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Georeferenced Learning Activities: An Experience with Moodle
Juan P. de CastroHigher Technical School of Telecommunications Engineering (ETSIT), Universidad de Valladolid, Spain
Adrián Rodríguez,Higher Technical School of Telecommunications Engineering (ETSIT), Universidad de Valladolid, Spain
María J. VerdúHigher Technical School of Telecommunications Engineering (ETSIT), Universidad de Valladolid, Spain
Luisa M. ReguerasHigher Technical School of Telecommunications Engineering (ETSIT), Universidad de Valladolid, Spain
Francisco MerinoHigher Technical School of Telecommunications Engineering (ETSIT), Universidad de Valladolid, Spain
Ignacio MolinaFacultad de Filosofía y Letras, Universidad de Valladolid, Spain
Luis C. PastorIES Antonio Machado, Soria, Spain
José M. RamosIES Juan de Juni, Valladolid, Spain
Abstract: This paper describes an experience with an e-learning tool for the organization of georeferenced activities. The idea arises as a result of the necessity to respond to the evolution of teaching methods, promoted by the quick progress of technologies and the new curricula. In this context, the treasure hunt game offers the possibility of combining the education out of the restrictions of the classroom, at the same time that it broadens the motivation and enthusiasm of both teachers and pupils. Thus, this work deals with the development of a new module for the educational platform Moodle that adapts the treasure hunt game to the technological and educational field by using mobile technologies. This e-learning solution provides some organizational and pedagogical advantages over the game in its traditional format, besides motivating and stimulating students.
Introduction
Gamification in learning may motivate students to actively participate in their learning process (Cesário, Radeta, Matos, & Nisi, 2017; Ihamäki, 2014; Skourti, Tzinos, Dervos, & Ougiaroglou, 2017). The treasure hunt game is an activity that can combine the formal learning in class with the outdoor activities, while improving the students’ motivation and eagerness. During the game, students deal with finding a clue to locate the interest places deployed by teachers, in order to reach the final location where they discover the treasure.
This paper describes an experience with Treasure Hunt for Moodle, a tool that adapt the treasure hunt game to the current mobile devices and to the Learning Management System (LMS) Moodle.
Moodle is a remarkable LMS that is widely used in secondary and university education. Mobile devices are smart and widespread more and more among students and teachers. This context is favorable for designing and organizing outdoor learning activities that can be totally integrated into formal learning strategies. Therefore, this work involves the development of a new geolocation module for the learning platform Moodle that adapts the treasure hunt game to the technological field by using mobile technologies, providing solutions and advantages over the creation and development of the game in its traditional format. The tool has been evaluated in secondary courses about Geography in two different urban circuits.
There are some similar tools aimed to adapt the treasure hunt to virtual environments. However, any of them is integrated into a LMS. Treasure-HIT is a dedicated environment for designing location based games conducted via smartphones (Kohen-Vacs, Ronen, & Cohen, 2012). The system is primarily aimed to support outdoor learning activities for elementary education. Teachers design treasure hunt games via the web platform while students must install the players’ application in their smartphones and access the game using an identifier previously provided by the teacher. Although Treasure-HIT has been specially designed for learning activities, it is not integrated into a LMS and it is no open-source. There exist other tools for creating treasure hunt activities, such as Geocaching (http://www.geocaching.com), Skattjat (Spikol & Milrad, 2008), or fAR-Play (Gutierrez et al., 2011), but they have not been designed for pedagogical use. In fact, they are more oriented to informal learning or daily activities from a social perspective where “geocachers” participate mainly playing, while creating experiences is very effort-consuming (Gutierrez et al., 2011; O’Hara, 2008).
Treasure Hunt for Moodle
Treasure Hunt is a module for the Moodle LMS that allows organizing outdoor, indoor and desktop games with students. The game consists in finding emblematic places or objects following a series of clues previously created by the teacher. It allows teachers to recreate different roads or paths to be followed, consisting of a series of stages. Each stage consists of a location on the map and one or more clues that provide the description to find the next stage of the path. Moreover, it is possible to set extra conditions for the resolution of a stage, so the user can move forward in the game. Once the final stage is completed, the player finds out the “treasure”, so at that time the game ends.
This module is mainly intended for teachers and students in university or secondary education, where they have a Moodle platform through which the students can access the activities proposed by the teachers.
Moodle Treasure Hunt provides the possibility of designing learning activities out beyond the restrictions of the classroom, while it also broadens the motivation and enthusiasm of teachers as well as students. Furthermore, the nuance of the game can take a competitive character that encourages students to get involved at the same time that allows providing values like collaboration when the game mode is by groups. It also provides a rich pedagogical potential that includes largely exploratory and research learning, also taking into account the benefits it provides as a physical outdoor activity.
The broad range of possibilities makes this module suitable for almost any learning circumstance. If outdoor activity is not practical, indoor (QR-codes) or image-map-based treasure hunts can be easily configured. Maps can be created using common web maps (Open Street Map), WMS layers or a custom image.
