Extending the 'Serious Game' Boundary: Virtual Instructors in Mobile Mixed Reality Learning Games

Virtual Instructor enabled mobile augmented reality learning (MARL) games have the potential to provide a fun and educational experience. In these types of “serious games”, learners/game players may wear a mobile headsup display that provide a rich graphical interface over the real world allowing the real world to be augmented with digital annotations including animation, graphics, text, and video. Graphical annotations may highlight specific realworld objects that hint the player to manipulate an object in order to achieve a certain objective in the game. Additionally, a mobile headset may display resource stats including, but not limited to, team hit points and geographical location of individual team members participating in the game experience. Furthermore, a virtual instructor may assist in providing instruction on how to play the video game and assist students in solving challenges that require academic skills. Hence, in a MARL game, a virtual instructor may provide continuous and autonomous instruction or guidance to the game player/learners anytime, anyplace, and at any-pace. The virtual instructor may serve as a mission leader or guide for the player’s real-world quest.