1) The document discusses the "Up River" mobile augmented reality game created by Jim and Mark to teach ethnographic skills through place-based storytelling along the St. Louis River estuary. Teachers and students collaborated in designing and developing the game and their own place-based stories. 2) Five key themes emerged from participatory design of mobile learning games: encouraging engagement, leveraging place-based experiences, gathering information from the physical environment, fostering systems thinking, and continuous design improvement through collaboration. 3) The document advocates for improving the accessibility and community features of the ARIS game platform to further support participatory, place-based mobile learning design.

1. @regardingjohn • litts@wisc.edu • chris.l.holden@gmail.com
Seann Dikkers,
Chris Holden,
Breanne Litts,
John Martin,
James Mathews
FIVE
THEMES
IN ONE
CASE
1Friday, May 3, 13
I’m John, Breanne and Chris are with me here. I’m from UW-Madison, and research mobile-
enhanced, and situated, learning in higher education.
Chris is an Assistant Professor at the University of New Mexico, and probably the #1 place-
based game designer in the world.
Breanne is an awesomely brilliant doctoral student at UW-Madison, and she’s going to rush
out of here to present at the Hilton right after.

2. MOBILE OPPORTUNITY
2Friday, May 3, 13
We’ll be talking about some themes that develop when we use these things -- in everyone’s
pockets and bags -- for more than conversations.
HOW MANY ARE FAMILIAR WITH AR GAMES?

3. Seven AR
Design Projects
South Shore Beach: (CSI)
Hip Hop Tycoon: Math
Mad City Mystery: (CSI)
Saving Lake Wingra: Civics
Riverside Game: Land Use
Classroom
Curriculum
AR Games
Squire, K.D., Jan, M., Mathews, J., Wagler, M., Martin, J., Devane, B. & Holden, C. (2007)
Squire, K., Mathews, J., Holden, C., Martin, J. Jan, M., Johnson, C., & Wagler, M. (forthcoming).
Martin, J., Mathews, J., Jan M., Holden, C. (2008)
Jan, M; Mathews, J., Holden, C., Martin, J. (2008)
Played by ~1000 students
Games to teach Environmental Sciences, Social Studies,
Persuasion, Math
26 classrooms (urban, suburban, rural Wisconsin)
Mathews, J,. Holden, C., Jan, M,. Martin, J. (2008)
Squire K.D. & Jan, M. (2007).
3Friday, May 3, 13
Chris and I, (and Jim) have been working with mobile games and learning since 2005.
We used the MIT Outdoor AR platfrom, and worked with middle and HS teachers to create
place-based games FOR THEM, but we always wanted to get the tools for creating curriculum
into their own hands — and the hands of the students!
MCM was about finding chemical pollutants; in SSB they found ecoli in goose poop made kids
sick; SLW was about urban design and land use in Madison; Riverside did that in Milwaukee.
We found that good location-based experiences situate learning; make data and problems
meaningful.

4. Seven AR
Design Projects
Mystery Trip Nature Hill
Greenbush History
Greenbush Story
Tree Tour
State Street
Game Unit
Student-
Designed
AR Projects
4Friday, May 3, 13
So, on the side, we let students go out and research their communities with mobile devices
(maps, clipboards, cameras, iphones, GPS units, etc.) and helped them create their own
Place-based experiences.
This was super-powerful, super-situated place-based learning.

5. 5
5Friday, May 3, 13
And Seann and Breanne joined us in 2009 and 2010, and we moved from the MIT Outdoor AR
platform to ARIS, a student project-turned-awesome-AR-game-platform.

6. Drag & Drop
ARISgames.org
6Friday, May 3, 13
I mention ARIS because it’s the tool that we’re most involved in, and where many of the cases
we know come from.
It’s easy to use, with a browser-based drag-and-drop editor.

7. community between developers, between educators
7Friday, May 3, 13
And it has an active decentralized community that chips in for tech support.

8. June 2011
February 2012
April 2013
Games 713
Players 735
Authors 536
Games 2159
Players 4649
Authors 1750
Games 5654
Players 13916
Authors 4284
8Friday, May 3, 13
Which is why, we think, more and more folks have been designing games with it.

