About

Learn about this project.

Teachers

Mystery at the Museum: eye on you is a gamified learning sequence based on a scenario which gets learners taking on the role of detectives to solve a mystery related to art.

Introducing mystery and game elements, students are introduced to art masterpieces representative of various art periods while writing different types of text in English.

The varied set of activities increase in difficulty as the case progresses and all of them can be done at different levels of performance. Besides, when grouping students, teachers must bear in mind the students´ different abilities to deal with different tasks and therefore build groups so that everybody can participate actively in the project.

The role of ICT in Mystery at the Museum: eye on you

The project aims at introducing students to some useful online and mobile applications which, apart from providing the fun side to the project, will help them cope with, structure and present the huge amount of information they will encounter on the their way to prepare the tasks. However, by offering the possibility of carrying out each challenge (task) at two different levels of difficulty, we give students the chance to decide whether to choose the traditional way (in which case they get less points) or to dare jump into new technologies and gain more points.

All in all, this is a project which tries to incorporate all the engaging elements of a game:

Strong use of stories for context and emotional engagement. Teenagers are really into crime series where police officers and CSI agents solve mysteries as they try to understand the motives behind a crime or a disappearance. Now they play the role of private investigators analysing clues and trying to understand what has happenend to the character in the painting.

Learner-centricity: Each activity and each clue forces students to take action. Rather than presenting information, learners are posed a question or set a task. The different cases transform the learning from passive to an active learner-driven experience.

Motivation: with lots of small incremental challenges to help the learner improve their skills or knowledge in order to reach the overall objective.

Personalization: students can see their progression clearly. They know what the tasks are and they choose according to what effort they want to make. They trace their achievements and extra points which they finally redeem for the rank badge.

Creates a sense of competition: All students are working on the same case at the same time. Depending on how fast they decipher the clues and how much dedication they put in the making of the tasks, they will reach the end of the case earlier and with more merits. That garantees that students will keep everything they discover a secret.

Characteristics of an Investigator

Students

Determined
An investigator put himself/herself in unknown, and possibly dangerous, situations, with only his/her skills and wits to keep him/her out of harm ways. Ask yourself: do I have what it takes?

Intelligent

An investigator needs to learn many skills and abilities, and fast! Breaking codes is an essential skill. Each new operation calls for different skills and you must be able to learn and internalize them in days.

Creative
An investigator finds himself/herself facing all kinds of problems, each one calling for a fitting solution. He/She may have to improvise and do with whatever he/she has at his/her disposal.

Equipment

Investigators need their basic equipment: a camera, a magniflying glass, a flashlight, etc.

Each case requires a set of specific gadgets which you will have to use in order to unmask or decipher the clue. Once you click on the picture of the case, you will know which gadgets you will need.

The first inspection of the crime scene must always be done using your smart phone. The first clue is revealed by scanning the painting as it was left after the character´s disappearance opening the Augmented Reality app "ROAR"

Another useful app that you must have in your smart phone is a QR code reader.

You have to become an expert at breaking codes. Thoughout the project you will have to use a set of codes and ciphers, so you will need to become acquainted with them. Not only will you have to know which code and cipher is being used, but you will also need to break the code. That means you will have to discover a number or a word which will give you the key to decipher the message.

Introduction to Codes and Ciphers

Codes and ciphers are all about keeping secrets. The following are a list of all the ciphers you are going to be using throughout the project. However, not all of them are going to be used in the same case. That means you have to know a little bit about each of these so that when you have the clue in front of you, you can identify which cipher it is and, what is more important, how to decipher it after finding out the key, of course!

The Ceasar Cipher - This cipher, also known as shift cipher, is a substitution cipher, where letters are replaced by a letter with a fixed shift in the alphabet. NOTE: although the Ceasar cipher used a shift of 3, in each case you will have to find out the key (a number from 1 to 9) to align your cipher code wheel.

Pigpen Cipher - The pigpen cipher, also known as masonic cipher, is a very simple substitution cipher, that goes back all the way to the 18th century.

Vigenère Cipher - The Vigenère cipher (which is actually French and sounds a bit like visionair) is a very old way of coding that is designed to mask character frequency (checking character frequency in a piece of coded text is one of the most well-known ways of breaking a code). To break the code you need a word which is repeated as long as the message. NOTE: for each case you will have to find out the name which will be used as the key.

Scytale Cipher - It is a very simple transposition cipher used in ancient Greece and by Spartans. A band is wrapped around a rod, a message is written, and when the band is unrolled a ciphertext appears.

Other types of gadgets which will be used to decipher codes: