The App Farm: Engaging Design Process as a Means for French Learning

Abstract

In this design case, we present an instructional design project that resulted in a French language learning game development system. What we describe here is not the game itself, but rather the pedagogical intervention that created what the design team termed a mobile “application farm,” which in turn produced the game. The term farm was used due to the perspective of the designers to create a sustainable system rather than a single design. This design case also has another purpose beyond presenting precedent in instructional design; we interrogate the interview process and the protocol we used while documenting this project. We present the outcome of our interrogation in reflection notes posted throughout this design case. We do this because we believe that there is a value and need for design cases created by someone outside of the design arena but with access to members of the design team, in order to elicit where precedents might be found within complex designs.