Gamifying Navigation in Location-Based Applications

Location-based games entertain players usually by interactions at points of interest (POIs). Navigation between POIs often involve the use of either a physical or digital map, not taking advantage of the opportunity available to engage users in activities between POIs. The paper presents riddle solving as a navigational method for a location-based game. 10 families with 2-6 persons and at least one child in the age range 9- 11 years old participated in the evaluation. Results show that riddle solving as a navigational method is more enjoyable than a 2D digital map. Additional findings from video recordings, field notes, questionnaires, logging and semi-structured interviews revealed that riddle solving has potential for engaging users in learning activities

3D virtual worlds as environments for literacy learning

Background: Although much has been written about the ways in which new technology might transform educational practice, particularly in the area of literacy learning, there is relatively little empirical work that explores the possibilities and problems - or even what such a transformation might look like in the classroom. 3D virtual worlds offer a range of opportunities for children to use digital literacies in school, and suggest one way in which we might explore changing literacy practices in a playful, yet meaningful context. Purpose: This paper identifies some of the key issues that emerged in designing and implementing virtual world work in a small number of primary schools in the UK. It examines the tensions between different discourses about literacy and literacy learning and shows how these were played out by teachers and pupils in classroom settings.Sources of evidence: Case study data are used as a basis for exploring and illustrating key aspects of design and implementation. The case study material includes views from a number of perspectives including classroom observations, chatlogs, in-world avatar interviews with teachers and also pupils, as well as the author’s field notes of the planning process with accompanying minutes and meeting documents.Main argument: From a Foucauldian perspective, the article suggests that social control of pedagogical practice through the regulation of curriculum time, the normalisation of teaching routines and the regimes of individual assessment restricts teachers’ and pupils’ conceptions of what constitutes literacy. The counternarrative, found in recent work in new litearcies (Lankshear & Knobel, 2006) provides an attractive alternative, but a movement in this direction requires a fundamental shift of emphasis and a re-conceptualisation of what counts as learning.Conclusions: This work on 3D virtual worlds questions the notion of how transformative practice can be achieved with the use of new technologies. It suggests that changes in teacher preparation, continuing professional development as well as wider educational reform may be needed

Urban Games: Convergence of physical and virtual

Redefining the city as interactive media can reveal new possibilities for architects and designers. Today, designers must augment architecture and urbanism by incorporating new aspects of virtual habitation. This paper investigates contemporary attitudes toward digital public spaces, from media facades, augmented reality games, and mobile apps to guerrilla-like techniques such as tactical media, activist gaming, and electronic civil disobedience. It looks at these notions as renewed forms of public participation that build upon the past analog models. It touches on the relationship between ownership and authorship of the public realm, and the role design, art, and technology play in this balance. Ubiquitous technologies, democratization of access to and means of creative production, and virtualization of physicality allow for broader participation in cultural authorship and ownership, an opportunity that may not be fully realized if not embraced effectively. In this redefined image of the city, online and mobile games become important contributor to genius loci and emerging social networks. Furthermore, this paper discusses the mutually-informing relationship between the imaginary (virtual) and the real (physical). It presents the city as a virtual construct modulated by pervasive and ubiquitous computing, social networking, and (geo)location-based participatory events such as augmented reality (AR) gaming. In the perceptual dimension, video games, such as Grand Auto Theft, Mirror's Edge, or Assassins' Creed, are becoming potent advocates or adversaries of traditional image (notion) of the city. The combination of purely virtual reality (VR) game cities and augmented reality (AR), information-laced and geo-located environments transforms our expectations towards urban landscapes. This paper investigates the following aspects of augmented urbanisms: the virtual city of computer games and movie narratives, the physical city overlaid with virtual information accessible via augmented reality browsers and electronic social networks. It also looks into how these new electronic agents facilitate an unconventional use of the city

Collaborative trails in e-learning environments

This deliverable focuses on collaboration within groups of learners, and hence collaborative trails. We begin by reviewing the theoretical background to collaborative learning and looking at the kinds of support that computers can give to groups of learners working collaboratively, and then look more deeply at some of the issues in designing environments to support collaborative learning trails and at tools and techniques, including collaborative filtering, that can be used for analysing collaborative trails. We then review the state-of-the-art in supporting collaborative learning in three different areas – experimental academic systems, systems using mobile technology (which are also generally academic), and commercially available systems. The final part of the deliverable presents three scenarios that show where technology that supports groups working collaboratively and producing collaborative trails may be heading in the near future

Exploration Games:Can Game-Guided Systems Support Users in Automated Exhibition Sites?

