Educational Use of Games: A Mobile Serious Game For History Education

Abstract

Digital media devices and use of Internet have become indispensible parts of our daily lives. We are getting more dependent to use of these technologies and new cohorts are born into digital world. Turkey is populated 79 million, and according to the January 2016 report of "We Are Social Research Institute", 71 Million mobile phones are in active use. The 56% of mobile phones are smart phones and the average duration spent on Internet via smart phones is 2 hours and 35 minutes. In the literature, negative effects of digital media and Internet use on children such as cyber-bullying and addiction were frequently reported. However, it is not reasonable or possible to raise our youngsters in isolated environments. In Turkey, it was reported that 48.5 % of children under age of 10 use Internet for searching educational materials, playing games and chatting. So it is obvious that, in general adults and in special the educators should focus on adaptive uses of digital media in daily lives of children. In the current study, based on the analysis of Internet and digital media use of children specifically in Turkey, a model mobile game on history education was introduced. Educational implications on use of this history-themed serious game were discussed.