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Collaborative handheld gaming in education
Citation
Paper presented at the International Conference on Educational Technology, Singapore, 2004.
Abstract
This project describes the trialling of a new form of cooperative learning strategy, in
the form of a game known as EcoRangers. EcoRangers is a multi-player game,
designed to run on handphones, written specifically for education. EcoRangers is one
of the first, if not the world’s first, instances of this totally new genre of pedagogical
tools (ie, collaborative handheld educational games).
In its current iteration, EcoRangers is designed to help pupils practise skills of
relevance to the Upper Secondary Social Studies syllabus, specifically through the
pedagogical strategy known as the Structured Academic Controversy, in which
learners debate an open-ended problem from a variety of perspectives.
The trialling was done in Fuchun Secondary School, among twenty Secondary
Three pupils from the Express stream. These pupils were taken through two distinct
fieldwork tasks in March and April 2004, with the game being introduced as part of a
post-fieldwork activity.
Date Issued
September 2004
Project
CRP 14/03 JH