martes, 5 de junio de 2012

Treasure Hunt: "Views and Sounds from Murcia"

Hello, we are Broken Dreams group from the subject called Research and ICT (#RICT1112). We are studying the first year of Bilingual Primary Education Degree at the University of Murcia, in which RICT is included as a subjet for the second semester.Broken Dreams is constituted by two members: Cristina Belmonte Aranda and Juan Martínez Vivancos. 
Next, you can see "Views and Sounds from Murcia" Treasure Hunt which is the Gymkhana which we have made but also the Treasure Hunt which we have solved, called "Alfonso X The Wise", made by Chalk Drivers group.


                                                                                                  Thank you very much,
                                                                                                           Broken Dreams.


 Treasure Hunt: "Views and Sounds from Murcia"

General Description and Instructions (it includes level, knowledge, age, clues, POI's...)

Treasure Hunt: Views and Sounds from Murcia

The solving process of "Views and Sounds from Murcia"
Solving process

Assessment 

“Views and Sounds from Murcia” Treasure Hunt (TH) has been made by Broken Dreams Group from ICT subject at the University of Murcia.
In this project, we have tried to give the best of ourselves and we think that it is quite evident the amount of work which there is behind this task.
First of all, we have to say that, maybe, we have not focused the activity as other groups, that is, we have not included “funny things” as recording videos or having to ask for help to unknown people from the city. Being honest, we thought about also implementing these tasks to our TH but, we have to be realistic, in the current case of our project, we have created an activity which is accurate for children who are 9 and 10 years old (second cycle of Primary Education) and, probably, a 10 years old child can record a video in a perfect way but, for example, asking for help can turn into a danger action, more even when a kind lend the smartphone to a person to take a photo of this child with his/her rest of the group.
“Views and Sounds from Murcia” TH has been created in a war that does not need outside need to make the activity, except the help of the teacher and, in fact, if we decided to make this activity with children right now we could not have any problem about adapting the content or tasks to People and Institutions variables of Curriculum Implementation since the activity has already made thinking about the true addressee: school children, not only students of Bilingual Primary Education. Therefore, this is the main reason because we have not included this kind of requirements.
On the other hand, taking into account some aspects about the activity, our TH is constituted by 20 POI’s but only 10 of them are right. To get a new POI children have to answer questions and, again, questions may seem quite easy but we have to think about the knowledge’s level of a 10 years old child. Furthermore, the final question is not also difficult and clues, sometimes, have been written “in a metaphoric way” giving personality to the Bell Tower of the Cathedral in order to make the riddle more interesting and exciting. All clues are not really necessary but they help to get the final question easier.
The methodology of the activity is pretty simple: using Layar, Layar redirects you to a webpage with information about the POI and the place where the QR Code is hidden, looking for the QR Code, using a QR Code Reader and the Code will redirect you to a question about the place where you are, answers are always places and, consequently, if you chooses the correct answer you will have to go the place which you have chose, which is the correct POI, and vice verse.
As a negative point of the activity, we would have to admit that some images used in videos as well as images used in Instructions presentation have license but, please, the whole activity has been made only by two people, it was really impossible to spend more time in Murcia also taking photos about each place (more even one of the members, Cristina, is from Cartagena). Obviously, this is not an excuse because we have not used all images with free license but it is an important reason which explains the action.  
We created 5 videos about: Floridablanca Garden, Peligros’s Bridge, Verónicas Market, Flowers’ Square and Cardenal Belluga Square. Videos are about a presentation with images about the place and, in the description of the video we have enclosed further information about the POI and also the QR Code location.
As far as grammar and spelling is concerned, we have tried to correct and revise our writings several times in order to avoid confusions or understanding problems. Both, videos and writings have been made taking into account the level of children.
Furthermore, we have to admit our topic is really wide and it can be interpreted in tons of ways, choosing some places or other ones. In reference to this point, we wanted to include historical places with great landscapes, as Peligros’s Bridge, and also other view of Murcia, as a gastronomic perspective including Verónicas Market. We think that right POI’s are really varied and they show different faces of Murcia.
“Views and Sounds from Murcia” Treasure Hunt has allowed us to know more about our city, not only in terms of landscapes or views but also information and History about the great majority of the POI’s. We could say that we have fulfilled the main purpose of an educative activity: to learn something.

Hakuna Matateros was the group which had to solve our TH. In general terms, no specific need from game masters was required to complete the activity since this project had been elaborated with the purpose that children could make the whole task with enough autonomy and independence, that is, without calling the teacher every time (if we can to promote autonomy, initiative and independence we have to explain the activity to children with enough clarity so they understand the matter and they could make it by themselves). There were not many QR Code absences since they told me the day when they were going to make the activity and we went to Murcia some hours before to stick the Codes because this is best solution to guarantee the codes’ stay.
Layar also worked well since while we were sticking the codes we also checked if the application detected all POI’s and there were no evident problems about its operation. We, as game masters, were available all the time and sometimes we encouraged the labour of Hakuna Matateros group because they solved the TH really well and they did not find any significant trouble.
As conclusion, its work was compensated and they received a treasure which consisted of sweets and candies, they deserved it.

Thanks to this activity we have been aware of how using technology and also integrating knowledge may propitiate new ways of learning in which researching and practice is the base to contribute to make the teaching and learning process as significant. We believe that we will use this kind of activities in the future but, as a point of improvement, the project will have to be reduced in terms of time extension, being adapted to school schedule. 


Extras:

 
 
 

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