Fastest First! and Crisis! Creating Innovative Mobile Learning Games on the Basis of Quiz Templates

We present the design and implementation of a framework for pedagogically controlled modelling of learning games to be played on the mobile phone. The game concepts are grounded in pedagogical theory and adjusted to the technical capabilities of current standard mobile phones. The mobile phone is used for playing the games. Authoring and administration of the games takes place on a dedicated web server, as well as monitoring the progress of individual learner’s and learning groups, and the exchange between the learners. We introduce two game models: the quiz “Fastest First!” and the simulation game “Crisis!”. The game models form the basis for templates which can be filled with concrete content by the game author via an authoring page on a web server. Based on the authored game templates, the game instances for playing on the mobile phone are automatically generated by the system, and can then be uploaded to the mobile phones by the players/learners. With the presented game concepts we intend to combine learning and game playing so that learning becomes fun. An important aspect of the proposed learning games is stimulating learning through activity. The specific learning goals addressed are: remembering, understanding, applying, judgement and analysing. The simulation game, in particular, targets contextualization of the learning game along the lines of real crisis situations, and models the consequences the user activities have in the game for the user him-/herself and for others.