Location-based technology and game-based learning in secondary education: learning about medieval Amsterdam

Mobile games in education are excellent ways to combine situated, active and constructive learning with fun. In the mobile city game Frequency 1550 teams -of four students each- step into the game's world. With help of the Internet, smart phones and GPS technology, Amsterdam changes into a medieval playground, the year 1550. Results of an analysis of the game as a narrative environment show that the game evokes a mixture of receiving (spectator), constructing (director) and participating in (actor) the story of medieval Amsterdam. Moreover, evaluation of the learning effects reveals that students who played Frequency 1550 acquired significantly more historical knowledge than the
students who attended a regular lesson series. A newly designed mobile gaming and learning platform (Games Atelier) is presented, which is based on the technology and the
evaluation of Frequency 1550.