Exploring rules and underlying concepts while engaged with collaborative full-body games

In this paper, we describe the theoretical background, educational design and preliminary evaluation of children's interactions with a set of collaborative full-body digital games, which are set in an informal science education fun park, the Polymechanon. Twelve 10-year olds were observed while interacting in groups with the games, and two of the games were studied closely by interviewing the children. Results indicate that children perceive the rules of the games and the underlying concepts in different ways and the longer they play the more their verbal interactions change from actions-centred to concept-centred.