Designing Playful Games and Applications to Support Science Centers Learning Activities

In recent years there has been a renewed interest on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education. Following this interest, science centers\u27 staff started providing technology enhanced informal STEM education experiences. The use of well-designed mobile and ubiquitous forms of technology to enrich informal STEM education activities is an essential success factor. The goal of our research is to investigate how technology applications can be better used and developed for taking full advantage of the opportunities and challenges they provide for students learning about STEM concepts. In our approach, we have conducted a series of interviews with experts from science center curating and outdoor learning activities development, with the final goal of exploring and improving current learning environments and practices. This paper presents the development of set of design considerations for the development of STEM games and applications of young students. An initial set of best practices was first developed through semi-structures interviews with experts; and afterwards, by employing content analysis, a revised set of considerations was obtained. These results are useful for STEM education teachers, curriculum designers, curators and developers for K-12 education environments

Enjoying cultural heritage thanks to mobile technology

Explore! is designed to be used in a wider set of historical sites. The game content historical information, 3-D reconstructions and sounds is provided by XML files and can be authored in numerous ways and adapted to different sites. A great advantage of Explore!, which makes it very attractive for use in archaeological parks across Italy with very limited funds, is that the game infrastructure requires almost no investment by the park. The system can also show high-resolution 3-D models of other areas that might not be accessible in the park. Explore! has been field tested with 124 middle-school students, who expressed excitement about the opportunity to use technology during their visit and commented on how nice it was to use a cell phone for the game and see the 3-D reconstructions. They provide added value in terms of stimulating learners' engagement, increasing their motivation, and arousing their curiosity, while permitting immersion in the learning environment. The system runs on commercial cell phones, and the software is all contained in the phone's memory card