The International Technology, Education and Development (INTED) Conference

Place-based augmented reality games for education are an emerging type of learning tool that integrate game-design principles and scenarios, and incorporate rich media content. Users employ location-aware mobile devices to receive context-sensitive information and explore the environment in a field-based setting. A principle benefit of these types of location-based learning activities over traditional classroom and lab-based experiences is that the learning objective is not memorization of facts and theories, but rather, inquiry and analysis. This paper presents the design of a model from the University of Guam used to raise student awareness and provide teacher training in environmental resource issues by presenting learning in a game-like scenario; designed to immerse youth of the island in environmental issues that influence their daily lives. A toolkit for developing educational place-based augmented reality games is discussed, with an overview of the capabilities of two applications for building mobile educational games: CyberTracker and Create-A-Scape. The benefits and drawbacks of each, related to teacher and student ease of use, are discussed. Examples of educational use are provided for each tool.