Response to Squire: From Information to Experience: Place-Based Augmented Reality Games as a Model for Learning in a Globally Networked Society

 An Anecdote from Real Life

My grandson Jackson understood and could complete and repeat operations on my iPhone before he was two. I’m not saying he’s special (even though he is to me!) or that he intentionally made the mad birds crash into the boxes to accumulate points.  Usually, he made the birds go backward and was oblivious to the points or levels.  I’m saying that even though he was pre-verbal he knew and could repeat his actions “tap” and “drag and release” to make something happen.

Now Jackson is three--and loquacious! He uses several forms of technology including the iPhones of my family and me (mine has many preschool games loaded onto it—chosen by Jackson,) my laptop, his V-tech device, and other devices belonging to his parents and family.  

Yesterday Jackson navigated to several online games that he likes where he used the arrow keys, space bar, voice instructions, music and visual cues to design robots, find letters to make words, match animal images, colors and shapes, and more. Jackson knows how to manipulate the iPhone itself.  For example:  he can open and close applications, navigate to folders, select games that won’t cost additional money to load and play, take photographs and video, and turn the sound up and down or off and on.  I’m saying that Jackson is a typical kid with access to digital media in the US.  Like so many other kids in at least the US, Jackson is a digital native (Prensky).

Also yesterday, Jackson and I visited an awesome animal park where I bought him a little set of ten animals that he chose.  After the park we came back to my house where Jackson has a little pool.  While we used our hose to fill the pool, Jackson spontaneously stuck a little penguin into the end of the water hose with the water running.  To his surprise, the penguin popped back out with the water flow in a way that he found amusing.  He created a little learning game during which he repeated the action several times to see what would happen. Then he put a different little animal inside there, with the water on and the water off.  Eventually, a little animal got stuck and we needed to get pliers to get it out.  This "just in time" activity had nothing to do with the computer, and was important to his learning just the same.  And it was fun.

Through my own teaching experience and more recently through meeting the designers of the Sonlig Project I am aware that not all young learners all over the world have access to digital media, Internet connectivity, or even a most fundamental necessity: the light by which to read. 

Design, Collaboration, and Augmented Reality Gaming ---> Learning

In terms of design I think we are at the point of revisiting/redesigning age-old (at least to we in education) important questions about how to best serve contemporary learners in all settings.  The Squire example of implementing the Sick at South Beach curriculum/game demonstrated a way of taking learning beyond the school walls to encourage learner confidence, role playing and place-based experience, problem solving, facilitation by teachers, and “safe” discussion and conclusions among student participants.  Often when reading research abstracts I get the feeling that the researchers are removed from the research. I sensed in Squire (correctly or incorrectly) a genuine open-ness to results and a willingness to further explore both aspects that worked and those that revealed need for iteration in the design process.  An example in need of iteration: while using the game devices at the scene of possible water contamination, students were so focused on the machines that they didn’t notice that they were walking through goose poop, a possible source for solution to their problem. 

After fifteen years of formal teaching in public schools I still “know” what is “right” to me as to how and what to teach to each unique group of students or individuals, whether I’m using the most current technology or simply a stick in the sand. I have been open to and tried many of the formal methods that others in the field have said are “best practice.”  I like that there are structures through which I can teach, yet, I still rely on what I know about teaching and learning.  Relationships, working together, having fun, being curious and free to make “mistakes” are all fundamental to building the confidence that is necessary to move forward, and in some instances, go forward, back, sideways, and around!  My “knowing” of what is “right” often seems at odds with the standardized test-based structure of our public schools in at least Michigan, and now with Common Core, the US.  The accountability movement seems to me to be anti-creative, anti-learning.  That’s another discussion.

As a teacher in both high school and college, and also as a university student in the field of education I can say in my experience, the collaboration between university researchers and teachers in schools is motivated by the love for students and their learning.  As both university learner and teacher I can say that we, university researchers and teachers, are learning from each other by allowing each the freedom to try things, the space to try again, and to use those connections and resources to benefit the learning of our students. 

I think the story of Jackson creating his animal in the hose game is a perfect illustration for the role of design of curriculum that features immersive game-based learning.  It was generated by the learner, the learner made conclusions (assessments) based on the immersive experience, he asked for help when needed, he adapted and applied his learning to new situations, he tinkered with the technology, and best of all, it was fun! 

Afternote

I struggle with wanting my writing to be concise and on point, and I find myself strongly magnetized to political issues whenever I start to write about curriculum design, assessment, and schooling.  Even writing about games and place-based learning veer strongly toward my emotional reaction to the accountability movement and the results of imposed, and in many cases—in my opinion—false markers of “achievement” and “success.” As a result of this struggle, I worked and worked on this blog post that needs to be short and to the point! That said, I apologize for the late post.