It took me a long time to find something that was digital media learning that no one was doing. Then during spring break, I discovered geocaching. Geocaching is a scavenger hunt; you get coordinates to where a cache is, and you go to the location and try to find the cache. Geocaching is digital media learning because it allows you to use online tools and such to find something in the real world. It also allows people to interact with different communities in order to find different caches. It incorporating game based learn, gamification, civics learning, and core media literacy skills that help the game be fun and meaningful.
Along with bringing this idea of picking up trash there are also digital tools that help bring you to the location and help you fine the cache. When the game first started you would get coordinates and you would go to said coordinates to find the cache. Now there are phone apps that can find all the caches in an area. They will help you get to the coordinate’s and some people will give hits and such on finding their cache. That way even if you did noy have a smart phone, you could still use a GPS to get down to the exact coordinates and just write down the hits. We all have access to a library; therefore, everyone has access to a computer to help them find caches. If the catch has been stolen or missing by most likely muggles you can also figure that out through the community chat on the cache. Everyone who logs the cache, found or not had to comment. When multiple people have problems finding the cache and no one has found it in a while you can report the cache as missing.
Like I was saying earlier about geocaching being learning civics it is also very connected with the community. For starts the community is huge, one of the videos I saw said over thousands are searching. The community is not to private, once you get into geocaching, they are willing to talk to you about it. When I asked the group for help on the paper there were many responses from people and some even helped bring my paper a step further by answering some questions and providing helpful information, despite that I literally had just barely start geocaching. There are also many events that geocaching holds for the community to go to. The idea behind those events is people meeting up for the same purpose of find a cache or even multiple caches. It gives people a chance to get started and learn from people that have been doing is for years. An example of an event that geocaching is host is a camping trip. This summer you can book a site at grand lake and by a pass and then you can participate in this event. This event is a lot bigger than most of these events, but they also have other activities and such that they do together to bond as a community. One thing that I found interesting is that anyone can book a site including muggles. So, they also must keep the event calm of their findings else muggles can discover the finds and damage them. One of my interviews told me that the communities have brought economic benefits to some countries and have creates geo trails. The create the trails to attract the community but they also will have muggles on these trails. That where the volunteering comes back in, they get volunteers from the geocaching community to help them build these geo trails.
Another thing that happens when geocaching is learning which is why it is game based learning. Another thing that we went over in my interview is about learning. They talked about how people can learn how to solve puzzles and hide creatively with geocaching. I also have found out myself that geocaching teaches you how to be more aware of your surroundings. I started geocaching in my home town with couple of friends and I found that these areas that I have been to several times had geocaches in them. It was crazy to me because this game has been around since 2000 and that means for the first 18 to19 years of my life I was unaware that the puzzles and caches were all around me. Another thing that geocaching teaches you is it teaches you how to appreciate the things around you. I have experienced this and so has the person I interviewed; I also was exposed to a video where they talked all about it. These caches bring people to areas and places that they have would have never been to if there were not a cache there. The video talk, talked about this one catch that they found in Yellowstone, where you had to learn about the area around you in order to solve the puzzle and find the cache. The person I interviewed talked about how caches have brought her to wonderful places and that it helps her meet all these different kinds of people.
You could also say that geocaching is also game based learning and civics learning. The article From Information to Experience: Place-Based Augmented Reality Games as a Model for Learning in a Globally Networked Society talks about the difference between gamification and game-based learning. Gamification is where they take something and make a game out of it, while game-based learning is meant to teach you something. Geocaching is both gamification and game-based learning. Its game-based learning because it is meant to teach you about how to properly hid and find things. It also teaches you how to do something around the public without drawing attention. One of the things that the geocaching community does is they refer to the public as muggles. They do this to make you try to not draw attention when you find the catch. If the public sees you there’s a chance of the cache getting stolen or damaged. This is also gamification because its take something like a scavenger hunt and making it global.
The article Learning connected civics: Narratives, practices, infrastructures defines civics learning as “Bringing together popular culture studies and sociocultural learning theory, in this paper, we formulate the concept of “connected civics””. Geocaching is learning civics because it has brought people together over different platforms and it’s real life. When I asked geocaching what group there were out there. They lead me to a group for Colorado. Once I got connected with that group, I found out that there are also events that geocaching does to bring people together.
By being both game-based learning and civics learning, geocaching fills many of qualification for being digital media learning. If you participate, you can get in a group or you can go alone. In fact, someone that answered some of the questions I had does a geocache every day and has done that for many of years. Once you find a cache you report it to the cache and there is a Facebook group who is all about just posting your caches and talking back them. The game just starts out to do puzzles and get out of the house, but it has a lot bigger outcome than that. One of the things that they do is that every area they visit they are supposed to look and pick up some trash in the area. That way it’s a game that is made to be a puzzle and fun, but it also gets people to pick up trash because there are geocaches in many areas, from the forest to the side of a highway. I would not say that there is a lot of jobs because of geocaching but there is volunteering. Many people volunteer to pick up areas and such with the community who geocaches.
I also decided to investigate what core media literacy skills that geocaching is represented by using the article confronting the challenges of participatory culture: Media education for the twenty-first century. Looking into this article it gives brief definitions about each of the skills, which I found that geocaching fits many of the skills. The skills that geocaching uses play, Distributed cognition, collective intelligence, Judgement, Transmedia navigation, networking, and negotiation. How geocaching is play is because some of the caches in the area force you to look around your area and experiment with different resources in your area in order to find the cache. Geocaching has also distributed cognition because you must use different tools on your phone and sometimes in the area in order to expand on the information and find the cache. Collective intelligence represents geocaching because you get hints and comments on each cache that allow you to find the cache and give a comment for the next person looking for that cache. Judgment is needed for geocaching because you need to be able to analyze all the information you are given and the information that is around you in order to find the cache. The Facebook pages represent transmedia navigation because they are people talking about their stories on the geocaches and you can access the geocaching in life or on a phone or computer. Geocaching is also networking because you need to be able to search for the information, analyze the information, and be able to use the information by finding the cache. Finally, geocaching also represents negotiation because geocaching causes people to travel to different areas with different communities and learn about different perspectives and norms when looking for the cache.
Geocaching is digital learning because it involves using multiple platforms and becoming part of a community. It uses game-based learning, gamification, civics learning, and core media literacy skills in order to make the game fun and to make the game have a bigger purpose overall. Geocaching uses digital tools like phones, computers, and GPS systems in order to find caches and create a community to pick up together and experience the outside world together. That is why geocaching is digital media learning.
Tools to find out more
Facebook pages- https://www.facebook.com/groups/GeoColo/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/919861648078670/
Photos from my searches with my group
References
Jenkins, Henry. Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture. 2009, file:///C:/Users/aly/Desktop/Animation%20projectw/Project%202/8435%20(1).pdf.
“Learning Connected Civics: Narratives, Practices, Infrastructures.” Taylor & Francis, 2015, www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03626784.2014.995063.
Sprecken, Von, director. Joe P Talks Geocaching at Nerd Nite Denver. YouTube, YouTube, 16 Feb. 2019, www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViAwrtnb0V4&fbclid=IwAR2qh7soSsBxOwJ1YGtE6ImFcVJ0dVLVHv-Ey7wDW4rg6sxp4FwEIETeRZY&app=desktop.
Squire, Kurt. From Information to Experience: Place-Based Augmented Reality Games as a Model for Learning in a Globally Networked Society. 2017, remikalir.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Squire2010.pdf.