Back to school with Pokemon Go

While millions of students spend their summer break hunting virtual Zubats and Poliwhirls, school officials are making plans for how to handle the Pokemon Go craze when they return to class.

“My first thought was that you don’t want kids to be distracted during instruction time,” said Sherman Padgett, principal at Wichita North High School.

“You don’t want a kid to say, ‘Hey, I have to go to the bathroom,’ and then they go hunt Pokemon for 10 minutes,” he said. “It’s one of those attractive nuisances.”

The location-based augmented reality game, which was released in July and became an overnight global phenomenon, allows players to find, catch, train and battle virtual creatures that appear on smartphone screens.

As part of the game, many businesses and public attractions – including some near Wichita schools – have been designated as PokeStops or Pokemon Go Gyms, where players can collect supplies or battle one another.

The North High tower, for example, is a Gym, and the bas-relief on the tower’s exterior is a PokeStop. A sculpture near the school’s south entrance is a PokeStop as well.

At East High School, a miniature reproduction of the Statue of Liberty on the front lawn is a PokeStop.

Some school officials worry that the virtual landmarks, besides tempting students to play during or between classes, could cause security or traffic problems if members of the public try to access them during school.

“We want the instructional year to begin strong and help our students clearly understand that distractions from Pokemon Go play during the school day will not be tolerated,” said Wendy Johnson, spokeswoman for the Wichita district.

“The proliferation of Pokemon Go has been amazing to watch and will definitely give us something to talk about as the year begins.”

Angie Stallbaumer, an attorney and policy specialist with the Kansas Association of School Boards, said her group has fielded calls from districts seeking guidance on how to handle security concerns that might arise from Pokemon Go.

“A lot of districts have put in place some pretty strict security measures, and … they don’t want floods of people showing up to play this game,” she said. “Even though it’s public property, school district property isn’t necessarily always open to the public.”

Stallbaumer urges districts concerned about PokeStops or Gyms to visit the Pokemon Go support page and appeal to Niantic Labs, the game’s developer, to remove them.

The strategy, referred to as geofencing, doesn’t guarantee that PokeStops or Gyms will disappear right away or at all. But game officials pledged recently to be more mindful of business owners and others who have been negatively affected by the game.

Geofencing school sites

Rafranz Davis, executive director of professional and digital learning for a public school district in Lufkin, Texas, said she has enjoyed playing Pokemon Go this summer with her 17-year-old son.

“We’ve gotten to know our community,” she said. “We didn’t know all the different little stops that everyone considers amazing, and we’ve really embraced and learned it through Pokemon Go.”

She’s concerned, though, about virtual and physical security at her district, so she has proposed geofencing areas around Lufkin’s 15 schools.

“The other day some rare Pokemon – I think it was a Pikachu – was downtown, and we had about 100 to 150 kids rush downtown like all of a sudden. That’s a lot,” she said.

“We’ve also realized, just kind of noticing random people in the parking lots, that as Pokemon have appeared in our schools, it could pose a concern when we are having school. That is the issue.”

Many educators’ first instinct is to block the game from their school’s Wi-Fi network, but that won’t make much difference, Davis said. Students with smartphones can work around those blocks and play Pokemon Go at any time.

“If the danger wasn’t outside, it wouldn’t be that much of a problem,” she said.

“Not to say we have crazy people in our community, but we have to consider (that) we don’t know everybody. … This is a brand new set of circumstances for us. If we didn’t do everything we could to eliminate that threat, then we’re not doing what we need to do.”

Pokemon classroom

Shortly after Pokemon Go was released, teachers across the country began brainstorming ways to incorporate the game or its concepts into lesson plans.

Tana Ruder, a Wichita teacher and technology coach, said innovative teachers are exploring ways to turn students’ excitement about the game into learning opportunities.

“I hope people don’t think, ‘Oh, we’re just going to play Pokemon Go in the classroom.’ It’s the elements of the game that we’ve got to attach to,” Ruder said.

“We’re 17 years into the 21st century. Things look differently, students learn differently, and we have to teach differently, too.”

For example, teachers could encourage students to incorporate screenshots of their virtual Pokemon into digital storytelling projects, using programs such as Adobe Spark, Pixntell or Screencast-O-Matic.

A math teacher could reference information from a student’s Pokedex to help them collect, analyze and manipulate data: How many Weedles would you need to equal the weight of one Rhyhorn?

“If I was going back into the classroom, I would have a Pokemon classroom right now,” Ruder said.

“People are dying to go out and walk and look at this virtual world, so how can we connect with that? … The virtual reality, the augmented reality, the searching out, the finding, the collaboration, the communication – those are all skills we want students to have, and we’ve got to tap into that.”

‘Kids would be flocking’

Padgett, the North High principal, has spent hours this summer hunting Pokemon with his college-age son, Anthony.

He recognizes the fun and camaraderie that can be had through the game. Students likely would enjoy hanging out near the North High PokeStop during lunch to eat, play, compare notes and get to know one another, he said.

“It’s sad you can’t turn these things on and off, because it could be a great thing,” he said. “There’s tons of kids socializing and making new friends like, ‘Hey, what do you have?’ It’s just kind of like an instant community.

“So how cool would that be for a school to be able to use something similar to that? Kids would be flocking.”

Setting off a lure module to boost the number of Pokemon near the North High PokeStop might also boost attendance, Padgett joked. This summer, he has captured several Pokemon in his office, and he boasts about his Level 14 status.

Even so, he acknowledges problems the game might cause.

Johnson, the district spokeswoman, said officials are visiting each school site with mobile devices in hand to check for nearby PokeStops and Gyms “so we can identify those areas where teachers will need to be vigilant.”

“Identifying those areas of concern that may present instructional distraction is our first priority,” Johnson said. “And we will educate teachers and administrators based on what we find out.”

This story was originally published August 4, 2016 at 5:31 PM with the headline "Back to school with Pokemon Go."