In summary, the main features of the presented tool are: Designed for Moodle: Treasure Hunt has been developed and integrated as a module for Moodle, the
largest e-learning platform in the world. It integrates with other Moodle activities (check completion of some activity before continuing the treasure hunt) and with the grade-book.
Multiplatform: Treasure Hunt is a web-based application (HTML5), so gamers can access it from any device without needing to download any native application.
Check the progress: Treasure Hunt allows students to follow the history of attempts and compare their progress with the rest of participants.
Flexibility: Teachers can establish individual or group activities, moving (using GPS technology or QR codes) or without moving (selecting the desired position on the application), with real-world or custom image maps and select among different grading methods.
Since the module has been published as free software in public repositories and it has been validated and published also in the official Moodle repository, all the international community can install it at own servers and use
it freely. Specifically, the module can be installed directly from Moodle plugins directory or downloaded from both the Moodle plugins webpage (https://moodle.org/plugins/mod_treasurehunt) and the GitHub repository (https://github.com/juacas/moodle-mod_treasurehunt/releases). Moreover, an introductory tutorial for admins, teachers and students can be found online (https://juacas.github.io/moodle-mod_treasurehunt/).
Designing a Moodle Treasure Hunt
Inside the Moodle course, teachers must activate the edition mode and add a new instance of the Treasure Hunt, just like any other Moodle activity. They should provide a name and a short description for the activity, and configure the game as a moving game (by using GPS technology or QR codes) or without moving (selecting the desired position on the application), individual or in groups, the grading method, etc.
The tool allows several types of maps for the game. Teachers can configure the playing field in the following ways:
Base map of the world: A street map or satellite image can be used (this is the default type). Base map of the world with an overlay map chosen by the teacher: Overlay maps can be all those served by
WMS-compliant servers (Web Map Service). This type of map is superimposed over the base map and can be hidden and displayed with the layer menu.
Only a WMS map chosen by the teacher: By selecting "This is the only base layer", the map chosen by the teacher cannot be hidden.
Any image superimposed on the base maps: Any photograph or image file can be projected on the ground. An example of this use is the projection of a historical map over the actual terrain.
A non-geographic image: This game mode uses a still image with a set of "hot spots" where there aren’t actually geographic coordinates but only areas marked on a background "poster".
Once the map is configured, it is time to create the roads. Each road contains all the stages that the students should discover to reach the end. The tool allows teachers to create several roads to assign different routes to different groups of students.
Figure 1: GIS editor for creating roads and stages. The example shows the three stages (with the associated geometry) of one of the two existing roads.
Each road should contain at least two stages with an associate geometry. The geometry of the first stage of the road will determine the point from where the students will begin the activity. While creating a stage, the teacher should add the clue that will allow the students to find out the location of the next stage. The clue can include multimedia content. Optionally, the teacher can generate a QR code, print it and put it in the desired location so once it is scanned the stage is validated. It is also possible to associate selection questions or a Moodle activity to be completed before unlocking the current clue. Figure 1 shows the GIS editor with an example of three stages (with the associated geometry) of one of the two existing roads.
Playing the Game
Students should start the Treasure Hunt activity from Moodle by using their smartphones. Once started the game, the tool will show the interface that students should use to find out the treasure. Figure 2 shows some screen shots from the mobile device of the gamer while playing the Treasure Hunt. At the beginning, gamers should place themselves within the marked area on the map and validate their location, as shown in Figure 2 (left). Locations of all the stages of the game must be validated by sending the current location or marking the desired position over the map game with or without displacement, respectively). The tool then will check if it is right.
The left side panel shows the last clue discovered by the student or one of the teammates (if it was a team game). The map will show all the location attempts corresponding to each clue. Passed stages will be shown in green color while the failed attempts will be shown in red color. Figure 2 (center) shows an example with one passed stage.
If the teacher has decided to add activities, the students should complete them to unlock the next stage and, if it is not the final stage, to get a new clue. Figure 2 (right) shows an example with a locked clue.
Figure 2: (Left) Treasure Hunt at the mobile device of the gamer while starting the game at the initial stage; (center) the left side panel shows the last clue discovered and the map shows a completed stage; (right) a locked clue must be
unlocked by completing the activities added by the teacher.
Figure 2 shows the maps as street maps. Gamers can choose the display mode and change from street to aerial maps.
Students can check their attempts’ history at any time as well as their overall progress, while comparing with the progress of other students.
A control center allows teachers to see the students’ progress from Moodle (see Figure 3). For each student, the tool shows the completed stages in green or yellow (if it was passed with one or more attempts, respectively) and the failed stages in red, while the unvisited stages remain in gray. It also includes the map-based trail viewer shown in Figure 4.
Figure 3: Progress panel of Treasure Hunt, where teachers can see the students’ progress for each road.
Figure 4: Map with the trails of all students.
The Experience
The experience aimed at evaluating the potential improvement of the learning process by the gamification of activities at secondary education, specifically in geography courses, as well as analyzing the students’ opinion and satisfaction. Teaching strategies for this subject may be supported by the mobile and georeferenced nature of Moodle Treasure Hunt as well as by the competitive and playful aspects of the game.
