From traditional e learning to location based gaming – The engaging climate and environment tutorial

Beskrivelse

The engaging climate and environmental tutorial, is a location based educational game, developed by the Danish Military defence, as part of the large scale project Green Military Establishments.
Energy consumption and environmental issues are already fully integrated themes in the curriculum of Danish soldiers, when they begin their military education. Traditionally, the soldiers have completed an extensive e-learning session in both environmental and energy related matters, however experience show that whilst the course covers all the required content, the soldiers struggle to connect the course material to their actual work practice. What is learned while seated in front of the computer is not necessarily put to practice outside and as a result, use and maintenance of buildings and military establishments remains an extensive amount of the collective energy consumption within the Danish Military Defence.
As part of large scale initiative to motivate a sustainable behaviour change amongst not only the soldiers in training, but also the employees serving on long term contracts, a pilot study is now exploring the potential of location based gaming as an alternative to traditional e-learning. The design of the game is based on a cross field between gamification, multi modal communication and persuasive design, and aims to teach the soldiers what they need to learn, when they are at the location where they are expected to behave in a specific way.
In the game, the soldiers are sent orienteering, and presented with information and different tasks once they reach the different locations. The aim is to draw upon persuasive principles such as competition and conditioning and to make the information more relevant and applicable by allowing the learning to take place in a location, which better facilitates the intended learning outcome.
The approach taken to persuasive design in this case is highly linked to the rhetorical notion of Kairos, which refers to the opportune moment as a three dimensional concept that includes the appropriate manner, time and place for an action to take place. Whilst traditional e-learning holds great potential in terms of meeting the appropriate manner requirement, it does not necessarily accommodate the timely and location oriented dimensions of Kairos. Furthermore, traditional e-learning most often allow very little user engagement compared to more constructivist learning approaches.
Although the game is developed within the Danish Military Defence, the ground elements of actively using different locations as part of the persuasive mediation process is already acknowledged and is often referred to as mobile persuasion. The results present from this pilot study are expected to be of benefit in a range of persuasive learning scenarios, as the content of the game may be changed without imposing a conflict towards the behaviour changing potential of the game.


Konferenceoplæg omhandlende udarbejdelsen af persuasive læringsdesogns for det danske forsvar.

Periode	6 dec. 2014 → 10 dec. 2014
Begivenhedstitel	Becc 2014: Behavior Energy and Climate Conference
Begivenhedstype	Konference
Placering	Washington, DanmarkVis på kort