Oct
20
The BEACONING team organised a very successful workshop at Coventry University to discuss the opportunities and challenges for adopting software applications / serious games and other technologies to improve healthcare provision. Approximately 30 students and staff from various departments of the University attended and there was a lot of interest in all 3 presentations as well as a session for the creation of metaphorical views of the future of healthcare using Lego!
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Oct
20
The Learning Analytics Model (LAM) is responsible for describing which data is to be collected for a particular educational videogame and how this data should be processed, reported, and interpreted. The LAM is an integral part of building usable dashboards for the different stakeholders, and is a key component of Game Learning Analytics.
For a complete definition of a LAM the following steps need to be previously defined:
Learning goals (e.g. specific knowledge, procedures, tasks) to be achieved in the game. Game goals (e.g. tasks, levels) that reflect the learning goals in the game. Traces to be sent by the game for its later analysis and visualization, containing the learning information and following the xAPI-SG Model. Analysis model to extract the meaning (related to the learning goals) from the xAPI traces to determine if the game is actually meeting is expected goals or not Visualizations to adequately represent the traces and information already analyzed to help stakeholders understand their meaning. Personalized alerts and warnings if needed can be added to the dashboard by specifying what are the conditions under they shall trigger. For BEACONING, a general meta-LAM is also required detailing how analytics for a single game or mini-game should be aggregated for game-plots built of multiple games and mini-games.
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Oct
9
The prestigious International Journal of Serious Games has published this paper on designing a framework on pervasive games where the research team of three namely, Heinrich Söbke, Jannicke Baalsrud Hauge and Ioana A. Stefan has taken the location-based, augmented-reality mobile game Ingress as their reference point. This work is partially funded under the Horizon 2020 Framework Program of the European Union, BEACONING project.
Pervasive games are becoming mature with every passing day and we see the proof from the huge success of Pokémon Go and Ingress from Niantic Inc. Researchers all over the world are trying to invent ways to transform learning through games, in this case pervasive games to be exact as it is a great source of engaging learning experience. The problem is, there are not many reliable methodologies to design and implement efficient and effective pervasive learning scenario despite of their great potential in learning. As a solution to this problem, our researchers took 133 long-term Ingress players and did a survey to examine the game’s success and underlying reasons for that. Ingress has a large community of players and third-party tool suppliers, which ensures a rich experience for players through outdoor activities, sociability and exploration. The perfect balance between user skills, social interaction and player motivation keeps the game flow running for a remarkably longer period where the players have integrated the game in their daily life. On average, they spends an hour per day to play this game and have come up with a way to adjust their regular routine.
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Sep
15
The United States has developed as a global leader, in large part, through the genius and hard work of its scientists, engineers, and innovators. In a world that’s becoming increasingly complex, where success is driven not only by what you know, but by what you can do with what you know, it is more important than ever for our youth to be equipped with the knowledge and skills to solve tough problems, gather and evaluate evidence, and make sense of information. These are the types of skills that students learn by studying science, technology, engineering, and math-subjects collectively known as STEM.
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Aug
31
On August 16-18, 2017, the International Conference on Education and Learning (ICEL 2017) was held in Tokyo. The main objective of ICEL was to provide a platform for researchers, academicians, practitioners, as well as industrial professionals from all over the world to present their research results and development activities in Education and Learning fields. The conference provided opportunities for the delegates to exchange new ideas and application experiences face to face, to establish business or research relations and to find global partners for future collaboration. Romanian team presented a successful paper named Digital Educational Games for Foreign Language Learning, describing a Serious Game Development Environment that supports the creation of customizable educational games. The work presented herein was partially funded under the Horizon 2020 Framework Program of the European Union, BEACONING – Grant Agreement 68676 and by the Executive Agency for Higher Education, Research, Development and Innovation Funding (UEFISCDI) in Romania, Contract no. 19/ 2014 (DESiG).
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