Mixed Reality Games

The authors research work deals with the development of new game-based learning (gbl) environments. They think that the way of acquiring knowledge during a learning session is similar to following an adventure in a role-playing game and they apply the metaphor of exploring a virtual world, where each student embarks on a quest in order to collect knowledge related to a learning activity. In their university, the authors have set up numbers of experiments with students using gbl environments. They revealed weaknesses for specific learning activities. Sometimes, learners seem to acquire a skill in the game, but they are not able to reuse it easily in the real world. This is particularly the case for skills that require concrete manipulation of real objects to be acquired. Gbl environments thus lack of means to learn know-how aspects. Some of the learning processes involving real world objects are very difficult to reproduce in gbl environments and there is an essential technological issue in mixing virtual and real aspects in gbl environments. In this article, the authors describe the possible problems that can appear when using this mixed approach, give hints on how to avoid them and illustrate the proposition with examples issued from the electronic domain. The authors focus on issues linked to the transition between virtual and real worlds and they explore how new electronic features can facilitate this mixed approach, where identification, localisation and update of the user models are key issues.