No One will Shut Up about Pokémon Go and You Probably Shouldn't Either
Growing up, I was totally uninterested in Pokémon. Now that I’m an adult woman in her thir . . . aduties, I’m totally into Pokémon Go. Do I understand it? Not one bit. Do I love the possibilities? Definitely. If you have not played Pokémon Go, please do yourself a favour and download it (for free) on Android or iOs, take a walk, and tell me it’s not slightly fun. Also, if you are an educator or at all involved with young people (because, let’s face it, it’s turned into an obsession for people of all ages) you need to hurry up and bank in on Pokémon Go’s moment in the sun. I’m not saying Pokémon Go is the future of education or anything, I’m saying it’s fun, engaging, and would be make a cool tool for differentiated instruction, especially for differently abled or autistic learners (Edit: In fact, I just learned that the creator of Pokémon, Satoshi Tajiri, is on the autism spectrum!).
Okay, so first a little bit about Pokémon Go. It’s an augmented reality app that uses your phone’s camera and GPS signals to force users to actually leave their house and possibly even interact with others to actually play. What? Yeah, outside. With a video game. It’s that place without the TV and limited Wifi connectivity. What’s super neat about Pokémon Go is that, when your camera is activated by the app, the Pokémon looks as if it is right in front of you in your physical surroundings, so a Charmander could show up on your sofa or a bulbasaur could be hanging out at your local bus stop.
Now, augmented reality (aka VR aka Virtual Reality aka THE FUTURE IS HERE) is taking the gaming world by-freaking-storm. The number of apps and games utilizing VR has completely skyrocketed and 2016 is supposedly the year where virtual reality undergoes a gigantic transformative revolution (Fildes, 2015). People are already crazy for devices like Google Cardboard and the Oculus Rift, but at the forefront of this revolution is a mobile game accessible to most people via their smartphones (Andriotis, 2016).
I’m not going to get into the possibilities of VR for education (which are mind-blowingly awesome sauce). I have briefly covered the topic here and will definitely write about it again. Today, it’s all about those pocket monsters we call Pokémon. Now, you may have seen the negative nancy memes criticising people playing the game, but I (and many others) argue for the potential of this attention grabbing game.
Within the game, there are Pokéstops where players can collect free items (for example, a Pokéstop near my place of work gives out free Pokéballs). Pokéstops are often parks, historic landmarks, or monument where local history can be discussed and drawn out. Educators can utilize Pokémon Go as a springboard for urban geography, local history, and just to get kids more involved on sometimes dull field trips. “By encouraging users to seek out these real-world landmarks in person, gamers are noticing their surroundings and absorbing real local history” (Doran & Davis, 2016).
Probably the best suggestions of how to use Pokémon Go in the classroom come from technology educator Kathy Schrock from Discovery Education. Head over to the link if you want to read, but to summarize Schrock has a number of cool suggestions:
360 image those Pokéstops to show classmates and others cool & often historic places around your town
Capture some Pokémon photos around town to undertake some digital storytelling
The app automatically records the time and date of all events that happen to you within the game, so students can use that data for graphing, averaging, and improving their data literacy skills
Of course, mapping and geography is a huge component in this game! Get younger kids learning their compass directions and older kids plotting their Pokémon’s coordinates on a custom google map
Personal reflections on their Pokémon travels turned into a blog, podcast, or other digital medium (Shrock, 2016).
Even Redditors in /r/teachers have debated the merits of using Pokémon Go in their classroom, with some saying it’s an excellent tool for mapping skills and others saying they just like it for the opportunities to get kids a bit more active (AliceTheEducator, 2016).
Other ways I can think of incorporating Pokémon Go:
Going to the zoo? Try finding Pokémon when you’re walking around and have the kids imagine how the Pokémon and the animal(s) live together in the wild. Can you the kids imagine how the different species depend on each other? How would the Pokémon fit into the food chain of the actual animal's ecosystem? What could that Pokémon do to help or hinder the animal in the wild?
Got reluctant writers? Have them think of stories about the Pokémon they find, write a Pokémon etiquette booklet, a field guide, or have them write technical manuals on using the app and finding Pokémon. I imagine Pokétry (Pokémon poetry) will soon show up in some classrooms, as well.
Work on the metric system! Yep, Pokémon is all in metrics, perfect for helping the little learners on practicing their distances (and for helping Americans to convert, which is most likely the real reason Pokémon Go was invented).
Get outside - Take your class outside, find Pokémon, and fit the change of pace into your day - even if it's just for a mental break.
Of course, not everyone digs Pokémon and not every student is going to love the activities you plan, but the future of this type of VR is huge and the possibilities for incorporating this and VR like this is huge (rumour is, a Harry Potter version of Pokémon Go is in the works and my librarian half is bouncingly excited). Seeing how insanely popular Pokémon Go has been, even to an old noob like me, I honestly think there will eventually be an app like Pokémon Go that interests all students.
So, what are you waiting for? Get up and go!
References:
AliceTheEducator. (2016, July). Can Pokemon GO Provide Educational Benefit? Retrieved August 4, 2016 from https://www.reddit.com/r/Teachers/comments/4scnpe/can_pokemon_go_provide_educational_benefit/
Andriotis, N. (2016, July 20). Pokemon Go and Augmented Reality Learning. Retrieved August 04, 2016, from http://www.talentlms.com/blog/augmented-reality-learning/
Doran, L., & Davis, M. (2016, August 2). Educators Weigh Learning Value of Pokémon Go. Retrieved August 04, 2016, from http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2016/08/03/educators-weigh-learning-value-of-pokemon-go.html
Fildes, N. (2015, December 17). 2016 set to be year virtual reality takes off- raconteur.net. Retrieved May 27, 2016, from http://raconteur.net/technology/2016-set-to-be-year-virtual-reality-takes-off
Pappas, S. (2016, July 12). Why Pokemon Go shows the future of learning gamification. Retrieved August 04, 2016, from http://www.educationdive.com/news/why-pokemon-go-shows-the-future-of-learning-gamification-1/423816/
Schrock, K. (2016, July 29). August 2016: Pokémon Go in the classroom. Retrieved August 04, 2016, from http://blog.discoveryeducation.com/blog/2016/07/13/pokemongo/
Wilson, K. (2016, July 25). Pokémon Go for Education by Katie Ann Wilson. Retrieved August 04, 2016, from http://www.quivervision.com/pokemon-go-education-katie-ann-wilson/
