The Concept of ‘Bringing Your Own Device’ in Scaffolded and Augmented Education

Location-based games have enabled new opportunities for augmenting the traditional learning space. In a time when most students have their own smartphones, the concept of bringing your own device (BYOD) also seems promising in educational settings. However, playing at random in augmented reality environments will not automatically bring curriculum-aligned learning outcomes. This chapter analyses and discusses how the combination of BYOD and augmented reality gaming might be scaffolded to support collaborative curriculum-aligned learning. The overall research strategy was a case-study approach with Affordance theory, Social Constructivism and BYOD as theoretical assumptions for deductive analysis. The case units were two outdoor sessions for middle school students with curriculum-aligned assignments in Mathematics and Social Science solved by playing the augmented reality game Pokemon GO. Data have been collected by video recordings of the outdoor sessions with spy glasses and a handheld camera. Results indicate that the augmented reality environment stimulates active learning, but that there like in traditional learning, is a need for scaffolding to achieve the stated learning outcomes.