Javier Melero, Interactive Technologies Group (GTI), UPF, Barcelona, Spain

Patricia Santos, Designing for Digital Learners (D4DL), UWE, Bristol, UK

M-Assessment in situ: QuesTInSitu and cases from multiple contexts

Towards sustainable mobile learning scenariosWednesday 9th October, 2013

QuesTInSitu“Assessment in situ” refers to a type of activity where the questions of a test have to be answered in front of a related real location (in situ) *.

The interaction context of the test

had to be the city, a natural park...

Educational resources (questions)

have to be associated to real

positions and distributed as a route

in the physical environment

Geolocated questions and tests

(routes), can be created and

learners answer the tests using a

mobile device with GPS and 3G.

* Santos, P., Pérez-Sanagustín, M., Hernández-Leo, D. & Blat, J. (2011). QuesTInSitu: From tests to routes for assessment in situ activities. Computers & Education, 57 (4), 2517-2534. R Q1) Impact factor: 2.617

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M-assessment in situ scenarios in diverse subject matters and educational levels

Barca BarcaDiscovering Barcelona!

Bachelor students

explored the city observing

and interacting with the

architecture and the street

furniture with the aim of

putting in practice

urbanism and history

skills.

Assessing Botany in situ

The teacher created a route

where the university

students had to answer

questions in situ observing

the Barcelona botany

garden, and finding,

touching and measuring

specific plants.

A literature adventure

A group of senior

learners (~65 years old),

members of a literature

group, created two routes

with the aim of proposing

questions about facts of

a literature novel set in a

district of Barcelona.

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Assessment in real situ: Videos and Findings summary

Findings

1. QuesTInSitu supports successfully an assessment in situ activity thanks to functionalities such as the monitoring service or the provision of feedback in real time/situ.

2. Educational benefits: dynamic and practical activity; put in practice of transversal (collaborative and communicative) and specific skills (botany, art, history, geography...).

3. The GPS location-based system makes the process of finding locations faster and helps the students in their exploratory tasks

4. The assessment in situ activity had a notable positive impact in the attitude/motivation of the students and teachers

5. Older learners found m-learning useful and meaningful because it enabled them to accomplish learning activities putting in practice (in the real world) their knowledge by doing a playful activity.

Examples (videos of the scenarios):

(1) Learning History Art in situ , a m-learning activity with 62 secondary students and 2 teachers http://bit.ly/GUW5vf (starting at 2′ 30”, in Catalan language)

(2) A literature adventure in situ, design and implementation of m-learning routes with older learners http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBKvz9hYQ-k (english annotations)

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QuesTInSitu: The Game

QuesTInSitu: The Game, an extended gamified version of QuesTInSitu, looks for promoting students’ reflection (avoiding being focused just on achieving higher scores).

QuesTInSitu: The Game is based on a metaphor that considers puzzles and game elements*:

• Puzzles as a strategy to involve teachers as designers, and engage students in the subject topics, while foster students’ problem solving, analytical and memory skills.

• Game elements: levels, hints, bonus, punctuation mechanisms, and feedbacks.

* Melero, J., Santos, P., Hernández-Leo, D. & Blat, J. (2013) “Puzzle-Based Games as a Metaphor for Designing In Situ Learning Activities”, In Proceedings of the 7th European Conference on Games Based Learning (pp. 674-682), Porto, Portugal.

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Gamified In-situ Indoor and Outdoor Scenarios

Discovering L’Hospitalet!• Transversal activity in the school to learn about

the heritage of the city of l’Hospitalet.• 10 levels.• 55 questions.• 250 points (correct answers) and 100 (incorrect

answers).• 52 hints. Accessing to each hint subtract 100

points.• Extra bonus is proportional to the number of

questions of a level.• Hints are suggestions (ask people, read the

information that appears next to the statue...).• Level’s information contains general

descriptions about the zone and particular information about the questions.

Discovering the MNAC! • Activity, associated to a subject, intended to

learn about different contemporary pictures of a contemporary art museum.

• 4 levels.• 20 questions.• 50 points (correct answers) and 10 points

(incorrect answers).• 19 hints. Accessing to each hint subtract 50

points.• Extra bonus adds 50 points more. • Hints are short texts about the context

related to the question.• Levels’ information is short sentences of

each museum’s room.

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Videos and Findings on QuesTInSitu: The Game

Example:

• “Discovering L’Hospitalet Using your Smartphone” a m-learning activity with 74 secondary students and 6 teachers (involved in the design of the gamified situated m-learning activity)http://youtu.be/BTSsXa_e-6M

Findings

Teachers:• The metaphor based on puzzles and game elements enables the creation of gamified in situ

learning activities depending on the teachers’ needs.• Different design strategies: number of levels, punctuation mechanisms, hints, etc.

Students:• Students enjoy the proposed approach.• Not forcing students to correctly answer the different questions. • Offering the possibility of moving to next levels without completing correctly all the questions• Discrepancies when subtracting points.• Students avoid to access to the hints.

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Conclusions• Successful combination of mobile devices and Location Based Systems to

support assessment in situ.

• M-assessment in situ can be applied in diverse subject matters (i.e. literature, biology, history..), educational levels (i.e. primary, secondary, higher education, lifelong learning), and educational settings (e.g museums, natural park, a city…).

• Considering puzzles and game elements enrich the in situ learning experience and fosters students’ reflection (e.g. reflecting on wrong past choices, consulting resources provided by the gamified application, discussing with other students, asking people, etc.).

• The use of the puzzle-based game metaphor helps teachers understand an unfamiliar situation (the design of gamified in situ m-learning activities) from a familiar situation (traditional jigsaw puzzles).

• Authoring tools and re-usable formats (e.g. XML) enhance the sharing and re-utilisation of m-learning scenarios.

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QUESTIONS?THANK YOU!

Javier Melerojavier.melero@upf.edu

Web: www.javiermelero.es

Patricia SantosPatricia.Santosrodriguez@uwe.ac.uk

LinkedIn: uk.linkedin.com/pub/patricia-santos-rodriguez/54/207/a97/