The Development of a Gamebook for Education

Mobile technologies are becoming very accessible to students, due to advances in the development of technology and a simultaneous decline in hardware costs. In this way, it is relevant to consider the potential of these devices in teaching and learning. Our research was designed to evaluate the possibility of creating gamebooks (gamified books) that are effective in teaching and learning. After analyzing the features available in many free or open tools for making ebooks we find out that these tools were not appropriate creating gamebooks. This paper presents a novel interactive book, the gamebook (g-book): a book with a story that can be read sequentially or not. The main difference refers to the ability to choose different paths to the main characters or the unfolding of the history, as happens in games. We built a model of a dynamic book that functions as an educational game for “Environmental Studies”, aimed at children in the 4th grade, mostly 9-10 years old, in Portuguese schools. This paper presents the design and features of this g-book titled “Adventures in the Guadiana River”, implemented with the Unity3D platform that can be explored in iPhones, iPads, Android mobile devices and web browsers for the OSX and Windows platforms. Preliminary tests with our prototypes revealed very good usability and promising pedagogical potential in the proposed models.