Maria F. Costabile, Antonella De Angeli, Rosa Lanzilotti, Carmelo Ardito, Paolo Buono, Thomas Pederson developed the program Explore! It is a mobile game that is meant to replace the pen and paper format of a game called Gaius' Day. Gaius' Day is a learning game typically played by students at archeological sites in Italy. In the game groups of students are given "missions" that they have to accomplish that end up leading them around the site and teaching them about the history of the site.
Explore! keeps track of all the details of the missions and contains the glossary that they use to look up information about the site. The results of their user study showed that while overall the students enjoyed the mobile app more, they were able to complete their missions much more quickly and accurately when using pen and paper. Part of this is speculated to be because in the mobile app, you have to complete the missions sequentially where as with pencil and paper, the group can strategize and complete the missions in an efficient order.
I find it humorous that the app meant to help this game actually makes it worse and that it is preferred by the users. But if we didn't have "failures" we wouldn't make much progress. I really don't think failure is an appropriate word because it still does contribute knowledge to the field. More specifically, what not to do.
Apparently, the pen is mightier than the stylus.
ReplyDeleteWhat would be cool is if it showed a 3D reconstruction of the spot you're standing at, using GPS, so you could walk around inside the building.
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