9. http://www.etc.cmu.edu/etcpress/content/mobile-media-learning
9Friday, May 3, 13
We’ve been collecting stories, and learning from them — in ARIS, as well as other platforms.
Today’s story is detailed more in this book — FREE online (or buy it!)
Mobile Media Learning
Wed, 06/06/2012 - 18:51
Seann Dikkers, John Martin, Bob Coulter et al. 2012
Mobile Media Learning: Amazing Uses of Mobile Devices for Learning
Mobile Media Learning shares innovative uses of mobile technology for learning in a variety of settings. From camps to classrooms, parks to playgrounds, libraries to landmarks, Mobile
Media Learning shows that exciting learning can happen anywhere educators can imagine. Join these educator/designers as they share their efforts to amplify spaces as learning tools by
engaging learners with challenges, quests, stories, and tools for investigating those spaces.
In addition, Mobile Media Learning shares tips, guides, and plans for building your own mobile game or game design 'jam'. Start building mobile learning experiences today!
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 License
Purchase from Lulu.com, or Download for free
Get plain text for the Kindle at Amazon, and for the iPad at the iBookstore
Download various e-book formats (ePub/iPad, Mobipocket/Kindle, PDF) at Feedbooks
See it in the Thoughtmesh
Find it in the ACM Digital Library

10. Up River
10Friday, May 3, 13
We’ll be focusing on the “Up River” activity by Jim and Mark.

11. 11Friday, May 3, 13
Although we’re using one case today, the themes are clear across all nine in the book, and
across hundreds more that we’ve seen.

12. A Social Construction ofTechnology
(SCOT) Perspective
Pinch and Bijker, 1984
12Friday, May 3, 13
We use SCOT to frame our users (teachers & students) as stakeholders and change agents in
development and practice of mobile enhanced learning — specifically, situated learning (Lave)
that is place-based.

13. Encouraging Engagement
Participatory Design
Leveraging Place-Based Experiences
SystemicThinking & Cyclical Design
Information Gathering
13Friday, May 3, 13
five themes emerge:
1) use participatory design strategies;
2) encourage engagement through design;
3) employ mobile media as a tool for just-in-time information gathering; and
4) leverage place-based experiences to 5) foster complex systemic thinking.

14. 14Friday, May 3, 13
So, let’s look at Up River...

15. 15
15Friday, May 3, 13
Up River explores how place-based interactive storytelling can teach ethnographic skills and
explore relationships between local cultural and ecological systems (Wagler & Mathews,
2012).
It’s based in the St. Louis River estuary, in Northern MN — and it’s driven by narrative.

16. 16Friday, May 3, 13
The Protagonist is a fictional local chef who needs players to get local ingredients — he’s
pretty demanding.

17. 17
“There was some huge beds of rice on the St.
Louis in the early 30s. And I did a lot of wild
ricing in the 1940s, late 40s, and into the 1950s,
and that’s when it started to disappear. But all
these bays above the Oliver Bridge, and below
the Oliver Bridge, were full, full of wild rice. Big
Pokegama Bay, Allouez Bay had a lot of rice,
every bay here was loaded on both sides, the
Minnesota side and the Wisconsin, there was
more rice on the Wisconsin side than the
Minnesota side. Every bay here was loaded, was
loaded with wild rice.”
17Friday, May 3, 13
And he sends players on quests to interact with real characters. And we’ll visit the story more,
but more important to the theme of this session — it was part of a workshop where students
and teachers collaborated to design and create their own place-based mobile stories.

18. Participatory Design
“[Expert partners] quickly came up with story ideas
and components on sticky notes, arranged them into a
narrative, and reported out to the group.The initial,
rough narrative for Up River was born at this session.”
18Friday, May 3, 13
Which brings us to the first point: Participatory Design — local teachers generated ideas, and
were checkpoints of authenticity. They know the place better than outside designers — they
know the secret cool things that make local lore magical for learners.

19. 19
19Friday, May 3, 13
So teachers and students played Up River as part of a workshop, then began designing
ethnography-based mobile stories for their own community.

20. Participatory Design
“Up River also encourages players to observe, interview, and
record real people, places, and interactions. Indeed, Up River
served as a model during our workshop for how readily
ethnographic documents can be incorporated into a mobile story.”
Information Gathering
20Friday, May 3, 13
As with many educational processes, Up River started with information gathering

21. 21
21Friday, May 3, 13
Players walked around and got some history, situated in key locations

22. 22
22Friday, May 3, 13
and they got some science in contexts that make an
impact ...

