Contents I. Introduction
Education systems, especially in developing nations, place a high value on citizenship education because educational administrators recognize the importance of nurturing students to become responsible and active citizens subsequent to leaving school. In Singapore, citizenship education is enacted via the Social Studies curriculum. This paper reports on an ongoing research project to design and develop a mobile game for use in a game-mediated Social Studies curriculum undertaken by 15-year-old students. The game, Statecraft X (hereafter referred to simply as Statecraft), is a multiplayer 24/7 server-based game that runs on Apple iPhones. The research project explores the use of a mobile learning game to pursue two distinct goals. The first goal concerns understanding how students and teachers appropriate a game designed to support students' meaning making and identity construction in the context of formal learning. The second goal relates to the manner of take-up of a mobile device for learning that crosses the boundary between school and places outside of school; for example, at a restaurant, on the bus, and at home. The use of a mobile learning game is particularly appropriate given our orientation toward enactive learning by doing. Managing the affairs of a country is an ongoing activity, requiring both projective planning as well as reactively responding to events. Adhering to a classroom schedule constrained by curriculum time, where students get to play a game only once or twice a week would seriously compromise the authenticity of the form of game based learning that we are attempting to realize.
