Over the past five or so years I have spent a great deal of time and energy developing Serious Games with 3D game engines and a variety of tools such as Maya and Studio Max.  The first difficulty my team encountered with this approach was the incompatibility of tools and as a result the cross platform-ness of the games.  Furthermore we has difficulties with the poor computer specs in universities and school computer labs.  Games wouldn’t run because of slow networks or basically non-existent graphics cards.

Now I previously held the believe that if I pursued my cause to bring high quality 3D Serious Games to “all”  that eventually home computers and school computer labs would be up to spec.  However I’m not sure that this will ever be the case.  The first laptop I had in my new job which had an integrated graphics chip and was supposed to run 3D games was challenged by many applications.  Applications move forward developed on better and better machines and school and home users may never catch up.

I’ve just read another part of Klopfer’s “Augmented Learning” book.  In it he tells the story of a regular school class in the US trying to get some quality time in a school computing lab.  After reading his account of locked lab rooms, lost passwords, long profile loading times, absence of lab techs and missing software I realised my experiences in Australia were nothing out of the ordinary.  In one class I remember students having to wait 15 minutes for their profiles to load before they could do any work… and watch out if they tried to load the Microsoft Development Support library.  The solution to this problem, I was told, was to get the students to come to class 15 minutes early to log in !!

At my current university students are required to have laptop computers.  This solves a lot of the before mentioned problems, however in most schools and universities it is not practical or fair to insist students have their own machines.

Instead of battling a situation that may never change, Klopfer’s research team has the most innovative idea towards achieving a critical mass for games in the classroom: using mobile devices and bring the games to the students.  Even more than that, the games are quite elementary with respect to graphics and audio when compared to the latest block buster video games, but their educational value is far superiour.

This brings be to the first value of “Augmented Learning”: using technology to improve student experiences in the classroom by facilitating authentic and immersive learning experiences.  Students and teachers get to stay in their familiar educational surroundings and not forced to mould to the technology.  Educational practice dictates how technology is used and not the technology dictating how education will work.