Minecraft: A Remote Laboratory for Game-Based Distance Learning

Immersive learning environments are some of the technological and cognitive artifacts that can support active teaching approaches, in which product and process evaluation can sustain significant learning even in remote contexts, if well designed and calibrated for the students in training. The paper delves into the experience of remote laboratory teaching conducted within the MineClass project between 2018 and 2021, during which the pandemic school saw a reduction at a national level of active and collaborative laboratory activities due to social distancing, both in-person and remotely. The study integrates results from case studies, qualitative and quantitative surveys, and semi-structured interviews directed at participants in the experimentation. Within the larger primary sample, a follow-up questionnaire was administered in 2022 with the aim of exploring the didactic use of the video game during the pandemic years; most respondents reported continuing laboratory teaching activities with Minecraft even to support distance learning after the conclusion of the MineClass project. The results show the positive impact of the experimentation in terms of perceived added value by teachers for the development of cross-cutting competences, increased motivation, involvement, and autonomy of their students. Conference organisers' note: This paper was granted the EDEN Best Research Paper Award, in cooperation with The UNESCO Chair in Education and Technology for Social Change. It is a traditional award of EDEN Annual Conferences and Research Workshops. The appointed honourable jury blind selects 8-10 finalists and appoints only 1 Best Research Paper Award that is officially announced during the Gala dinner of the Conference. EDEN Best Research Paper Award competition is based on evaluation results on submission of Full Papers presented to the Annual Conference that follow five standard evaluation criteria: • The paper deals with a research question. • Rigorous examination/research methods are applied. • Findings, results and outcomes are convincingly presented and critically examined. • Conclusions are thoroughly discussed (including applicability, transferability, and further research. • Literature is reviewed against state of the art. The composition of the honourable jury for the EDEN Best Research Paper Award is composed in cooperation with The UNESCO Chair in Education and Technology for Social Change: • Alfredo Soeiro, Chair, University of Porto, Portugal • Orna Farrell, Dublin City University, Ireland • Maria Rosaria Re, University of Roma Tre, Ital

Supporting users' influence in gamification settings and game live-streams

Playing games has long been important to mankind. One reason for this is the associated autonomy, as players can decide on many aspects on their own and can shape the experience. Game-related sub-fields have appeared in Human-Computer Interaction where this autonomy is questionable: in this thesis, we consider gamification and game live-streams and here, we support the users' influence at runtime. We hypothesize that this should affect the perception of autonomy and should lead to positive effects overall. Our contribution is three-fold: first, we investigate crowd-based, self-sustaining systems in which the user's influence directly impacts the outcome of the system's service. We show that users are willing to expend effort in such systems even without additional motivation, but that gamification is still beneficial here. Second, we introduce "bottom-up" gamification, i.e., the idea of self-tailored gamification. Here, users have full control over the gamification used in a system, i.e., they can set it up as they see fit at the system's runtime. Through user studies, we show that this has positive behavioral effects and thus adds to the ongoing efforts to move away from "one-size-fits-all" solutions. Third, we investigate how to make gaming live-streams more interactive, and how viewers perceive this. We also consider shared game control settings in live-streams, in which viewers have full control, and we contribute options to support viewers' self-administration here.Seit jeher nehmen Spiele im Leben der Menschen eine wichtige Rolle ein. Ein Grund hierfür ist die damit einhergehende Autonomie, mit der Spielende Aspekte des Spielerlebnisses gestalten können. Spiele-bezogene Teilbereiche werden innerhalb der Mensch-Maschine-Interaktion untersucht, bei denen dieser Aspekt jedoch diskutabel ist: In dieser Arbeit betrachten wir Gamification und Spiele Live-Streams und geben Anwendern mehr Einfluss. Wir stellen die Hypothese auf, dass sich dies auf die Autonomie auswirkt und zu positiven Effekten führt. Der Beitrag dieser Dissertation ist dreistufig: Wir untersuchen crowdbasierte, selbsterhaltende Systeme, bei denen die Einflussnahme des Einzelnen sich auf das Systemergebnis auswirkt. Wir zeigen, dass Nutzer aus eigenem Antrieb bereit sind, sich hier einzubringen, der Einfluss von Gamification sich aber förderlich auswirkt. Im zweiten Schritt führen wir "bottom-up" Gamification ein. Hier hat der Nutzer die volle Kontrolle über die Gamification und kann sie nach eigenem Ermessen zur Laufzeit einstellen. An Hand von Nutzerstudien belegen wir daraus resultierende positive Verhaltenseffekte, was die anhaltenden Bemühungen bestärkt, individuelle Gamification-Konzepte anzubieten. Im dritten Schritt untersuchen wir, wie typische Spiele Live-Streams für Zuschauer interaktiver gestaltet werden können. Zudem betrachten wir Fälle, in denen Zuschauer die gemeinsame Kontrolle über ein Spiel ausüben und wie dies technologisch unterstützt werden kann