The document discusses the design of location-based learning games for formal education settings. It presents a puzzle board metaphor to help teachers customize their own location-based games. Three case studies are described where teachers designed games to have students learn about heritage sites. A mobile application called "QuesTInSitu" was created to implement the teachers' designs. Testing found students were engaged but design aspects like points scoring and hints needed refinement based on the learning context. The framework supported teachers in designing games for different educational purposes and assessing their impact on students.

1. Being able to accommodate activity's formal
purposes as a critical factor when
designing for 'location-based learning
games' at scale
Javier Melero, Davinia Hernández-Leo, Josep Blat
Interactive Technologies Group
Universitat Pompeu Fabra
BIIML14 – Bristol (UK), 6-7 March 2014

2. OUTLINE
1. Introduction
2. Location-based games design: A puzzle board metaphor
3. Teachers’ designs: 3 real case studies
4. “QuesTInSitu: The Game”
5. Implementation of the designs: Impact on students
6. Discussion and conclusions
BIIML14 – Bristol (UK), 6-7 March 2014

3. INTRODUCTION
• M-learning: facilitate informal learning in formal context (Pachler,
Bachmair, & Cook, 2010). Students can learn anytime and anywhere
(Jones & Jo, 2004; Vinu et al., 2011)
• Location-based games: approaches based on pervasive mobile learning
that support contextualized learning (Avouris & Yiannoutsou, 2012)
• Benefits: access to contextualized information (Avouris & Yiannoutsou,
2012); communication, analysis and interrelation of real place (Roschelle,
2003); entertaining and stimulating (Cabrera et al., 2005; Davis, 2002);
and effective in terms of increasing the motivation to learn (Yatani,
Onuma, Sugimoto, & Kusunoki, 2004)
The comprehensive integration of educational games in formal learning
settings is still a challenge that shapes several interdisciplinary
research problems in the domain of GBL
BIIML14 – Bristol (UK), 6-7 March 2014
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4. INTRODUCTION
• For learning games to be relevant in formal education they need to be
aligned with the curriculum and adapted to teachers’ requirements
depending on their particular educational situations
• Some research works have been done to support the development of
location-based learning games: “Treasure-HIT” (Kohen-Vacs, Ronen, &
Cohen, 2012); “ARLearn” (Ternier, Klemke, Kalz, van Ulzen, & Specht,
2012); “Mobilogue” (Giemza & Hoppe, 2013)
• Issue: current tools do not allow the customisation of elements, such as
scores, that can be relevant to formal learning contexts
Providing with flexible and customizable approaches to involve
teachers as designers of their own location-based games can make
significant difference to foster designs at scale
BIIML14 – Bristol (UK), 6-7 March 2014
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5. LOCATION-BASED GAMES DESIGN
A puzzle board metaphor
A puzzle board metaphor for designing
location-based learning games
• Motivation: to provide teachers with a framework for the customization of
their own location-based games adapted to their requirements depending
on their particular educational situations
• The structural design of location-based learning games is often inspired
by board games (Nicklas et al., 2001; Schlieder et al., 2006)
• Conceptual model based on puzzle boards for designing educational
games (Melero & Hernández-Leo, in press)
• Metaphors to simplify and represent the abstraction of a conceptual
model (Lakoff, 1993; Neale & Carroll, 1997)
BIIML14 – Bristol (UK), 6-7 March 2014
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6. LOCATION-BASED GAMES DESIGN
A puzzle board metaphor
Board
Physical zones (indoors or outdoors)
Slots
Questions designed for the locationbased learning game
Pieces
Options associated to each question
Puzzle
Groups of slots
Level
Each level contains a puzzle
Points
Correct/Incorrect answers, accessing
hints.
Bonus
Extra points when all questions from a
level have been correctly answered
Feedback
Information associated to ranges of
points
Hints
Information to guide students to find the
correct answer
BIIML14 – Bristol (UK), 6-7 March 2014
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7. TEACHERS’ DESIGNS
3 real case studies
Using paper-based templates for designing location-based games
according to the proposed puzzle board metaphor
