engleski

Mobile Game Based Learning : the Future of e-learning?

The mobile Game-Based Learning project (mGBL, www.mg-bl.com) is a 3-year European Commision funded project that began in October 2005 under Information Society Technologies (IST) programme Partner organizations forming the project consortium are drawn from Austria, Croatia, Italy, Slovenia and the UK. The project is coordinated by Evolaris Privatstiftung, a research laboratory based in Graz, Austria. Some learners do not like using games or they are not very competent in playing certain types of game (de Freitas, 2006), so the consortium is developing different types of game design that signpost to other learning materials and thereby facilitate integration of mGBL games within a blended learning environment. The project partners are committed to designing real games that are fun to use and user friendly, engaging target audiences: students and young adults aged 16 – 24, a priority age range for the EC. Game focus is on the decision-making in crisis situations – EC priority area of concern. Support for life-long learning is another EC priority ; therefore the goal is to design games that are standards-based, to suit a ‘ blended learning’ approach (i.e. a mix of formal and informal learning). A central goal of the project is to research the usability and usefulness for purpose of the mGBL prototype game templates and examples in order to optimize the usage experience, not only of the students themselves, but also of the teachers as developers (using the platform) of the learning games. In-depth analysis of user experience, both in the usability lab as well as in the field, will deliver valuable insights into requirements for the system design. Three game types have been designed and template development and content development is underway. The first game template was developed with E-commerce content (called "Ahead of the game"). The second game was developed with two types of content: E-Health (called "Mogabal" – acronym of MObile GAme BAsed Learning) and E-guidance (career guidance). The third game (called Digital economy) was developed with E-commerce content. mGBL research takes place within a social constructivist (Vygotsky, 1982) theoretical framework that emphasizes intrinsic learning through social interactions such as modeling or imitation and accepts the plurality of meanings. Social constructivism is highly relevant to the mGBL development that will be informed by WP6 research: the target audiences will exhibit different learning intelligences and preferences and will expect mGBL learning models to be intrinsically motivating. Moreover social constructivism holds that socio-affective factors and the role of mediation of action through artifacts are significant in encouraging learning. Again, this is highly relevant to the mGBL project, which recognizes socio-affective factors in decision-making and puts tools in the hands of learners. In order to test the system, content on e-health and e-commerce was developed for the user trials and tested in the transnational environment (end-user evaluation, expert evaluations and laboratory usability tests). It was also essential to open up to new groups of learners up-to-date narrow education schemes. For this reason, specific focus in the evaluation process was given to ensure that mGBL will be capable of supporting these new education concepts and therefore wider target groups in general. The mGBL project focuses on a wide target group which on the one hand is diversified by involving young people from different societal fields, from different regions and countries. The major end user target groups of the project are younger people in general and for the specific test cases younger people who are: o preparing decisions on their school or vocational career or o students, especially in the field of e-health or e-commerce. For the first target group, mGBL will assist new ways in career advice through personalized professional orientation: It is important to employ target-group oriented media, in particular interactive web and mobile services to support the decision-making processes. The approach to support these processes by collaborative and interactive as well as individual game based learning applications is attractive for this target group. This new web and mobile supported advice should go far beyond the search for and passing on of information ; instead it must go into the emotional issues behind a career choice. For the second target group, students, the project aims at building a platform to also support sustainable learning through inspiring edutainment. By not only preparing content in a way that it can cognitively be taken in, but also in an emotional way, the mGBL project strives for new, effective means of learning. Bloom's Taxonomy of Learning Domains remains the most widely used system of its kind in education particularly and also in industry and corporate training. Reason for that is because Taxonomy of learning domains represents such a simple, clear and effective model, both for explanation and application of learning objectives, teaching and training methods, and measurement of learning outcomes. There are 3 cycles of User Trials that relate directly to the iterative process adopted for mGBL design and development. The first User Trials were undertaken in September 2006, at end of year 1 of the project. The resulting findings informed the Construction phase of the mGBL prototypes. The second User trials took place in September 2007, finishing at end of year 2, with findings informing the final cycle of development that begins in September 2007. The final cycle of User Trials takes place in January – February 2008 and will inform the transition phase of the project. Overall results from the first User Trials showed that there is no significant divide in the usage of mobile technologies and learning habits between tested students from different European countries. Although the respondents were somehow sceptic about using mobile phones in the learning process, after trialling the games most of the students were convinced that the potential in using mobile phones for educational purposes really exists. Overall results from the second User Trials showed that all focus groups are favourable to the project, even the biased student group in Slovenia (no one used to play games). Teachers thought that the game with multiple possible scenarios and open-end game would give them an insight on how the students think, how they make decisions, how they could apply that thinking into » real life« situations. That way the game would tackle the collaborating part and team work in education and real life. Perhaps the most sophisticated research has been done using mGBL games during whole course teaching. Measurements taken after the completion of the experiment show that the attitude towards the pervasive game is clearly better than the attitude towards the case study. This indicates a high degree of acceptance and fun while playing, and substantiates previous experiences from pervasive learning games. It has also been proven that students generally respond more positively to learning games than they do to other learning methods. There is still plethora of challenges that mobile game based learning should address, from ethical and legal to technological and financial issues and maybe most important and most difficult challenge to encourage officials to take up the mobile games for learning support in higher education environment.

mobile game based learning; e-learning

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