EXPLORE COLOMBIA'S HISTORY THROUGH PLAY
Histarco is a fun and interactive board game to help students learn about Colombia’s history in a more engaging way. Instead of just memorizing facts and dates, students will explore Colombia’s history not as a mere collection of dates and facts, but as a dynamic, living narrative they can actively participate in.
CONTEXT
Education in Colombia is currently at a critical juncture. Despite ongoing efforts to improve the system, significant inefficiencies persist, including outdated curricula, limited teacher training, and unequal access to educational resources. These challenges widen the gap between public and private education, leading to disparities in educational quality for students nationwide. Additionally, Colombian schools must balance imparting academic knowledge with addressing complex social issues like conflict, violence, and inequality, which directly affect students.
In this context, traditional methods of teaching history through lectures, rote memorization, and textbooks are clearly insufficient. These approaches often fail to engage students deeply or to foster a meaningful connection to the material, leaving history perceived as a static collection of facts rather than a dynamic narrative that shapes the present and future.
MY ROLE
I managed the entire project from start to finish. I identified gaps in Colombia's history curriculum and designed a game to engage young learners and fill those gaps. I developed the game mechanics, visual design, and storytelling to make history come alive for children aged 5-7.
I handled everything from prototyping and testing with students to refining the game based on feedback, ensuring it provides a fun and educational experience for students in Colombia.
Timeline
6 Months
GOAL
Create an educational tool that uses playful learning methods to help students gain a deeper understanding of historical events and their significance. By incorporating storytelling, simulations, and group activities, this tool will allow children to explore key historical events, promoting critical thinking and teamwork. The aim is to make history education more engaging, meaningful, and relatable, while complementing traditional teaching methods with a dynamic, student-centered approach.
FINAL SOLUTION
Histarco uses a cartoon narrative to take children on a journey through history, transforming traditional history education in Colombian schools into an interactive experience. By engaging students in activities like searching for story cards, arranging them chronologically, and participating in token-based challenges, Histarco makes history more relatable, memorable, and enjoyable. Aimed to fosters critical thinking, collaboration, and competition, helping kids connect with their country's history in a meaningful way.
RESEARCH
Understanding the target users
IMPORTANCE OF PLAY
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Play is critical for developing cognitive and social skills, allowing children to experiment with problem-solving and practice behaviors that will help them in real life.
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The game should establish an environment that allows children to freely express themselves, learn through interaction, and blend real-world concepts with imaginative scenarios.
Key Insights about Children (Ages 5-7)
Social Development:
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Children are stepping outside their family environment and forming social connections, often through peer groups or "gangs."
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The desire for social acceptance, leadership, and adventure leads to a sense of competition and group loyalty.
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They value being listened to because it allows them to express their points of view, wanting to be part of a group while still being seen as individuals.
Intellectual Development:
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This age group begins to develop abstract thinking and is able to handle more complex ideas, such as fairness, rules, and social behavior.
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They can concentrate for longer periods and have stronger memories, especially when they find the material meaningful.
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Interest in cartoons and comics often deepens as they develop the ability to follow complex stories and understand humor and action.
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Their cognitive and emotional growth allows them to recognize recurring characters, differentiate between various themes (like superheroes, animals, or adventure stories), and form preferences for specific types of content.
Emotional Development:
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Children are sensitive to praise and recognition, thriving on positive reinforcement.
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Friendships and peer groups are extremely important.
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Children in this age range also start to grasp the concept of moral lessons and character development in stories, making them more engaged with the narratives they consume.
State of the Art in History Games for Children
Board games offer tactile, interactive learning experiences, often involving group collaboration or competition. They are particularly effective for reinforcing concepts like timelines, cause and effect, and historical relationships between events.
TIMELINE
A card game where players arrange events in chronological order to understand the flow of history, promoting historical literacy and critical thinking.
Key insights from the TIMELINE game, adapted for children aged 5-7:
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Sequencing: Focuses on arranging events in order, emphasizing the sequence rather than the exact dates.
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Visual Learning: Uses cards with visual cues to make understanding events easier.
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Progressive Learning: Introduces events gradually, allowing players to build their timeline step by step.
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Rewards: Correct placements advance the game and unlock new challenges.
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Collaboration: Can be played cooperatively or competitively, encouraging discussion and teamwork.
HISTORIA
A board game where players guide a civilization through time, learning about technological advancements, wars, and cultural shifts. This game teaches broad historical trends while encouraging strategic thinking.
Key insights from the HISTORIA game, adapted for children aged 5-7:
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Storytelling and Role Play: Emphasizes strategic choices that influence the growth of a civilization.
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Collaborative Play: Players compete but also share experiences like wars or alliances.
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Achievable Goals: Rewards players for reaching milestones.
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Clear Visual Cues: Uses visuals to represent advancements, conflicts, and cultural shifts.
WHAT IF?
Developing the tool concept, and brainstorming possibilities.
BRAINSTORMING - Product Concept
The game starts with a narrated historical event, drawing children in with storytelling and visuals.
After listening, each child reflects on what stood out to them and recreates the event by drawing and assembling key elements, focusing on important details like characters or actions.
They then share their creations with the group, explaining their choices. The group discusses and combines their ideas into a complete retelling of the event.
The game promotes engagement, creativity, critical thinking, and collaboration, making history interactive and meaningful for children.
Articulated Stories
The game helps students learn about key dates, figures, and events that shaped Colombia's history. Through questions and tasks, it strengthens their knowledge, encourages critical thinking, and helps them see how past events impact modern Colombia.
