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Designing Learning Experiences Outside of Classrooms
with a Location-based Game Avastusrada
Terje Väljataga1, Ulla Moks1, Anne Tiits1, Tobias Ley1, Mihkel Kangur1, Jaanus
Terasmaa1
1Tallinn University, Narva road 25, 10120, Tallinn, Estonia
terje.valjataga, ulla.moks, anne.tiits, tobias.ley,
mihkel.kangur, jaanus.terasmaa@tlu.ee
Abstract. Mobile technology with numerous affordances provides opportuni-
ties to take learning outside of classrooms, into authentic contexts. This paper
presents a location-based tool – Avastusrada - which allows teachers to easily
create learning tracks by developing different types of tasks connected to spe-
cific locations. The paper reports preliminary results of teachers’ experiences
with the tool and their perceived affordances of the tool for various educational
purposes. In addition, emerged shortcomings of the tool and further suggestions
for improvements will be outlined. The first pilot study with K-12 school teach-
ers and students demonstrated that the tool has a great potential to be used in
outdoor formal learning contexts because of its ease of use and its potential to
enhance numerous competencies outlined in the national curriculum.
Keywords: Outdoor learning, Location-based application
1. Introduction
The most important developments in the area of education in formal and informal
settings in Estonia is defined by The Estonian Lifelong Learning Strategy 2020,
which in addition to other aspects stresses the importance of achieving concordance
between learning content, objectives and learning outcomes outlined in curricula as
well as taking formal and informal learning activities outside of the school environ-
ments, into authentic settings to enrich learning processes. The strategy also empha-
sises the use of digital technology (including bring your own device concept) and
availability of digital learning resources as catalysts to make learning more engaging
and efficient. Numerous studies have demonstrated that learning scenarios and tools
with competitive and gamified components arouse learners’ interest and motivation to
engage in learning tasks [2; 4; 6; 7]. However, a variety of applications have been
developed mainly for classroom settings. Without a question taking learning outdoors
creates challenges for teachers on many different levels: orchestrating distributed
learning settings [1]; managing technology and BYOD; letting students to take hold
of their culture of learning and shaping it to be more participatory, communicative,
collaborative and digital [3]; designing learning scenarios in which knowledge build-
2
ing [5] happens through outdoor adventure tracks. The paper presents a location-
based tool, which provides teachers an option to easily and quickly design adventure
tracks outside of physical classrooms. The results from the first pilot study with
teachers and students will be reported.
2. Avastusrada - A Location-Based Tool
Avastusrada is a web-based tool, which allows creating location-based learning
tracks. Using it requires a smart-phone or a tablet, which has an Internet connection
(WiFi, 3G or 4G) that allows making use of the GPS location service (Fig. 1-a).
a) b)
Fig. 1-a, b. An example of a track in Avastusrada.
The tool offers a list of templates for creating different types of tasks, such as multiple
choice answers, free form answers, etc. In order to monitor what is going on in the
track and how students have progressed, the teacher can see submitted answers of
every location point by every student (or student groups) and provide feedback. The
tool also currently displays simple statistics (the number of players, location points,
time for completing the track etc.). The location points with tasks get activated when
students reach close enough to the particular location and will be turned to blue as
soon as the answer to the task has been submitted (Fig. 1-b). In that way the tool helps
to keep track on which points have been solved already. Depending on how the track
has been defined, the students can visit location points randomly or in a predefined
order.
3. Piloting Avastusrada with Teachers
The study presented here is the first phase of a more comprehensive research on
gamified learning and knowledge building on the move in authentic contexts with the
help of a simple, light-weight location-based tool. The overall research design follows
3
a design-based research approach with the emphasis on exploring the use cases and
possibilities for designing and implementing learning scenarios with mobile devices
in formal educational outdoor settings. 6 teachers of a K-12 school participated in the
pilot study. During the participatory design sessions 4 different tracks (physical edu-
cation, technology (materials), science and an integrated track encompassing various
subjects such as science, math, art and Estonian) were developed in the neighborhood
of the school territory and implemented in the lessons. Subsequently, the teachers’
experiences and ideas were collected through recorded semi-structured interviews.
The main focus of the interviews was to explore: What are the perceived possibilities
of making use of Avastusrada in formal educational settings and integrating subjects
into coherent learning scenarios? What is the perceived added value of Avastusrada?
To what extent Avastusrada can support the achievement of learning goals? The fol-
lowing main themes emerged from the interview data: 1) Suitability for different
subjects. Being different subject teachers, they all confirmed that the tool could be
easily used to design learning activities outside of the classroom or even for integrat-
ing various subjects. The immediate use case of the tool was seen as a way to repeat
and revise the material covered during the semester, however, one teacher pointed out
“Only the teacher’s fantasy and creativity are what set the limits”. 2) Competence
advancement. The tool supported the advancement of numerous general competen-
cies set out in the National Curriculum. Group work activities created an excellent
opportunity for students to share and apply their technological know-how related to
their devices, but also make use of their communication and social skills besides of
the subject related knowledge. The teachers noticed that the students were more eager
to work in groups and move as “squads” from one location to another one. 3) Per-
ceived additional benefits. Being something new and exciting for the students,
teachers noticed that they were eager to test the tool out with their own devices. Test-
ing the students’ knowledge and skills was somehow hidden in the overall learning
activity, thus reducing the pressure on students. Using the tool, it created an internal
desire for the students to outperform each other, creating a gamified experience. Two
of the teachers claimed that the tool takes far less preparation time for an outdoor les-
son, for instance in comparison to other similar initiatives. Yet another important as-
pect for the teachers was its option to receive immediate feedback from the students’
submissions. 4) Challenges. As expected, some common usability and technical is-
sues emerged as well, such as batteries running empty, not having data packages (in
our case, the school WIFI didn’t cover the whole area where the tracks had been
planned) or not knowing how to turn on geo-location services in one’s phone. In addi-
tion to teachers’ time concern, some of them acknowledged that they themselves were
the greatest obstacle because of their limited technological knowledge and rather
fixed mindset of what makes a good lesson design. 5) Suggestions for tool im-
provements. One of the teachers proposed: “It would be nice to have a notification
appearing when arriving at the next location point”, another suggested that the tool
could form student groups automatically and enable to create more complicated prob-
lem-solving tasks. These suggestions have been forwarded to the developers and are
in consideration.
4
4. Conclusions and Future Steps
The first phase of the presented study shows promising results to continue with the
tool development for formal learning purposes. Being a subject-neutral tool, Avastus-
rada can be used to design meaningful learning experiences for different (integrated)
subjects on the move. Quite a lot depends here on teachers’ mindsets and what makes
up a good lesson design (accepting that learning can happen through gaming and fun
activities). The study showed the teachers and students’ curiosity and excitement,
however, there is a chance to be one time effect. We believe, that the wide range of
task types and the opportunity to change locations of the tracks should reduce this
concern tremendously. The second phase of the study will be focusing on a bigger
group of teachers attempting to create coherent meaningful learning tracks while inte-
grating different subjects. Another challenge we foresee is to design orchestration
tools that could provide teachers with data that help them to cope with 20 or 30 stu-
dents in distributed outdoor settings. Our ultimate goal is to design interventions that
intend to facilitate learner-generated design, i.e. to give students the role of the creator
and let them learn through designing their own learning experiences, i.e. choose loca-
tions, create tasks and turn them into tracks.
Acknowledgement: This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon
2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 669074
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