Hypercontextualizing a game workshop in Tanzania

Despite wide literature on ICT in education, inclusion and development, most empirical interventions focus on the technology as a starting point of their interventions, e.g. individuals must learn to use the computer. Only later they localize the digital tool and reflect upon how this technology can be useful for the individuals in their own environment. Instead, our approach focuses first on understanding of the individual performing a particular activity in a specific context. Later, experts in collaboration with the individuals of the study develop a tool to facilitate the activity under analysis in the specific context. Hypercontextualized Game (HCG) is a concept that we have used for creating games strongly interwoven with the environment in which they are produced and played. As context we refer to the relevant elements that influence a specific activity at the moment it is performed. Hypercontextualized highlights three aspects of context (environmental, intersubjective and subjective) that are time bound in the activity under study. The concept of HCG has been successfully employed in several game applications and now it was used as a guideline for a game workshop. The game workshop “Working for my Dreams” was designed for the Ukombozi Primary School in Tanzania and considers the three different context aspects during the entire game workshop activity. The workshop aimed to promote a learning experience across subject areas while constructing a meaningful OLPC application on-site.