PDA-quest: playful learning
The PDA-Quest project is derived from the ‘Veen quest’ project. This is a multimedia prototype game for children in the last years of primary school. In this pilot project, a demo version has been developed and tested to see what the possibilities are for these kind of adventures at primary school level. The project is carried out by order of the province of Fryslân, within the framework of the EU Mopark project.

The project ‘Mobility and National Parks’ (Mopark) has been created to stimulate nature friendly recreational development, based on environmental, economic and social objectives.  

Learning through discovery using all your senses.
The ‘Veen quest’ takes children exploring. The children set off with their classmates in groups of four or five. Each party is given a tool kit. This kit can contain objects such as a compass, fishing net, measuring tape, geo set square, magnifying-glass, binoculars, and also a PDA, which are all used to play the game.

The children learn by discovering together with their classmates. This way, for example, they can measure the height and thickness of trees. This activity can be stimulated by the game. Observing substances dripping from a tree trunk in an animation on the PDA.

During this discovery process all the senses are being stimulated. The combination of the multimedia game (seeing and hearing) and exploring the reserve itself (seeing, feeling, smelling, hearing and tasting) creates a real challenge for all children.

Afterwards, each child creates his or her own website. They can look at each other’s website and exchange experiences. This way they can draw a parallel comparison with their own village or town. In other words, what happens to flora and fauna in their environment? What is being done to preserve it?

Owing to the good results of the pilot scheme, it has been decided to create a commercial version of the programme, through co-operation between the readership ICT and dicactics, the IVN (a nature preservation organisation in Holland) and KeurICT, who play an important role developing the technical platform for the product.