Case Study
Situated Documentaries
In a situated documentary teams of learners visit a real or virtual location to investigate a historical event using mobile technologies to interact with virtual characters, artifacts and media. The goal is to examine the complexities of the event and assess accepted narratives by providing the learner with a different experience of them. Situated documentaries provide a platform from which communities of learners can share interpretation through dialogue extend their conclusions to different scenarios.
“The Situated Documentary allows learners to experience the reaction of a real life event … they work in harmony with technology to interact with information and to experience the world in new ways.”
Louis Lopez
Luis Lopez on Situated Documentaries
Example: ARIS: Dow Day: A Situated Documentary About Two Days in 1967
ARIS is a mobile App used to create and play situated documentaries. The simple interface provides 5 buttons that the user can use to personalize their experience of the event.
The ‘Quests’ button describes the background, setting and scenario, and outlines the user’s situated role and task.
The “GPS” button guides the user through the environment to locations where virtual characters pop-up, provide information and answer questions similar to iPhone’s Siri. Certain questions unlock more information. The GPS button also directs the user to augmented reality lay-over pictures that can show the view from a particular perspective from another time in history while the user looks from the same vantage point in real time.
These digital artifacts are can also be accessed through QR codes for online visitors.
Augmented Reality and Interactive Storytelling (ARIS)
The “Virtual Inventory Button” allows the user to collect video footage, photos and virtual artifacts other locations that can be shared with collaborators. This information can be further marked-up, embedded in a place finder or imported to a Google KML file for display in Google Earth, using the “More” button.
Resources
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Online Colleges Blog: How Situated Documentaries Transform Online Learning. Available online:
http://www.onlinecolleges.net/how-situated-documentaries-transform-online-teaching-and-learning/
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UW-M Engage: Transforming Teaching and Learning Through Technology: What is Situated Learning? Available online:
http://www.onlinecolleges.net/how-situated-documentaries-transform-online-teaching-and-learning/
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Transmedia Futures: Situated Documentary via Augmented Reality. Available online:
http://www.personalizemedia.com/transmedia-futures-situated-documentary-via-augmented-reality
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Gagnon, David. ARIS: An Open Source Platform fro Developing Mobile Learning Experience. Available online:
http://arisgames.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/ARIS-Gagnon-MS-Project.pdf
Preview of the Dow Day player experience