On September 15, the workshop on Designing and Facilitating Educational Location-based Applications took place as part of EC-TEL 2020, the annual conference of the European Association of Technology Enhanced Learning (EATEL). The workshop was designed jointly by employees from the AuCity2 and DigiLab4U projects. The topic of the workshop – educational location-based apps (ELAs) – is relevant from the point of view of both projects: from AuCity2 point of view, the use of augmented reality should be mentioned, while DigiLab4U Participated through the game approach.

 

The half-day workshop was carried out online and consisted of two parts: In the first part, a total of eight scientific contributions were presented, while in the second part, the networking of up to 22 participants was promoted through brainstorming activities. The contributions submitted were subjected to a peer review by an international review panel specially requested for the workshop. The following contributions were presented:

 

Session 1: Location-based Games: 21st Century Skills and Didactic History

 

  • Learning Social Skills and Acquiring Social Capital through Pervasive Gaming Sampsa Rauti, Samuli Laato, Tarja Pietarinen
  • Secrets of the South: A Location-based Game for the Development of 21st Century Social Skills and Promotion of Social Interaction Xavier Fonseca, Stephan Lukosch, Frances Brazier
  • Aristotle, Comenius, Dewey, Plato and Pokémon GO: Walking with Location-based Games in the Footsteps of Didactic Giants Peter Mozelius, Jimmy Jaldemark, Andreas Hellerstedt

 

Session 2: Didactic Designs for Educational Location-based Apps

 

  • Collaborative educational location-based activities with no teacher supervision: Design Implications Mariano Velamazán, Patricia Santos, Davinia Hernández-Leo
  • Location-based Apps in Environmental Engineering Higher Education: A Case Study in Technical Infrastructure Planning Mario Wolf, Florian Wehking, Heinrich Söbke, Jörg Londong
  • Designing and Implementing a Gamified Educational Location-based Application for Raising Awareness on Sustainability Issues Among Students Ioana Andreea Stefan, Jannicke Baalsrud Hauge, Ancuta Florentina Gheorge, Antoniu Stefan

 

Session 3: Learning and Virtualization of Location-based Apps

 

  • User-Centered Evaluation of the Learning Effects in the Use of a 3D Gesture Control for a Mobile Location-Based Augmented Reality Solution for Maintenance Moritz Quandt, David Hippert, Thies Beinke, Michael Freitag
  • Virtualization of Virtual Field Trips: A Case Study from Higher Education in Environmental Engineering Christian Springer, Florian Wehking, Mario Wolf, Heinrich Söbke

 

Technically, the video conferencing system was supported by the Slack communication platform, in which the results of the workshop can be followed up in addition to the proceedings. The workshop was able to build on the content of previous workshops held in attendance and is thus a continuation of a series of events, including 2016 in Vienna, Austria and 2019 in Arequipa, Peru. With the successful execution of the workshop, the already existing knowledge about the different aspects of the use of ELAs could be further refined and common interests could be identified among the participants, which will provide a good basis for future events.