Role Playing and location based games in Higher Ed SCVNGR

Goal:

Provide a new innovative and engaging way of learning for Gen-Ed students.

How it can be done?

Students can play a game and learn in the same time.
For example they can pick their own character, get achievements, badges based on their activities.

What software can we use?

Some time ago I found a website about using scavanger hunt game for the orientation purposes (http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/mobile-game-turns-college-tours-and-orientations-into-scavenger-hunts/33114?sid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en)

For those purposes they are using product called scvngr (http://www.scvngr.com/). SCVNGR is currently used by Duke University, Boston College, Yale University and many more (http://www.scvngr.com/clients)

Watch the You Tube video to see how it’s used at UofL Cardinal College
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mm6dMLe5f-w&feature=player_embedded

How can we use it?
Game is built upon challenges, rewards and treks.

Challenges:
We need to come out with different challenges for our students. For now you can pick from four different types of challenges:

• Open Responses allows for open responses from the students.
• Specific Response require specific answer or answer set
• Photo Challenges require users to snap a photo.
• QR Challenges players need to scan a QR code at particular location to pass the challenge

Each challenge can contain multimedia like images, audio or video, ( so we can embed instructional material in it)

Rewards:
We can reward user for getting for getting some amount of points. Think about Math Students, they can get for example Pitagoras award for their accomplishments.

Treks:
Treks connect places and challenges into themed and branded paths. For example, the “Boston’s Best Baristas” trek is a set of all the best coffee houses in Boston with a challenge featured at each one. Treks can be done casually over time or all at once. Players can choose to visit the places and do the challenges in the order listed, or in whatever order they choose. Each trek has its own leaderboard and activity stream.

Pricing:
You can create and use up to 5 challenges for free. For details about pricing contact the: sales@scvngr.com

Assessment and tracking:
Small business and Enterprise versions have analytics tool that allows to track user’s activities. Furthermore you can create and export reports for Challenges, Rewards, and Places.

Summary:
Some things are still not completely clear, for example analytics, tracking student progress, playing in groups but it seems that product has a lot of potential. Building challenges, rewards, and treks is extremely easy and it can be done by anybody.