Haphazard Journey by Starlight

PLAN, The Pervasive and Locative Arts Network are an international and interdisciplinary research network bring together practicing artists, technology developers and ethnographers with the aim of advancing interdisciplinary understanding and building consortia for future collaborative projects.

Their first gathering in Feb 2005, opened my mind to the enormous potential and challenges for location-based media, and how this might effect its use in education.

They are now hosting their final gathering - a Social Technologies Summit, at the Futuresonic festival in Manchester next weekend. I see many of the same names talking that were there in the last so I'm less excited about going along, but what interests me more is the exhibiton Off the Map running alongside it - it's free (dont' get confused like me and think entrance costs £45!. It includes work by Urban Tapestries and the Waag society, both organisations have made a huge contribution to the use of locative media for educational purposes.

I'm praying for hands-on. I rarely manage to get to locative events which are usually one-offs, time and place-based. Watching videos of other people enjoying locative media misses the point.

Posted by Celinelj at 08:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Want to make your own location-based experience or game? Although we're all looking to make these available through mobile phones, the easiest way to get started is to take advantage of the free tools available for creating experiences supported by a PDA.

There are three that you can try for yourself for free:

Mobilebristol Authoring Tool full version

Birmingham Universities Caerus

MITs Charles River City Tool

There are of course pros and cons to each depending on your goal:

Caerus is probably the simplest to use requiring no coding, however setting up the map is tricky (requiring a site visit), it cannot simulate the experience before piloting for real, and it is the most limited in application; create a tour guide with on demand audio and images, the simplest of treasure hunts, but little else.

Mobile Bristol is still a little difficult to set up in terms fo mapping coordinates but it can be done at your computer. The author requires you get to grips with some extremely basic coding (that children would be able to pick up without any problem), witht the option to do more complex conditional actions if you want to learn more. Once you've got to grips with the first steps its a much more flexible tool that can interface with Flash giving you a whole world of possibilities

MITs RiverCity Editor is probably the most dificult of the tools to pick up however it does not require you to learn ocde and with some effort, it's possible to create highly complex and engaging murder mystery style simulations.

Posted by Celinelj at 07:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Want to make your own location-based experience or game? Although we're all looking to make these available through mobile phones, the easiest way to get started is to take advantage of the free tools available for creating experiences supported by a PDA.

There are three that you can try for yourself for free:

Mobilebristol Authoring Tool full version

Birmingham Universities Caerus

MITs Charles River City Tool

There are of course pros and cons to each depending on your goal:

Caerus is probably the simplest to use requiring no coding, however setting up the map is tricky (requiring a site visit), it cannot simulate the experience before piloting for real, and it is the most limited in application; create a tour guide with on demand audio and images, the simplest of treasure hunts, but little else.

Mobile Bristol is still a little difficult to set up in terms fo mapping coordinates but it can be done at your computer. The author requires you get to grips with some extremely basic coding (that children would be able to pick up without any problem), witht the option to do more complex conditional actions if you want to learn more. Once you've got to grips with the first steps its a much more flexible tool that can interface with Flash giving you a whole world of possibilities

MITs RiverCity Editor is probably the most dificult of the tools to pick up however it does not require you to learn ocde and with some effort, it's possible to create highly complex and engaging murder mystery style simulations.

Posted by Celinelj at 07:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

the ULTIMATE list of locative media and...

the portal to my world

Posted by Celinelj at 05:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

my MA papers:

An investigation into the value of Location-based games, May 2006

Location-based games show great promise in supporting powerful learning experiences, however a thorough exploration of their value can be difficult, especially when there is no established criteria by which to judge the value of games-based learning in general.

Eager to see a more rigorous examination I strive in this paper to clarify the unique challenges and benefits of location-based games for learning illustrated from both a theoretical and practical perspective. I begin by establishing a framework on which to base my discussion building on James Paul Gee’s Games-Based Learning Principles, develop this through an exploration of key research and examples and extend the theoretical study with a discussion of my own experiences designing and testing a historic location-based game for learning in partnership with Museum in Docklands.

The results highlight benefits, challenges and areas where further research would be valuable as well as revealing how the medium has begun to expand our understanding of the power of games as a whole.

Augmented Reality Training Simulation Games February 2005
This paper tries to give an overview of the field, exploring why we need them, what they are and where they might best be used.

Posted by Celinelj at 08:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

MobileBristol have created a spot on Frappr for all new projects...

Posted by Celinelj at 08:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

When I started explorating location-based experiences I struggled to understand the huge range of software and hardware available. Here's what I hope is a clear intro for anyone who's in a similar position. If you notice mistakes or think it needs updating, feel free to comment!

Introduction to location-based technologies.

Posted by Celinelj at 05:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)