Having Fun in Learning Formal Specifications

There are many benefits in providing formal specifications for our software. However, teaching students to do this is not always easy as courses on formal methods are often experienced as dry by students. This paper presents a game called FormalZ that teachers can use to introduce some variation in their class. Students can have some fun in playing the game and, while doing so, also learn the basics of writing formal specifications in the form of pre- and post-conditions. Unlike existing software engineering themed education games such as Pex and Code Defenders, FormalZ takes the deep gamification approach where playing gets a more central role in order to generate more engagement. This short paper presents our work in progress: the first implementation of FormalZ along with the result of a preliminary users' evaluation. This implementation is functionally complete and tested, but the polishing of its user interface is still future work

Mobile learning: benefits of augmented reality in geometry teaching

As a consequence of the technological advances and the widespread use of mobile devices to access information and communication in the last decades, mobile learning has become a spontaneous learning model, providing a more flexible and collaborative technology-based learning. Thus, mobile technologies can create new opportunities for enhancing the pupils’ learning experiences. This paper presents the development of a game to assist teaching and learning, aiming to help students acquire knowledge in the field of geometry. The game was intended to develop the following competences in primary school learners (8-10 years): a better visualization of geometric objects on a plane and in space; understanding of the properties of geometric solids; and familiarization with the vocabulary of geometry. Findings show that by using the game, students have improved around 35% the hits of correct responses to the classification and differentiation between edge, vertex and face in 3D solids.This research was supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council Design Star CDT (AH/L503770/1), the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) projects LARSyS (UID/EEA/50009/2013) and CIAC-Research Centre for Arts and Communication.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The Use of Educational Games in High School Chemistry Learning in West Java Province

The implementation of games in chemistry classes has provided an interesting and alternative teaching method and allows students to learn in a more entertaining way compared to traditional learning process. The game-based learning approach is divided into three approaches, namely game-based learning or educational games, gamification, and game-assisted learning. Many chemistry games have been constructed in recent years to review and strengthen various chemistry topics; therefore, it is expected that Chemistry teachers in high schools in Indonesia, especially in West Java province implement educational games in the learning process. For that reason, it is necessary to perceive an overview of the use of educational games in Chemistry learning in secondary schools in West Java province. Survey research was carried out using a random sampling technique. There were 99 chemistry teachers from 91 high schools spread across the province of West Java who voluntarily participated in the online survey. The result of the analysis obtained that 35% of chemistry teachers in the province of West Java have implemented gamification and learning using game assistance. On the contrary, game-based learning has never been implemented in Chemistry learning process in secondary schools in West Java provinc

APPLICATION OF GAMIFICATION IN INTRODUCTION TO PROGRAMMING: A CASE STUDY

Institution of higher educations has struggled to provide engaging method to learn programming although effort has been made by educators but often with limited success. The question is how best to teach introductory to programming for novices students is often not addressed properly. This is because learning programming for college students especially for new learners in programming present many challenges such as subject difficulty, lack of motivation in doing exercises, passiveness in class and diversity of student abilities. Since students often faced a lot of difficulties when learning introductory of programming, gamification has the potential to provide a way to promote students’ motivation and engagement while also providing feedback on the students’ level of competency of the learned material. Gamification is the process of incorporating game elements into education in an effort to increase student engagement.Thus, there appears to be a good fit between introductory of programming and gamification. Taking these elements into consideration, this paper seeks to apply the concept of gamification to semester 1 students taking Java Programming as the first level of programming subject.  Some best practices in gamification such as competitions, incorporating engaging games elements, scoring using rewards and levels, badges, providing feedback, and providing homework to encourage informal learning are going to be applied. Finally, several popular online applications such as Kahoot, Online Crossword Puzzle and Online Quiz were also designed to see the impact on these gamification tools towards learning of students. The game would be designed to have 3 levels that increase in difficulties with competition as a core element to increase student’s engagement. This paper would also seeks to design the  user evaluation form that can be  used to  determine the effects of applying gamification on the student’s engagement, motivation level, and understanding of the topic in introductory programming subject. Through the research findings it could provide a platform in formulating alternative ways besides the traditional teaching method for educators in creating educational programming games and applying it to teach novices in introductory programming subjects.&nbsp

The Effect of Gamification in Board Game to Improve Students’ English Vocabulary

This study aims to determine whether there is a difference between the learning outcomes of English vocabulary improvement in descriptive text learning for students before and after the Gamification method is applied. The subjects of this study were 41 students of MTS Muhammadiyah 1 Taman. Data collection using tests in the form of multiple choice and essay to measure learning outcomes in English vocabulary improvement. The method used is quantitative method, data analysis using paired sample t test. The results show that the mean score of the post-test is higher than the mean score of the pre-test, this means that there is an increase in learning outcomes of English vocabulary after the Gamification method is applied, the results also show that the significance obtained is 0.000, which is smaller than 0.05, thus Ho is rejected and Ha is accepted. This means that there is a significant difference between the learning outcomes of English vocabulary in descriptive text learning before and after the implementation of learning strategies using the Gamification method

A Web-based Data-Driven Security Game for Teaching Software Security

Masteroppgave i Programutvikling samarbeid med HVLPROG399MAMN-PRO

A Domain-Specific Modeling approach for a simulation-driven validation of gamified learning environments Case study about teaching the mimicry of emotions to children with autism

Game elements are rarely explicit when designing serious games or gamified learning activities. We think that the overall design, including instructional design aspects and gamification elements, should be validate by involved experts in the earlier stage of the general design & develop process. We tackle this challenge by proposing a Domain-specific Modeling orientation to our proposals: a metamodeling formalism to capture the gamified instructional design model, and a specific validation process involving domain experts. The validation includes a static verification , by using this formalism to model concrete learning sessions based on concrete informations from real situations described by experts, and a dynamic verification, by developing a simplified simulator for 'execut-ing' the learning sessions scenarios with experts. This propositions are part of the EmoTED research project about a learning application, the mimicry of emotions, for children with ASD. It aims at reinforce face-to-face teaching sessions with therapists by training sessions at home with the supervision of the children's parents. This case-study will ground our proposals and their experimentations