This article delves into the potential of incorporating elements fromadventure games into museum exhibitions, with a particular focus on automatedexhibition sites. We advocate that principles derived from adventure games canadeptly bridge the two primary expectations of exhibitions: enlightenment andexperience. Exploration-based games, such as Explore the Redoubt (XTR)crafted for automated venues, enable users to fulfill both these objectives. XTR,conceived to address the prevailing research voids, integrates game mechanicsinto the automated exhibition environment, enhancing visitor motivation andengagement. It harnesses interactive digital mediums to present cultural heritagein a relaxed, informal manner.Existing research scarcely touches upon the design of experiential learninggames developed for automated sites, which encompass both indoor and outdoordisplays. Our methodology contemplates the transformation of visitor conduct atexhibitions, morphing them into avid knowledge seekers. We challenge theadequacy of current user experience models in portraying exhibitions striving toprovide both enlightenment and an immersive experience. Consequently, weintroduce a framework for museum interactions that deeply engages users, urgingthem to define their exploration trajectories, seamlessly fusing enlightenment,and engagement. Our study is set in a 17th-century redoubt where initialobservations indicated greater outdoor engagement compared to indoor spaces.This observation fueled our initiative to amplify indoor visitor participation.After testing XTR with 30 participants and employing a combination ofobservations and interviews, we derived key insights on designing digitalexploration games that seamlessly combine enlightenment and engagement. Weconclude with three design strategies to enhance visitor curiosity and exploration

English-Spanish-American Sign Language translation program

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Engaging with Place through Location-Based Games: Navigation and Narrative in Game Design and Play Experiences

This thesis examines how people engage with place through location-based games. Location-based games are those that incorporate the player’s physical location and/or actions into the gameplay through media interfaces. Despite growing in popularity over the past two decades, there is an absence of fine-grained ethnographic research into everyday practices and emplaced experiences of location-based game design and play. The contributions of this thesis are built upon three years of practice-based, autoethnographic participation in developing location-based games, alongside ethnographic observation, interviews and focus groups with creative collaborators and players. Its findings unpack how engagement with place unfolds through the design and play of location-based games and the implications of these processes for how we understand place as a concept today. In doing so, it builds upon scholarship concerning locative and mobile media, interfaces, play, digital narratives, games and philosophies of place.These insights are presented through a thematic focus on three sets of considerations about place negotiated during the development and play of location-based games: the multiplicity of elements that gather in places; the contingent, everyday interactions that occur in places; and the impressions of place people perceive. Analysing how these considerations are negotiated, this thesis identifies how engagement with place through location-based games is underpinned by interrelationships between navigation and narrative. Understood as uneven, performative and intersubjective relations, they shape the accessibility and legibility of the diverse elements that gather in places; players’ attention toward the processes through which these elements interact in everyday contexts; and the co-production of complex, dynamic and extroverted impressions of place by players. At a time when ‘place’ as a concept has been unsettled by large-scale processes of globalisation and digitisation, these empirical and theoretical contributions create new openings for understanding how digital, locative, mobile and playful media are implicated in everyday experiences of being-in-the-world

Pixels, bits and urban space. Observing the intersection of the space of information with actual physical space in augmented reality smartphone applications and peripheral vision displays

Today the urban environment can be seen as a mix of technically mediated elements and actual physical locations — the city is techno–synthetically composed. The method of observing the production of space, as asserted by Lefebvre, must take into account physical and non–physical spaces, produced out of the coexistence of everyday life and activities with the space of information. This paper explores the merging of bits and bytes with the urban environment and uses augmented reality applications for the smartphone and peripheral vision displays as case studies to illustrate how the method of visually layering digital graphics on to the image of actual space produces a new kind of spatial commodification