A Framework for Constructing Serious Games

Communicating ideas and knowledge through serious games is a trend that is currently gaining in popularity. However, at present, there is a distinct lack of a game development methodology that takes a critical approach to transforming information into gameplay. This thesis presents a framework that can be followed to construct compelling serious games that are effective at transferring knowledge to the player. This is accomplished through an analysis of atomic knowledge items and their relationships to one another, followed by a meaningful and synergetic implementation of these ideas at a foundational mechanics level. This thesis also describes the development of Mythos Unbound, a large-scale online serious game designed to teach students about classical Greek and Roman culture and literature. Offered as part of an online course at the University of Arkansas in the 2013 fall semester, deidentified user feedback suggests the game improved the learning process. The project was developed alongside the gamification framework and serves as the prime real-world application of its principles, and so demonstrates the potential of serious games as a means of meaningful communication

Semantic and pragmatic characterization of learning objects

Tese de doutoramento. Engenharia Informática. Universidade do Porto. Faculdade de Engenharia. 201

Endüstri mühendisliğinde bilgisayar destekli öğrenme uygulaması

Text in English ; Abstract: English and TurkishIncludes bibliographical references (leaves 63-66)xi, 96 leavesLearning is the most central process in education where it's essential outcome being the assimilation of new skills, abilities, perspectives, attitudes, and knowledge. Learning is a life-long quest that is vital in today's information based economy. Educational institutions, though not exclusively, play a significant role in an individual's learning journey. Over the last two decades there has been significant research and development in methods of learning and teaching mostly spearheaded by institutions of higher education. At the core of these R&D efforts lie the need for improving the effectiveness of traditional methods of learning and teaching. Motivated by this need we designed and report here a computer aided learning application that helps better teach and learn some of the topics in inventory control and production planning in the discipline of industrial engineering. Computer aided learning environment provides time and location flexibility, enables asynchronicity, self-pacing, and experiential self-learning, extensively utilizes multi-media, and supports multiple types of learning styles. We designed our application in order to take advantage of all the benefits of this environment to reinforce the learning goals associated with our application area. Our application is a learning tool named WashMac Game. The game has three levels that are aligned with the progress of the student. Each level aims to simulate the production and sales process and teaching to calculate the product amounts. There are animations for teaching and understanding more easily and accurate.Öğrenme kelimesi, bilgi edinmek, yetenek ve beceri kazanmak anlamlarına gelmektedir. Öğrenme işi sonucunda yeni yetenekler, davranışlar kazanılır ve bilgi öğrenimi gerçekleşmektedir. Eğitim kurumlarının bilgiye ek olarak kişisel öğrenme üzerinde de etkin bir rolü vardır. Son 20 yılda öğrenme ile ilgili önemli araştırmalar ve gelişimler yaşanmıştır. Klasik öğrenme olarak ifade edilen öğrenme çeşidinde araştırma geliştirmeler sonucunda ilerlediğini ve yerini elektronik öğrenmeye bırakmaya başladığını görüyoruz. Bu araştırmalara istinaden endüstri mühendisliği için bilgisayar destekli öğrenme üzerine bir çalışma yaptık. Envanter kontrolü ve üretim planlama konularını kapsayan bir tasarım hazırladık. Bilgisayar destekli eğitim sayesinde, kullanıcılar zaman ve yer konularında esneklik kazanılabilmektedir. Bir diğer faydası ise kullanıcılar başka bir insana, öğretmene ayrıca ihtiyaç duymadan öğrenim görebilmektedir. Tasarladığımız uygulamanın ismi WashMac Game olup toplamda 3 seviyeden oluşmaktadır. Basitten başlayarak üretim ve satış süreçlerinde üretilecek miktarları hesaplamayı, envanteri takip etmeyi öğretmeyi hedefliyoruz. Öğrenme stillerini baz alarak animasyonlar kullandık. Kullanıcının dikkati çekebilen bir oyun olmasına dikkat ederek tasarımı hazırladık.IntroductionMotivationContributionsOutlineLearning TheoryTypes of IntelligenceTypes of LearningBloom’s TaxonomyBloom's Revised TaxonomyLearning StylesTradional LearningE-LearningProject Based LearningComputer Aided LearningLearning by DoingNew LearningOnline Learning CommunitiesLearning Objectives and Learning OutcomesY & Z GenerationIndustrial EngineersLiterature ReviewVisual Matrix Calculator for Undergraduate StudentsGeogebraThe Virtual CompanySupply Chain SimulatorThe Poker Chip GameImplementationsBeer GamePrisoner’s DilemmaTaxonomiesTaxonomy of Inventory Control PoliciesTaxonomy of Production ModesTaxonomy of Facility Layout TypesTaxonomy of Mathematical ModelsWashMac Learning GameWelcome ScreenFirst Level (Easy)TermsThe Second Level (Medium)EOQ Model(r,Q), (s,S) policiesThe Third Level (Hard)QuizzesAssembly LineConclusio