Discovering
L’H
Discovering
Vic
Discovering the
MNAC
Learning about
the heritage of the
city of l’Hospitalet
Learning about the
city of Vic and its
art history
Learning about
different pictures of
the museum
Extracurricular
activity in the
school
Activity
associated to a
subject, as part of
its formative
assessment
Activity associated
to a subject, as a
summativeassessment
activity
7 teachers
1 teacher
1 teacher
BIIML14 – Bristol (UK), 6-7 March 2014
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8. TEACHERS’ DESIGNS
3 real case studies
Designs contained different amount of levels, questions/level, and
hints, and were based on the following design criteria:
Discovering L’H
Discovering Vic
Discovering the
MNAC
Points Correct
Answers
250 points more
1 point more
50 points more
Points Incorrect
Answers
100 points less
0.3 points less the first attempt,
0.5 point the second one, 1
point the third one.
10 points less
Points Hints
100 points less
0.2 points less
50 points less
Extra Bonus
Proportional to the number of
questions
1.5 points more when all the
questions correctly answered
at the first attempt, 0.75 points
otherwise.
50 points more
Hints Content
Suggestions rather than clues
(ask people, look at the bottom
of the statue, etc.)
Short text about the context
related to the question
Short text about the context
related to the question
Levels
Information
General information about the
zone and particular information
about the questions
Short sentence of the
geographical zone
Short sentence of the
museums room
BIIML14 – Bristol (UK), 6-7 March 2014
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9. QUESTINSITU: THE GAME
A gamified mobile application, compliant with a conceptual model of
puzzle board games design, that supports assessment in situ.
Initial Screen
Route Screen
Screen showing the map and the location of
each question. Here the students can also
access to the level’s information screen
This screen shows the logo and the name
of the instance of the location-based
learning game
Level’s Information Screen
Screen showing the textual information
associated to a level
Questions’ Screen
This screen shows the list of questions for a given
location. Questions can be answered as many
times as needed. The students can also access
to the hints associated to each question
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTSsXa_e-6M
BIIML14 – Bristol (UK), 6-7 March 2014
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10. IMPLEMENTATION OF THE DESIGNS
Impact on students
Overall Results
•
74 students (Discovering l’H), 64 students
(Discovering Vic), 36 students (Discovering MNAC)
•
Students enjoy the proposed approach: better results
were obtained from the students playing outdoors
(especially from Vic) than those who played in the
museum
•
While the design of positive points and extra bonus
were broadly accepted by the students in the diverse
cases, the design of the subtracted points provoke
more discrepancies among cases
•
Students avoid accessing to the hints; they prefer to
discover the correct answer by other means. Students
from l’H found less useful and appropriate the hints
than the students from Vic or MNAC
BIIML14 – Bristol (UK), 6-7 March 2014
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11. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS
•
Puzzle board metaphor as a framework to design location-based learning games
•
Teachers could follow different design strategies: from points similar to games
(“Discovering l’H”, learning activity) to points similar to traditional tests (“Discovering
Vic”, formative-assessment activity).
•
Impact on students:
•
Engagement. Context can affect students’ engagement (e.g. being controlled
by external people (case MNAC) or not, having limited amount of time to solve
each level (case MNAC) or not, etc).
•
Subtracting points. Clear explanation in the rules of the game, meaningful
points (e.g. students were familiar with the scoring based on a traditional testbased approach, direct impact in students’ marks)
•
Hints. Perceived usefulness of hints could directly depend on the designed
strategies (suggestions vs. small descriptions about the questions)
BIIML14 – Bristol (UK), 6-7 March 2014
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12. THANK YOU!!
Questions? Suggestions? Doubts?
Javier Melero
javier.melero@upf.edu
Interactive Technologies Group (GTI)
http://www.javiermelero.es
BIIML14 – Bristol (UK), 6-7 March 2014