Enhancing Physical Education with Exergames and Wearable Technology

Increases in the numbers of obese and overweight children are a major issue in post-industrial societies because obesity can lead to severe health-related problems. In addition, many challenges affect the quantity and quality of physical education (PE) provided by schools. Exergames that combine exercise with gaming have been recognized as a possible method for motivating children to become physically active and to make PE more fun. Furthermore, exergames that utilize wearable sensors devices allow players' movements to be tracked for estimating the efficiency of exercise. In this study, we developed the Running Othello 2 (RO2) exergame, where players wear a smartphone and a smart wrist band to compete in a board game enhanced with physical and pedagogical missions. In physical missions, the game uses inertial sensors and a heart rate meter to detect the physical activities of players. The pedagogical part of the game is based on the South Korean PE curriculum. We evaluated RO2 with 61 South Korean third grade elementary school students, 32 of whom learned curriculum topics by playing the game. The other 29 students comprised a control group who studied the pedagogical content using handouts. The results indicated that learning with RO2 was more efficient, the players were engaged, and their heart rates increased. Based on the evaluation, we identified several issues to be addressed in future research. Finally, we discussed how RO2 supports the educational affordances of wearables and we explained how exergames using wearables can overcome some of the challenges faced by PE.