Friday, January 21, 2022

Winter Camp: Phone Treasure Hunt



Getting students to create an AR-based and GPS enabled phone treasure hunt that players need to work together and move between different locations in KMJH to solve the riddles 

 

A total of 36 gifted students signed up as part of their winter camp activities. They were engaged throughout the whole session as planned, the end product of creating a scavenger hunt of their own completed. The learning objectives include:  

  • going through the clues and answering the questions with their phones as a team
  • learning how to add a map and devise challenges on the website
  • reflecting on each other's treasure hunt and elaborating on what they learned

 

The request of supporting this winter camp came on such short notice, but luckily I happened to attend a workshop a few days ago and learned about this wonderful platform, 宜蘭縣學習地圖教學應用平台. With a teacher's educational account, you can have full access to creating a GPS-enabled map of your choice and managing your students' learning outcomes. Then, students can have fun learning some English, math, science, you name it, with the Augmented Reality feature. 

 

Planning a treasure hunt may seem like an overwhelming task, but this homegrown app from Ilan County made it a lot easier. Those students working in groups of 4 finished their first version within an hour or so. Not trying out all the features, but a few extension ideas came to mind: 

  • getting students to make an English-speaking short video to introduce the school campus
  • using that video as a clue for players to find the answer
  • having a clearer picture of a tourist spot, including its history, location, activities, feelings, and reasons why people like it after the game
  • engaging anybody who visits KMJH for the first time immediately 

 

It was indeed a pleasant view in the classroom and around the school that students were motivated and excited to find the exact locations and hidden clues, submit photos, and solve riddles. To make it related to English learning more, maybe I can use one of these apps and teach in an EMI-based way next time.     (AR)


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