ReThink PSU presentation on augmented reality and place-based games and mobile learning

1. Locative learning and mobile and
augmented reality resources
Steven L. Thorne, Moshe Rachmuth,
and many colleagues and students
@ PSU

2. Why mobile/place-based learning?
• Develop open learning resources for students, public,
and visitors:
1. Develop multilingual augmented Reality (AR) or place-based
language learning activities:
• Game-based narratives
• Campus tours and sustainability projects
• Students will develop games around course content
(architecture, urban studies, art, history, world
languages)
2. Mobile-delivered and open access learning resources in
multiple languages for PDX language students, general
public, and visitors

3. Plurilingual augmented reality activities based on sustainability
and green technology projects near the PSU campus

4. AR for Language Learning
• Narrative: The future is dead due to environmental degradation.
You (player) are an agent from the year 2070 who comes back in
time to the present. Your mission is to explore the „simultaneous
dawn and dusk‟ of green power and green environmental
practices that could have, and may yet, save your world
•
• Learning through performing roles/identities that extend beyond
that of “student” (agent, spy, detective, reporter)
• Learning experiences are designed for interactivity: simple game
mechanics  complex languaging behaviors in interface with 2nd
order language

5. • Game played on GPS-
enabled Apple iPhone
(ARISgame.org)
• Opening screen
• Game playable in
French, English, and
Spanish

6. • Players navigate city using
googlemaps and receive sound
alerts when they enter particular
locations
• Players are “pushed” texts/media
(some of which is “super
authentic”) and quests when in
location (see bottom icons)
• Game can be played in pairs,
small groups, or potentially alone
• External web resources are being
designed to provide language
support

7. • Image pushed to
players to help
them locate a
distant solar array.
Text message
accompanies the
image (below)

8. Language production --
Notebook feature:
• Bread-crumbing &
guerilla reportage
• As players move through
the city they can annotate
and report on their
experience by taking
photos, writing notes, and
recording voice and/or
video
• These media
(text/image/voice/video)
are stored and inform
future players‟
experience

14. Why mobile/place-based learning?
• Languages, communication, and cognition distributed
across social and material landscapes
• Ubiquity of mobile devices
• Transformation of learning practices across time, place,
and space
• Great team: 503 Design Collective, faculty in WLL, IELP,
Applied Linguistics, and Urban Studies and Planning