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Designing Alien Mysteries in Chatterdale

2015; IGI Global; Linguagem: Inglês

10.4018/978-1-4666-9629-7.ch011

2327-1833

Stella Hadjistassou, Judith Molka-Danielsen,

Digital Storytelling and Education

As part of a larger, three-year long European project, Franziska reflected on her experiences in designing and implementing age-appropriate, immersive learning experiences in the virtual village of Chatterdale in OpenSim. Thirteen-year-old German and Norwegian students learning English as a target language engaged in collaborative goal-driven actions, task-oriented activities, and verbal interactions in a quest to solve a mystery involving extraterrestrials and the local residents' disappearance. Building on Barab, Gresalfi, and Arici's (2009) conceptualization of game-oriented environments as transformational activities, the focus was placed on investigating how the emerging affordances can empower learners and enact opportunities to actively participate in these game-driven learning experiences and mold the content and context. The study illustrated that the design of this virtual Chatterdale science fiction scenario was student-instigated, while students' quest to unravel the mystery afforded opportunities for active involvement and collaborative actions, engagement in verbal exchanges, and interaction with content and context.