BotaCaching

BotaCaching is an intuitive online design tool to create gamelinked to the botany education. Unlike serious game which reproduces a virtual environment, it needs and uses human-nature interactions in the open-air runs.

BotaCaching is composed of two software modules which share information across a remote database : BotaTeaching and BotaTraining. BotaTeaching is a CMS (Content Management System) using predefined canvases and mechanisms which allow the teacher to :

customize the structuration and the content of its educational itinerary,
associate questions to specific viewing locations of the open-air run, and
specify the look and the behaviour of the game which will be deduced.
BotaTraining is a GMS (Game Management System) which appears as an embedded playful game for smartphones and tactile tablets with easy and intuitively colourful interfaces.

BotaCaching allows to promote and complete the educational itinerary defi ned by the teachers on the one hand, and to strengthen and evaluate the experimental knowledge of the students from voluntary and entertainment approaches on the other. It is a satisfactory alternative to the lack of practical work hours and of access to resources. It stimulates so the observation of natural and man-made environments.

The contextual study stated that BotaCachning could be enlarged and used for sensitizing the general public, specialising the informed amateurs and/or enhancing the plant heritage. The finalisation of BotaCaching could so take the form of a technology transfer.