This site describes the orientation experience created for commencing Bachelor of Information Technology - Interaction Design (ITID) and Bachelor of Multimedia Design (MMDS) students. Through experiential learning, we hoped to:

• Engage students with orientation activities.
• Promote greater understanding of program and context.
• Promote socialisation amongst cohort and through this a sense of belonging to the university.
• Maximise participation in the experience by ensuring:
  • cost to students is kept to a minimum.
  • technology required for game-play is accessible to all students involved.
  • information is presented in a meaningful manner.

2004 Trial Precursor

In 2004, we tested a treasure hunt style experience for commencing students. A series of contextualised activities were developed, based on assumed knowledge for first semester courses. This experience aimed to step outside the traditional lecture- and lab-based delivery of previous orientation experiences, using site-specific physically-based interactions. Student engagement in the 2004 experience was low with most students not taking on board the information delivered through the game process. Reasons behind this were varied, with students stating that they did not understand the context of the game and that they attached little importance to the game content. Also, many of the activities in the 2004 experience were designed on the expectation that participants, new to the university, would complete tasks introducing the university context by revealing, interpreting and understanding hidden information.