Digital Heritage 2018 3rd International Congress & Expo

Roundtable discussion followed by a hands-on workshop

Educational tourism can be limited at destination sites for a number of reasons. The sites themselves can be underfunded, which often means they are understaffed or obscure. Informative material may be out of date, damaged, or non-existent. Some sites that offer rich content for tourists may not be readily accessible, contributing to low attendance rates.

Family tourism is a prime venue for educational mobile games, which represents at least 30% of the leisure travel industry. This market is expected to grow significantly as more families use tourism as a way to spend time together and bond. A particular challenge on family tours is that children tend to ignore the exhibits in favor of mobile games and social media.

Augmented Reality experiences engage tourists of all ages with the sites they visit. AR tourism apps also harness mobile devices to enhance the tourism experience rather than distract from it. For informative or educational purposes, games and activities based on the site’s exhibits provide more interactive and memorable learning experiences than informational text or video alone.

For instance, the “Revolutionary Spy” AR game at Mount Vernon in Virginia puts the tourist in the role of a messenger, running secret information between Revolutionary War spymasters. The game personalizes the site’s history, connects several exhibits at the site, and brings the thrill of a “mission” to the subject.

Game interactions can feature a mystery element, letting tourists solve puzzles using obscure or fascinating aspects of the exhibit in context. In Mount Vernon’s Revolutionary Spy game, tourists discover and use actual codes employed by agents in that era. Another example is the British Museum in London, UK, where the 2015 “Gift for Athena” game had young visitors learn about Greek mythology in order to solve visual AR-based puzzles and complete the game.

Educational games and activities can also be multiplayer, providing a fun social aspect for a family or tour group. Different AR experiences or roles can be chosen by different group members; the facts and techniques learned by each person are the combined in order to complete the game.

Workshop Activities (for teams of max size 5):

Teams will design an engaging AR-based educational game to take place at a UNESCO World Heritage Site of their choice, using parameters outlined in the previous discussion and ideation session.
--Game content relevant to the venue
---Player goals
---Site interactions
---Game genre and mechanics
--Educational content
---Site-specific information
---Critical reasoning
---Activity-based learning
--Target audience and venue considerations
Teams will implement a simple AR experience that incorporates educational content for the site they chose for their game. We will supply the AR development environment and relevant AR targets for each team.

3. (Optional based on time) Teams will design an educational game-based AR walking tour for multiple exhibits at the UNESCO site of their game:
--Narrative / thematic game arcs
--Educational connections between exhibits
--Additional game genres and mechanics
--Overall venue layout, AR considerations, and tour constraints

4. (Optional based on time) Teams will design multiplayer aspects of their game (and tour, if applicable):
--Divergent AR experiences at site
--Multiple cooperative roles during game
--In-game social media options

5. Teams will present their work to all attendees at the end of the workshop.