As students work together to answer questions and match their answers with their peers, they earn stackable cubes that represent their growing understanding. These cubes are used to build a structure, and the first group to complete it wins the game.
Levels of Environment
The core idea is to have students work together to organize historical events in the correct sequence. This helps them think critically about cause-and-effect relationships and understand the importance of each event in the bigger picture of history.
The game mixes teamwork with friendly competition, creating a fun learning experience. The main goal is to help students connect individual events to a larger timeline, showing how different moments in history are linked.
Constructed Identity
WHAT WOWS?
This phase involved testing the prototypes to determine the most effective approach for the final product.
LO-FI PROTOTYPES
Articulated Stories
Key insights from the test:
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Children focused on the most engaging parts of the story, showing that when they connect with what interests them, learning becomes more meaningful.
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They found it easier to understand and organize history by linking events and ideas logically.
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The joy in creativity was clear, as children were excited to illustrate and create their own versions of the story.
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By connecting different ideas, children better understood the overall historical context.
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The active participation, where children took the lead in their learning, significantly boosted their motivation and retention.
Levels of Environment
Key insights from the experiment:
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Children remembered the most attention-grabbing parts of the story about the conquest of Colombia but forgot details they found irrelevant. Focusing on the most captivating aspects can help solidify key facts in their memory.
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The children weren't fully satisfied after filling the game board with cubes for correct answers.
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External rewards or stimuli are needed to keep them motivated throughout the activity.
Constructed Identity
Key insights from the experiment:
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Children remembered the most attention-grabbing parts of the story about the conquest of Colombia but forgot details they found irrelevant. Focusing on the most captivating aspects can help solidify key facts in their memory.
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The children weren't fully satisfied after filling the game board with cubes for correct answers.
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External rewards or stimuli are needed to keep them motivated throughout the activity.
DESIGN DECISIONS
Game Concept
Game Methodoly
The game begins with children being given story cards, each depicting key historical events. On one side of the card, there is an image, while the other side provides details about the event. As the teacher narrates these historical events, the children must search for the corresponding cards and arrange them in chronological order on their game boards, following the sequence of the story.
Once the story is fully assembled and the sequence of events is correctly laid out, the active gameplay starts.
Product Prototype
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The artwork is vibrant and engaging, aligning with the developmental preferences of the target age group. The visual design should help reinforce the historical themes while making the game enjoyable and easy to understand.
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Characters and backgrounds simple but bold, using strong colors and clear outlines to make each element easily distinguishable.
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The storyline must be easy to follow, with clear visual cues that guide the reader through the narrative.
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Characters are designed consistently, with recognizable features that make it easy for children to identify them throughout the comic.
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Use size, color, and placement to create a visual hierarchy that guides the reader's eye and emphasizes the most important elements of the story.
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The circular shape of the board represent the ongoing and interconnected nature of history. This design helps players visually grasp the concept of time as a continuous loop.
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Incorporate interactive zones (holes) are where players encounter challenges.
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The circular shape and the concept of patching holes are more than just gameplay mechanics—they symbolically represent the idea of resolving historical challenges and learning from the past. This adds depth to the game, making abstract concepts like time, mistakes, and historical consequences tangible for young players.
CONCEPT TESTING
WHAT WORKS?
This phase detailed how the prototype evolved to meet project goals and user needs by incorporating feedback from the testing phase.
HI-FI PROTOTYPE
The game uses a simple, age-appropriate storytelling comic designed for children aged 5-7, featuring a kid on a quest to discover Colombia's history.
By involving a kid directly in the narrative, the game makes the learning process fun and immersive.
The comic avoids complex terminology, focusing instead on basic historical facts such as key events and figures that are easy for young players to understand. Vibrant, colorful visuals of lush landscapes and friendly characters, complemented by cartoon-style illustrations of famous historical figures and events, help make the content more engaging.
Additionally, the game incorporates interactive elements such as spinners for random outcomes, and character tokens that children can physically move on the board to progress in the game. This tactile engagement keeps young players interested and actively involved in the game.
EXPECTED OUTCOME
The game is designed to enhance the teaching of Colombian history in schools by making the learning process more interactive and engaging.
The expected outcomes include:
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Students will develop a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of key historical events in Colombia, including their causes and consequences.
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Help students sharpen their critical thinking skills by engaging in activities that require them to analyze, organize, and connect historical events.
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The game’s interactive and playful approach is expected to increase student interest in history, making them more motivated to learn due to its interactive nature.
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Fosters teamwork and collaboration among students, helping them to build social skills and learn from one another.
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Through repeated play and interaction with the historical content, students are likely to retain historical facts and concepts more effectively than through traditional teaching methods.
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Enables students to apply these lessons to modern-day contexts and their own lives, helping them understand the relevance of historical events.
REFLECTION
Designing this educational game has been an insightful experience that showcased how user-centered design improved the learning experience for students. My focus was on creating a product that both meets educational goals, such as improving retention rates, and engages young learners through interactive challenges and rewards.
A key takeaway from this process is recognizing how iterative design enhanced the game by addressing usability issues and incorporating user feedback. The game went through several rounds of prototyping, testing, and refinement, with feedback from educators and students guiding each iteration. This approach allowed me to overcome challenges and integrate new ideas, ensuring the final design was both functional and enjoyable.
Testing with students provided essential insights, helping me make adjustments to improve the game's appeal and effectiveness. Reflecting on the process, I realize how crucial empathy and adaptability were in understanding user needs and adjusting the game mechanics accordingly. Understanding the needs and challenges of both teachers and students was key to creating a tool that truly enhances the educational experience.