Specifically, the learning advantages to be pursued with this experience were the following ones: In-situ learning of the subjects related to the territory: geography, infrastructures, agriculture, architecture,
art or history. Students’ motivation by means of pedagogically oriented games. Promoting scientific and research vocations in secondary students. Integration of ICTs (Information and Communication Technologies) into the everyday life of students and
teachers. New assessment strategies.
The field testing took place at two different Spanish secondary schools, “IES Antonio Machado” from Soria with students of 2nd year of Baccalaureate and “IES Juan de Juni” from Valladolid with students of 3th year of secondary education (17-18 and 14-15 years old, respectively). A total of 102 students participated in the learning experience. They were divided into experimental group and control group (see Table 1).
Experimental group Control group
Secondary Education – Third year 46 students 23 studentsBaccalaureate – Second year 11 students 22 students
Table 1: Students summary.
Teachers designed two Treasure Hunt activities (one for Valladolid and another one for Soria) for learning about “the city”. The roads take about two hours and the game was individual. Students from the experimental group searched by the city examples of medieval, bourgeoisie, industrial or modern city, while students from control group studied those same contents in traditional classes.
Two evaluation instruments were used to analyze the experience: Pre-test and post-test results for both control group and experimental group. The aim was to analyze the
academic outcomes. The knowledge test included questions related with “the city” and covered aspects about the development of the city since the medieval times till now.
A survey with two parts, only for the students who used the Treasure Hunt. The first part of the survey was a 16-items survey with a five-score Likert-type scale, which ranges from “Strongly Disagree” to “Strongly Agree” (1 to 5, respectively), aimed to evaluate the learning experience of the students from the experimental group. The second part was a questionnaire to characterize students according to their self-perception about their attitude for learning, based on six categories: hard-working (keeping the course up to date), individualist, collaborative, competitive, active and passive. The objective was to study the usability of the tool and analyze the students’ satisfaction level with the experience as well as their attitude for learning.
Data were on-line collected by means of Moodle quizzes and surveys.
Findings
Before analyzing the results, it is interesting to indicate that although two secondary schools participated in the experiment, only data from “IES Antonio Machado”, with a total of 33 students of 2nd year of Baccalaureate (see Table 1), have been collected. The other secondary school had problems at the time of conducting the experiment, since students were worried about data consumption and the impact in their data costs and they were not
motivated to take part. This data is a first finding, since it showed that the age of students affects their involvement and motivation to participate in the activity.
Analysis of Academic Outcomes
Table 2 shows the descriptive statistics (mean –M– and standard deviation –SD) of the pre-test and post-test marks as well as the difference (as a measure of improvement), for both control and experimental groups. These data have been analyzed by means of Student’s T-Test for comparison of two groups. Table 2 shows a low participation in the tests. It was due mainly to the dates of the experience, which were too close to those of the final exams.
Results show that the experimental group performed worse than the control group after the experiment and in a significant way (p < 0.05). A detailed analysis of the results and the experience showed that there was a procedure error since the questions included in the test doesn’t cover well enough the concepts discovered during the game.
Control Group Experimental Group T-TestScore N M SD n M SD T p
Pre-test 13 7.29 1.09 7 8.13 0.62 -1.858 0.080Post-test 17 6.25 1.14 10 5.63 1.36 1.280 0.212
Difference 13 -0.99 1.10 7 -2.49 1.21 2.806 0.012** Results are significantly different at p < 0.05 (T-Test).
Table 2: Comparative summary of academic outcomes for control and experimental groups, where n is the number of samples for each group. Table shows descriptive statistics (mean –M– and standard deviation –SD) and
the results of Student’s T-Test.
Analysis of satisfaction
We analyzed the students’ level of satisfaction according to the survey data. A total of 11 students completed the survey, 100% students of the experimental group. In general terms, the students positively evaluated the experience and the gaming activity (see Figure 5).
Figure 5: Results of the survey about students’ satisfaction.
Conclusions
A new module for creating Treasure Hunt activities is available for Moodle community. The module allows teachers to organize outdoor, indoor and desktop games with students. The described experience has showed that the tool is robust and useful in real contexts. The participants were satisfied in general with the activity. However, some issues arose related to the design of the activity in secondary courses. The teachers that participate in the experience gave some advices for future experiences:
It would be desirable, for a higher involvement level, that each student takes one mobile device instead one for each group. This occurred for one of the experimental groups.
Since the mobile device itself is a distracting element for young students, it is important to be sure that they have understood the game instructions clearly.
The age and academic profile of students have an important influence in their involvement. It would be desirable, to organize a trial activity before the experience, to verify the configuration of the
application as well as the mechanic of use. The dates of the experience should be carefully programmed in order to avoid being too close to the dates
of final exams and therefore stressing students too much. Students were worried about data consumption and the impact in their data costs. It is important to let them
know that the consumption is fewer than 2Mbytes an hour, once the application and maps are charged for the first time.
In any case, teachers are very satisfied with the tool. They would like to use it again in future activities and courses. Moreover, students who participated in the control group asked to play the game. It seems that Treasure Hunt for Moodle is a motivating and stimulating tool.
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