Pokemon Go

There's been a fair bit of interest in Pokemon Go over the last few days. I was interested in the educational value of this, as a way of encouraging 'exploration' in search of more animals or other resources. There've been lots of connections in the news relating to how it might be used to attract victims by criminals, for example, and the notion of how it changes spaces and public engagement with them, and has also helped a few people leave the house who previously had social anxiety.

I downloaded the app, and have started to capture a few nearby Pokemon (I don't get a mobile signal in my village so am tied to the wifi signal).

Also had a quick look when I was in a nearby town, and saw a couple of other people paying a suspicious amount of interest in their phone screen. There were also some people playing it in Portugal last week. I've started to collect articles which refer to the possible use (or not) of the app for education, the way that it connects with GIS (such as ESRI mapping) and the way that it also encourages young people to go outside and perhaps engage with spaces in different ways. I'll share these in a future post, but just wanted to put this here, so that you could see that I'm thinking about this (and will be writing about it for the GA Webwatch column too) and also the economic benefits for Nintendo, and Apple who get a fee every time the app is downloaded….

Let me know of any exciting and interesting Pokemon Go developments which are connected with Geography and I'll add them to the final post and article.

Gotta blog 'em all...