23. Encouraging Engagement
Participatory Design
“We also used photos and videos we took in the field to
more accurately ‘place,’ or situate the final story.”
“... teachers were intrigued by this approach and easily
began generating ideas for how they could conduct
ethnographic research with their own students.”
Information Gathering
23Friday, May 3, 13
but remember, they were also thinking about how they could make the activity better, and make
a similar one for their own students. So they were paying attention to the balance of active vs
passive learning

24. 24
24Friday, May 3, 13
For example, Chef checks in on his old cell phone, and makes them take their own notes and
engage with real people

25. 25
“Most of the effects on the fishing that have
happened here have been through the
introduction of exotic species, the smelt, the
salmon, zebra mussels, the gobies, the roughy
fish; and they have competed with the native fish
for food sources and habitat and eaten the fish.
Smelt are carnivorous; they are the most
devastating thing to ever come here...They ate
all the baby white fish and herring and the
walleyes and the perches that were there in the
bay. They would come in en masse and just wipe
out everything when they spawned.”
25Friday, May 3, 13
And they run into Mark Howard in a video — but he’s real too, and as you pass Howard’s you
might see him working, as well on screen. This sort of authenticity adds to the experience.

26. 26
“I really like fishing for northern and muskie,
they’re more fun to catch.”
26Friday, May 3, 13
As part of the design, Jim and Mark wanted to “...nudge players to talk with and even interview
real people.”
So, for example, players run into virtual fishermen and get info on fishing

27. 27
27Friday, May 3, 13
And need to catch that walleye that Chef demanded (2 slides back), but if they weren’t sure
about what to use they could ask one of the REAL folks fishing!

28. Participatory Design
Leveraging Place-Based Experiences
“In Up River, players travel upstream from the Duluth harbor in
search of wild rice and native fish species.Along the way they
become physically immersed in the estuary, exploring tourist
attractions, industrial sites, restored habitats, and fishing piers.”
Encouraging Engagement
Information Gathering
28Friday, May 3, 13
in this way, it leverages the experience of being in the physical place and making obvious
connections

29. 29
29Friday, May 3, 13
while augmenting the real place by highlighting things that might NOT be visible or apparent.

30. 30
30Friday, May 3, 13
And at the end of the experience, they’ve collected a lot of content by interacting with the
space

31. 31Friday, May 3, 13
but they’ve also added their own multimedia notes that personalize it for them — it becomes
their own experience.

32. Participatory Design
Leveraging Place-Based Experiences
Systemic Thinking & Cyclical Design
“Learning about the estuary through the stories of
people who live and work there helps players ‘see
beyond’ what is in front of them, making transparent
some of the complex systems at play in the estuary.”
Encouraging Engagement
Information Gathering
32Friday, May 3, 13
They take this active learning experience about how these complex cultural and ecological
systems interact with each other, and it goes home with them.

33. 33Friday, May 3, 13
Which helps them in the design of their own games.

34. • what is the most important
content?
• what do we need to communicate here?
• what do we keep literal and what can we
conceptualize through narrative?
• is that the right balance?
• how do we get players to “get it” through game
play?
• the experience is a good representation, but it’s
no fun — how do we make it compelling?
• the format we chose doesn’t cover everything we
need them to get — is there a better format?
• it takes too long to play — how do we tweak?
• it’s too complicated/we need to simplify — what’s
okay to leave out?
• have we left out too much?
What they think about
how do we explain this thing,
given our constraints?
34Friday, May 3, 13
And they reflect, not only on the content, but on how to present the content, in a format that
they’ve probably never worked in before. And it’s a struggle — but a good one for learning.

35. Encouraging Engagement
Participatory Design
Leveraging Place-Based Experiences
SystemicThinking & Cyclical Design
Information Gathering
35Friday, May 3, 13
And thus the circle is un-broken. By and By...
And we think that’s a good thing, so we’ve been trying to make that process easier and easier

36. 36
36Friday, May 3, 13
Again, since we’re involved with ARIS, these themes and experiences inform the development
of the platform.

37. 1. ease & accessibility
2. field research & data collection
3. assessment, tracking, and activity measures
4. community
Current Concerns
37Friday, May 3, 13
and, as educators, although we hope to spread situated learning far beyond the longevity of
ARIS, we’re also hoping to contribute through development

38. ease of use & accessibility
38Friday, May 3, 13
So this summer we plan to improve the authoring interface and move it from Flash to HTML5

39. field research & data collection
39Friday, May 3, 13
To support Field Research and Assessment, we’re improving the Notebook and a visualization
tool (Web Notebook) that lets users reflect on notes with others, sort and filter by tags, etc.
This also increases assessment ability.

40. assessment, tracking, and activity measures
40Friday, May 3, 13
To encourage community and collaboration, we now let users comment on each others’ notes,
and “like” them. And can make these interactions part of the gameplay. This can introduce
peer review, which helps with assessment as well.

41. thanks!
@regardingjohn • litts@wisc.edu • chris.l.holden@gmail.com
#ARISgames
41Friday, May 3, 13
And we encourage you to talk with us about any of these things. We’re always happy to
answer any questions!