Towards a Research Agenda on Computer-Based Assessment - Challenges and Needs for European Educational Measurement

In 2006 the European Parliament and the Council of Europe have passed recommendations on key competences for lifelong learning and the use of a common reference tool to observe and promote progress in terms of the achievement of goals formulated in ¿Lisbon strategy¿ in March 2000 (revised in 2006, see http://ec.europa.eu/growthandjobs/) and its follow-up declarations. For those areas which are not already covered by existing measurements (foreign languages and learning-to-learn skills), indicators for the identification of such skills are now needed, as well as effective instruments for carrying out large-scale assessments in Europe. In this context it is hoped that electronic testing could improve the effectiveness of the needed assessments, i.e. to improve identification of skills, by reducing costs of the whole operation (financial efforts, human resources etc.). The European Commission is asked to assist Member States to define the organisational and resource implications for them of the construction and administration of tests, including looking into the possibility of adopting e-testing as the means to administer the tests. In addition to traditional testing approaches carried out in a paper-pencil mode, there are a variety of aspects needed to be taken into account when computer-based testing is deployed, such as software quality, secure delivery, if Internet-based: reliable network capacities, support, maintenance, software costs for development and test delivery, including licences. Future European surveys are going to introduce new ways of assessing student achievements. Tests can be calibrated to the specific competence level of each student and become more stimulating, going much further than it can be achieved with traditional multiple choice questions. Simulations provide better means of contextualising skills to real life situations and providing a more complete picture of the actual competence to be assessed. However, a variety of challenges require more research into the barriers posed by the use of technologies, e.g. in terms of computer, performance and security. The ¿Quality of Scientific Information¿ Action (QSI) and the Centre for Research on Lifelong Learning (CRELL) are carrying out a research project on quality criteria of Open Source skills assessment tools. 2 workshops were carried out in previous years bringing together European key experts from assessment research and practice in order to identify and discuss quality criteria relevant for carrying out large-scale assessments at a European level. This report reflects the contributions made on experiences and key challenges for European skills assessment.JRC.G.9-Econometrics and statistical support to antifrau

Adaptive intelligent personalised learning (AIPL) environment

As individuals the ideal learning scenario would be a learning environment tailored just for how we like to learn, personalised to our requirements. This has previously been almost inconceivable given the complexities of learning, the constraints within the environments in which we teach, and the need for global repositories of knowledge to facilitate this process. Whilst it is still not necessarily achievable in its full sense this research project represents a path towards this ideal.In this thesis, findings from research into the development of a model (the Adaptive Intelligent Personalised Learning (AIPL)), the creation of a prototype implementation of a system designed around this model (the AIPL environment) and the construction of a suite of intelligent algorithms (Personalised Adaptive Filtering System (PAFS)) for personalised learning are presented and evaluated. A mixed methods approach is used in the evaluation of the AIPL environment. The AIPL model is built on the premise of an ideal system being one which does not just consider the individual but also considers groupings of likeminded individuals and their power to influence learner choice. The results show that: (1) There is a positive correlation for using group-learning-paradigms. (2) Using personalisation as a learning aid can help to facilitate individual learning and encourage learning on-line. (3) Using learning styles as a way of identifying and categorising the individuals can improve their on-line learning experience. (4) Using Adaptive Information Retrieval techniques linked to group-learning-paradigms can reduce and improve the problem of mis-matching. A number of approaches for further work to extend and expand upon the work presented are highlighted at the end of the Thesis

