplace.

Whether they are conscious of it or not, groups, and individuals within them, learn mainly through social interaction.  This happens through discussion, observing and sharing.  Again, the role of the practitioner is one of facilitator who needs to help focus discussion to maximise key learning points rather than just letting a group tell irrelevant anecdotes.

Vygotsky in his Social Development Theory[3] coined the term “scaffolding” to describe the various forms of support that educational providers can offer learners.  It might include verbal assistance, questioning, suggestions and directions all aimed at extending a learner’s activities where the learner cannot accomplish this alone.

For Vygotsky, learning from others more competent in culturally appropriate skills and technologies was the capstone to his educational theory.  Vygotsky suggests that children or students can be guided by explanation, demonstration, and work, and can attain to higher levels of thinking if they are guided by someone who is more capable and competent – a More Knowledgeable Other (MKO). This conception is better known as The Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD).  The Zone of Proximal Development is the gap between what the learner can achieve on his own and what he can achieve with the support of others. The ability to attain higher levels of knowledge and understanding depends upon interaction with other, more advanced, peers.  This unequal interaction facilitates and encourages learning.  Through increased interaction and involvement, students are able to extend themselves to higher levels of cognition. Vygotsky defined the Zone of Proximal Development as,

“the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under the guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers.”

The ZPD is the difference between what students can accomplish independently and what they can achieve in conjunction or in collaboration with another, more competent person.  The Zone is created in the course of social interaction.

The term “social game” has become very popular of late.  Farmville is perhaps the commonly thought of social game (although many don’t think it is a game at all) because to succeed requires the active participation of other players: collaboration is essential to progress (that or using real-world payments to short-circuit the process).

Massively Multiplayer Online Role-playing Games (MMORGs) like World of Warcraft are better examples of social and contextual games because they are dependent on multi-layered teamwork.  In these circumstances, players improve their performance through the observation, imitation and modelling of others.

Social learning also occurs outside the game world but in related ‘spaces’ such as forums.  The associated activity of leader tables, message boards, hints, tips and cheats all represent instances of social encouragement, support and scaffolding.