Eric Klopfer: Augmented Learning: Research and Design of Mobile Educational Games

Abstract

The history of educational technologies is one of ups, downs and far too many 'no significant effects.' Resnick (2002) writes "In most places where new technologies are being used in education today, the technologies are used simply to reinforce outmoded approaches to learning... ideas about and approaches to teaching and learning remain largely unchanged" (p. 32). To properly investigate the impact of these technologies, a holistic approach to investigating their uses is needed an approach that looks not only at what they can replace, but what affordances they bring and how they can shape the learning and teaching that takes place in the classroom. Into this environment comes Eric Klopfer' s Augmented Learning, published by the MIT Press in 2008. Klopfer' s stated goal for Augmented Learning, to describe "the educational and gaming landscapes" in which mobile learning games are located, directly responds to Resnick' s critique. In Augmented Learning, Klopfer situates us in the larger culture that surrounds the field of educational mobile games. He offers us the historical antecedents of mobile learning games and discusses how they can respond to and shape today's learning needs. By situated the field both historically and culturally in this wider context, Klopfer lays a strong foundation for his assertion that mobile learning games have potential "to make a substantial impact on education" (p ix). While much of the literature on technology integration in education stems from a 'solution looking for a problem,' Klopfer begins his narrative more appropriately by discussing the changing climate in which education exists today: new priorities, philosophies and strategies.