Highly Interactive Web-Based Courseware

Zukünftige Lehr-/Lernprogramme sollen als vernetzte Systeme die Lernenden befähigen, Lerninhalte zu erforschen und zu konstruieren, sowie Verständnisschwierigkeiten und Gedanken in der Lehr-/Lerngemeinschaft zu kommunizieren. Lehrmaterial soll dabei in digitale Lernobjekte übergeführt, kollaborativ von Programmierern, Pädagogen und Designern entwickelt und in einer Datenbank archiviert werden, um von Lehrern und Lernenden eingesetzt, angepasst und weiterentwickelt zu werden. Den ersten Schritt in diese Richtung machte die Lerntechnologie, indem sie Wiederverwendbarkeit und Kompabilität für hypermediale Kurse spezifizierte. Ein größeres Maß an Interaktivität wird bisher allerdings noch nicht in Betracht gezogen. Jedes interaktive Lernobjekt wird als autonome Hypermedia-Einheit angesehen, aufwändig in der Erstellung, und weder mehrstufig verschränk- noch anpassbar, oder gar adäquat spezifizierbar. Dynamische Eigenschaften, Aussehen und Verhalten sind fest vorgegeben. Die vorgestellte Arbeit konzipiert und realisiert Lerntechnologie für hypermediale Kurse unter besonderer Berücksichtigung hochgradig interaktiver Lernobjekte. Innovativ ist dabei zunächst die mehrstufige, komponenten-basierte Technologie, die verschiedenste strukturelle Abstufungen von kompletten Lernobjekten und Werkzeugsätzen bis hin zu Basiskomponenten und Skripten, einzelnen Programmanweisungen, erlaubt. Zweitens erweitert die vorgeschlagene Methodik Kollaboration und individuelle Anpassung seitens der Teilnehmer eines hypermedialen Kurses auf die Software-Ebene. Komponenten werden zu verknüpfbaren Hypermedia-Objekten, die in der Kursdatenbank verwaltet und von allen Kursteilnehmern bewertet, mit Anmerkungen versehen und modifiziert werden. Neben einer detaillierten Beschreibung der Lerntechnologie und Entwurfsmuster für interaktive Lernobjekte sowie verwandte hypermediale Kurse wird der Begriff der Interaktivität verdeutlicht, indem eine kombinierte technologische und symbolische Definition von Interaktionsgraden vorgestellt und daraus ein visuelles Skriptschema abgeleitet wird, welches Funktionalität übertragbar macht. Weiterhin wird die Evolution von Hypermedia und Lehr-/Lernprogrammen besprochen, um wesentliche Techniken für interaktive, hypermediale Kurse auszuwählen. Die vorgeschlagene Architektur unterstützt mehrsprachige, alternative Inhalte, bietet konsistente Referenzen und ist leicht zu pflegen, und besitzt selbst für interaktive Inhalte Online-Assistenten. Der Einsatz hochgradiger Interaktivität in Lehr-/Lernprogrammen wird mit hypermedialen Kursen im Bereich der Computergraphik illustriert.The grand vision of educational software is that of a networked system enabling the learner to explore, discover, and construct subject matters and communicate problems and ideas with other community members. Educational material is transformed into reusable learning objects, created collaboratively by developers, educators, and designers, preserved in a digital library, and utilized, adapted, and evolved by educators and learners. Recent advances in learning technology specified reusability and interoperability in Web-based courseware. However, great interactivity is not yet considered. Each interactive learning object represents an autonomous hypermedia entity, laborious to create, impossible to interlink and to adapt in a graduated manner, and hard to specify. Dynamic attributes, the look and feel, and functionality are predefined. This work designs and realizes learning technology for Web-based courseware with special regard to highly interactive learning objects. The innovative aspect initially lies in the multi-level, component-based technology providing a graduated structuring. Components range from complex learning objects to toolkits to primitive components and scripts. Secondly, the proposed methodologies extend community support in Web-based courseware – collaboration and personalization – to the software layer. Components become linkable hypermedia objects and part of the courseware repository, rated, annotated, and modified by all community members. In addition to a detailed description of technology and design patterns for interactive learning objects and matching Web-based courseware, the thesis clarifies the denotation of interactivity in educational software formulating combined levels of technological and symbolical interactivity, and deduces a visual scripting metaphor for transporting functionality. Further, it reviews the evolution of hypermedia and educational software to extract substantial techniques for interactive Web-based courseware. The proposed framework supports multilingual, alternative content, provides link consistency and easy maintenance, and includes state-driven online wizards also for interactive content. The impact of great interactivity in educational software is illustrated with courseware in the Computer Graphics domain