Games are motivating, aren´t they? Disputing the arguments for digital game-based learning

The growing popularity of game-based learning reflects the burning desire for exploiting the involving and motivating characteristics of games for serious purposes. A wide range of arguments for using games for teaching and learning can be encountered in scientific papers, policy reports, game reviews and advertisements. With contagious enthusiasm, the proponents of game-based learning make their claims for using games to improve education. However, standing up for a good cause is easily replaced with the unconcerned promotion and spread of the word, which tends to make gaming an article of faith. This paper critically examines and re-establishes the argumentation used for game-based learning and identifies misconceptions that confuse the discussions. It reviews the following claims about game-based learning: 1) games foster motivation, 2) play is a natural mode of learning, 3) games induce cognitive flow, which is productive for learning, 4) games support learning-by-doing, 5) games allow for performance monitoring, 6) games offer freedom of movement and the associated problem ownership, 7) games support social learning, 8) games allow for safe experimentation, 9) games accommodate new generations of learners, who have grown up immersed in digital media, and 10) there are many successful games for learning. Assessing the validity of argumentation is considered essential for the credibility of game-based learning as a discipline

The Virtual Runner Learning Game

A learning game has been developed which allows learners to study and learn about the significance of three important variables in human physiology (lactate, glycogen, and hydration) and their influence on sports performance during running. The player can control the speed of the runner, and as a consequence the resulting physiological processes are simulated in real-time. The performance degradation of the runner due to these processes requires that different strategies for pacing the running speed are applied by the player, depending on the total length of the run. The game has been positively evaluated in a real learning context of academic physiology teaching

A model for children’s digital citizenship in India, Korea, and Australia: Stakeholder engagement principles

This white paper communicates research activities and findings investigating digital safety and digital citizenship through multistakeholder collaborations in three countries—India, South Korea, and Australia. Performed by an Edith Cowan University-based research team from the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child, supported by the LEGO Group, this research additionally responds to many recent policy and practice reviews arguing for institutional and policy engagement in the Asia Pacific (APAC) that build children’s digital safety, literacy and citizenship. These include the UNESCO data-driven report, Digital Kids Asia Pacific (DKAP): Insights into children’s digital citizenship (UNESCO, 2019), an earlier UNESCO review of policy, Building digital citizenship in Asia Pacific through safe, effective and responsible use of ICT (UNESCO, 2016) and a UNICEF scoping paper, Digital literacy for children (Nascimbeni & Vosloo, 2019). These reports highlight the importance of stakeholders engaging with new ways to foster digital literacy and digital citizenship..

Right 2 Roam

70% of women overall and 97% of women in the 18-24 bracket in the UK have experienced sexual harassment in public (UN Women UK, 2021). One in two women feel unsafe walking alone after dark in a quiet street near their home as well as in a busy public place, and four out of five women feel unsafe walking alone after dark in a park or other open space (ONS, 2022). It is these frightening statistics, alongside the seemingly daily senseless acts of violence against women walking, that led us to create Right 2 Roam.Right 2 Roam is an original tabletop boardgame for 2-4 players based on the gendered lived experiences of walking alone. Through a rigorous process of making, playtesting, and reflection, our research aimed to explore how board game design can be used to prompt discussion around the inequalities of movement and safety in public places. The game is a purposefully imbalanced game of chance to mirror systemic injustices and imbalances of power. Right 2 Roam makes a significant contribution to game design, board games as activism, and games for civic engagement. It demonstrates the power of board games to represent the systemic imbalances and inequalities linked to gendered experience, and how critical play can be used to catalyse discussion around lived experience of- and equitable access to- public space. The game has been deployed in contexts in which players can both i) learn more about the experiences of others, and ii) link play to their local communities and public spaces, with routes to impact on civic engagement and community-driven co-creation of safer and more equitable public spaces.<br/

Right 2 Roam

70% of women overall and 97% of women in the 18-24 bracket in the UK have experienced sexual harassment in public (UN Women UK, 2021). One in two women feel unsafe walking alone after dark in a quiet street near their home as well as in a busy public place, and four out of five women feel unsafe walking alone after dark in a park or other open space (ONS, 2022). It is these frightening statistics, alongside the seemingly daily senseless acts of violence against women walking, that led us to create Right 2 Roam.Right 2 Roam is an original tabletop boardgame for 2-4 players based on the gendered lived experiences of walking alone. Through a rigorous process of making, playtesting, and reflection, our research aimed to explore how board game design can be used to prompt discussion around the inequalities of movement and safety in public places. The game is a purposefully imbalanced game of chance to mirror systemic injustices and imbalances of power. Right 2 Roam makes a significant contribution to game design, board games as activism, and games for civic engagement. It demonstrates the power of board games to represent the systemic imbalances and inequalities linked to gendered experience, and how critical play can be used to catalyse discussion around lived experience of- and equitable access to- public space. The game has been deployed in contexts in which players can both i) learn more about the experiences of others, and ii) link play to their local communities and public spaces, with routes to impact on civic engagement and community-driven co-creation of safer and more equitable public spaces.<br/

Making the FTC ☺: An Approach to Material Connections Disclosures in the Emoji Age

In examining the rise of influencer marketing and emoji’s concurrent surge in popularity, it naturally follows that emoji should be incorporated into the FTC’s required disclosures for sponsored posts across social media platforms. While current disclosure methods the FTC recommends are easily jumbled or lost in other text, using emoji to disclose material connections would streamline disclosure requirements, leveraging an already-popular method of communication to better reach consumers. This Note proposes that the FTC adopts an emoji as a preferred method of disclosure for influencer marketing on social media. Part I discusses the rise of influencer marketing, the FTC and its history of regulating sponsored content, and the current state of regulation. Part II explores the proliferation of emoji as a method of communication, and the role of the Unicode Consortium in regulating the adoption of new emoji. Part III makes the case for incorporating emoji as a method of disclosure to bridge compliance gaps, and offers additional recommendations to increase compliance with existing regulations