Games Atelier

• The Netherlands

The Games Atelier project was developed by Waag Society, in collaboration with five local secondary schools in Amsterdam and the Amsterdam City Department for Social Development.

"Maatschappelijke Sectoren & ICT" (Society Sectors and ICT) is an action programme of the Dutch Ministry of Economics which launched a call for proposals to fund ICT-related projects starting at the end of 2006. Twenty-three projects were funded from the education sector, and seven out of twenty-three education projects were focused on electronic games, one of which was Waag Society’s Games Atelier project.

The Games Atelier is a location-based mobile game platform allowing students to make and play their own games in an authentic context. It uses a learner-centred approach, and encourages self-motivation, as students create their own game according to their personal context and environment. It is supported by a mobile and web-based tool-set, and a technology platform tailored to location-based projects called 7Scenes www.7scenes.com.

The Games Atelier gives students the opportunity to use mobile telephones, GPS, and Internet to make, play, share, and review their own games. To make the game, students have to think of an initial concept and game narrative, before developing rules and filling in the format of the game. In this first creative phase of making the game, in order to come up with a relevant game narrative, students must fully familiarize themselves with the learning content of the subject. At the same time, to develop rules and fill in the game format, they also have to learn about the principles of game design. The next stage is for the students to play the game in their own living environment. Playing the game involves using mobile phones and GPS to navigate their way around their surroundings to carry out assignments and search for clues. Sharing the game means getting other students to play the game they have made, and then to exchange their experiences. The final and crucial stage of the Games Atelier learning process is reviewing the games played.

The Games Atelier has been developed in collaboration with teachers and students for teachers and students, and has specifically been designed to be used as a tool to enhance the teaching of the existing Dutch national curriculum. It allows for maximum flexibility in terms of how it is used as a learning resource in the school context. Firstly, it can be used in any location to enhance the teaching of any subject. It can also be used with small or large groups, during lessons, or as a wider school activity. In order to suit different school timetable constraints, Games Atelier has been designed so that it can be used in small, medium, or large sessions. The problem-based approach on which the game is built requires students to collaborate with one another in order to be successful. From the 1st of April 2009, Games Atelier will be available for all schools to buy from the national online software distributor for secondary education.

Game Atelier's present target audience is secondary school students. However, a pilot project to develop Games Atelier for primary schools is also currently underway, and licences for vocational and higher education will also be made available later in 2009.

• Technical
• Pedagogical

Games Atelier is a location-based mobile game platform. It is supported by a mobile and web-based tool-set and technology platform tailored to location-based projects called 7Scenes. The 7Scenes software used for The Games Atelier gives students a location-based authoring environment which they can use to create their own mobile games. Based on different game templates, students can add photos, videos, sound, notes and tasks to specific locations on a map and create narratives around them. The students can then subsequently publish their games online, set up teams and create a competition. Using a mobile application and GPS, players navigate the city, follow the narrative, collaborate with other team players, carry out assignments and record and upload media to score points. Their game is then broadcast live on the web and archived so that they can play back the entire gameplay and reflect on the different processes that took place, including the routes they took, the sites they encountered and the media they created. In order to make their own game with Games Atelier, students can choose between three game templates: Secret Trail, Collect and Trade, and Adventure. Each game template has its own set of rules and levels of difficulty.

From 1 April 2009, Games Atelier will be available for all schools to buy from the national online software distributor for secondary education. See: www.slbdiensten.nl. Buying the Games Atelier licence package also includes free training for teachers from Waag Society staff, both on the school premises and at the Waag Society. Initially, it will be up to schools to use their own budget to invest in buying the Games Atelier licence. However, in the future, public bodies such as the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science or national cultural organizations may choose to purchase the licence and make it widely available to all schools.

he development of the Games Atelier has been based on the technology and the evaluation of 'Frequency 1550', a game previously developed by Waag Society. See the academic articles about this previous project below:

• Akkerman, S., Admiraal, W., & Huizenga, J. (2008) Storification in History education: A mobile game in and about medieval Amsterdam, Computers & Education, (In press). Accessible at: www.ilo.uva.nl/homepages/wilfried/docs/CAE_2008_online.pdf
• Admiraal, W, R. Lenz. R. van Zeijts, H. (2008) Games Atelier. Location-Based Gaming: The City as Your Playground, Online Educa Book of Abstracts, pp. 211-215
• Raessens, J. Playing History. Reflections on Mobile and Location-Based Learning. In: Hug, T. (ed.) Didactics of Microlearning. Concepts, Discourses, and Examples. Münster: Waxmann Verlag, pp. 141-160.
• Admiraal, W. Akkerman, S. Huizenga, J. tenDam, G.T.M., Cognitive and Affective Effects of Learning History by Playing a Mobile Game, Proceedings of the 2nd European conference on games-based learning, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain, 16-17 October 2008, pp. 211

For a description of the Frequency 1550 project and its results, see: http://www.waag.nl

• It has been decided that the Universities of Amsterdam and Utrecht will again undertake academic research on the learning effects of Games Atelier (as they did for Frequency 1550), but this time focus on the impact of creating as well as playing the location-based game. The research will be part of a larger 4-year research programme on location-based playful learning in secondary education, particularly targeting the impact on usability, learning and engagement.

• For a full description of the Games Atelier see: ''How are digital games used in schools?' (European Schoolnet, 2009), pp. 44-51. Available at: http://games.eun.org