EDUTAINMENT IN CARTOGRAPHY

1
EDUTAINMENT IN CARTOGRAPHY
2
Edutainment

• Education entertainment

It is difficult to define its characteristics,
but nowadays if the creators want to be
successful the entertainment part is to be more
evident then the education part. We have to take
into account that without proper guidance, most
users (kids, pupils, students) will deal with
only the most entertaining elements of the
program and neglect the rest.
3
The good edutainment

• Basic elements

• educational content,
• interactive components (real time response),
• attractive interface that can catch the attention
  of the users.

The essence of the games is the interactivity
which practically implemented as the rules of the
game.
4
Early edutainment

• The main types of traditional cartographic
  edutainment are the following

• Puzzle the elements can be equal in size, but
  can be geographic units of the map
  (administrative areas like countries or
  counties).
• Outline (unlettered) map game the players have
  to identify map features, or have to position
  them on a map.
• Cross-words this is the combination of the
  normal cross-word and the outline (unlettered)
  map.

5
Early edutainment
6
Early computer games Commodore
7
Early computer games Amiga
North and South
Storm across Europe
8
Early computer games Atari
Agent USA
Earth viewes
Earth Views is the first program you can buy for
any personal computer that depicts a 3-D image of
the earth in rotation on any axis. It's also a
geography lesson, trivia quiz, atlas and
adventure game.
9
Carmen Sandiego
1986 - Where in the USA is Carmen Sandiego? 1988
- Where in Europe is Carmen Sandiego? 1989 -
Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego? 1991 - Where in
Americas Past is Carmen Sandiego? 1993 - Where
in Space is Carmen Sandiego?
10
Computer games (puzzles)
Asia Map Puzzle
Learn Europe
11
Computer games (edutainment-like)
The game covers the European history from
1419-1820. War, trade, economy, corruption,
rebellions, diplomacy, religion, culture,
colonies, exploration etc. Students should
approach history as a dynamic process see how
facts and events came to be. In the short run the
game is historically accurate, but the inaccuracy
increasing in long run.
Europa Universalis
12
Computer games (edutainment-like)
Civil war
SimCity 4
13
Computer games (orienteering)
Navigate
WinOL
14
CD-ROM as an important step

• From 1985 the CD-ROM has been used as a computer
  storage device, but the price was very high,
  which didnt allow fast distribution. The first
  CD-ROM products for PC-s were different
  dictionaries, handbooks, encyclopedias (e.g.
  Microsoft Bookshelf, 1987).

15
CD-ROM multimedia

• Multimedia was the most promising new function in
  the first part of 90s.
• Sound, video could be part of the product, but at
  that time very few users have invested on real
  multimedia PC-s.

• National Geographic Picture Atlas of the World
  (1992)
• World Atlas (vector maps) Hungary, based on a
  German product (1994)
• Microsoft Encarta (1995)
• Klaus-Perthes Mit Alex CD-ROMS (1997-)

16
CD-ROM edutainment
Mit Alex auf Reisen
Manó Magyarország (Troll series Hungary)
17
Encarta
18
CD-ROM nowadays

• CD-ROM is the common media for software
  distribution. DVD-ROM has much higher capacity,
  but due to the different standards this media is
  still less popular (except movies).
• For edutainment products the internet became more
  important.

19
The web

• In the 80s the Internet was a common place of
  researchers, scientists, peoples in higher
  educations.
• From the beginning of the 90s the web became
  even more important factor of the computer
  industry.
• Since 1995 the web has influenced the development
  of the industry everybody wanted to be present
  on the web, all the software must be connected
  somehow to web based features.

20
The early web development

• The most important factor of the 90s was the
  limited bandwith of internet connection. The
  majority of internet users were able to use only
  modem connection which doesnt let using rich
  multimedia elements. The developments of hardware
  industry were able to improve the connection
  speed of the internet users (including the
  wireless connection).
• When Tim Berners-Lee invented the first browser
  and the whole web strategy in the beginning of
  90s the internet was a very static media. Only
  few standard file formats were supported (html,
  gif, jpg).

21
Web development

• The new techniques of the late 90s, like Flash,
  Java, JavaScript, VRML, SVG let the developers
  using multimedia elements to change the static
  web pages into dynamic websites.
• The standardization effect of the web is also
  very important only the most popular, industry
  standards file formats are accepted (plug-ins can
  give chance for less known formats), but these
  formats can transfer more rich content then ever
  before.

22
Web edutainment - samples
http//www.landkarten-spiele.de/
http//www.dannyg.com/javascript/puzzle/IEmapgame.
htm
23
Web edutainment - samples
http//www.topocopter.com
http//www.agameaday.com/rainfolder/raingame3.htm
24
Web games nowadays

• The new trends can give more chance for
  edutainment in the web environment. Not every
  user is keen on playing complicated, 3D games
  which use virtual reality, but these users prefer
  simple, easy-to-use, non-violent, relatively
  short, intellectual type of entertainment.
• Several websites offer these kinds of games.
• The majority of internet games are using new
  methods the most amazing and recent element of
  internet games is the animation.

25
Honfoglaló (Settler) - A popular web game
http//www.honfoglalo.com
26
Honfoglaló (Settler) - A popular web game
A strategic game-like edutainment about the 1848
Hungarian revolution, 2004 (sponsored by the
Ministry of Education) the engine is based on
Honfoglaló
27
The future of the edutainment
The appearance of the web has altered the map
publishing because on the web the map user is
generally unknown to the map producer, publisher
and their map reading skills are also
unknown. The cartography have more users then
anytime before, so the cartographic edutainment
now has better chance then ever before if we take
into consideration the special opportunities of
the web environment.
28
Thank you for your attention
László ZENTAI Associate Professor laszlo.zentai_at_e
lte.hu
Eszter DOMBÓVÁRI PhD student deszter9_at_hotmail.com
Department of Cartography and Geoinformatics Eötvö
s Loránd University Pázmány Péter sétány 1/A,
Budapest, Hungary