Immersive multi-user decision training games with ARLearn

Serious gaming approaches so far focus mainly on skill development, motivational aspects or providing immersive learning situations. Little work has been reported to foster awareness and decision competencies in complex deci-sion situations involving incomplete information and multiple stakeholders. We address this issue exploring the technical requirements and possibilities to de-sign games for such situations in three case studies: a hostage taking situation, a multi-stakeholder logistics case, and a health-care related emergency case. To implement the games, we use a multi-user enabled mobile game development platform (ARLearn). We describe the underlying real world situations and edu-cational challenges and analyse how these are reflected in the ARLearn games realized. Based on these cases we propose a way to increase the immersiveness of mobile learning games.SALOM

Multi-stakeholder decision training games with ARLearn

Klemke, R., Ternier, S., Kalz, M., Schmitz, B., & Specht, M. (2013, 26-27 September). Multi-stakeholder decision training games with ARLearn. In D. Milosevic (Ed.), Proceedings of the fourth international conference on eLearning (eLearning 2013) (pp. 1-9). Belgrade Metropolitan University, Belgrade, Serbia. http://econference.metropolitan.ac.rs/Serious gaming approaches so far focus mainly on skill development, motivational aspects or providing immersive learning situations. Little work has been reported to foster awareness and decision competencies in complex decision situations involving incomplete information and multiple stakeholders. We address this issue exploring the technical requirements and possibilities to design games for such situations in three case studies: a hostage taking situation, a multi-stakeholder logistics case, and a health-care related emergency case. To implement the games, we use a multi-user enabled mobile game development platform (ARLearn). We describe the underlying real world situations and educational challenges and analyse how these are reflected in the ARLearn games realized.SALOMO, EMURGENCY, UNHC

Lessons Learned from Creating a Mobile Version of an Educational Board Game to Increase Situational Awareness

This paper reports on an iterative design process for a serious game, which aims to raise situational awareness among different stakeholders in a logistics value chain by introducing multi-user role-playing games. It does so in several phases: After introducing the field of logistics as a problem domain for an educational challenge, it firstly describes the design of an educational board game for the field of disruption handling in logistics processes. Secondly, it de-scribes how the board game can be realized in an open-source mobile serious games platform and identifies lessons learned based on advantages and issues found. Thirdly, it derives requirements for a re-design of the mobile game and finally draws conclusions.SALOM

Keep it simple : Lowering the Barrier for Authoring Serious Games

Background. Despite the continuous and abundant growth of the game market the uptake of serious games in education has been limited. Games require complex technologies and are difficult to organise and to embed in the curriculum. Aim. This article explores to what extent game templates and game authoring processes can be designed that can be easily adopted and adapted by teachers while only using openly available tools. Method. It discusses the design and first evaluation of two game platforms: ARGUMENT, based on a wiki, and ARLEARN, a toolkit based on openly available Google technologies. ARGUMENT is a text-based game challenging students to take a position on a given topic. ARLEARN offers an explicit mobile and virtual gameplay environment and a defined authoring process to create game scripts. Results. ARGUMENT and ARLEARN have been evaluated in four small-scale studies, where educators designed game scenarios and students played the resulting games. Conclusions. The results indicate that both tools are useful instruments that can be operated by teachers to build games and game-alike educational activities and, additionally, are a valuable step to gain experience with serious games.SURFnet/Kennisnet (ARGUMENT, StreetLearn, ARLearn), UNHC

Games for and by Teachers and Learners

With the advent of social media it is widely accepted that teachers and learners are not only consumers but also may have an active role in contributing and co-creating lesson materials and content. Paradoxically one strand of technology enhanced learning, i.e. game-based learning, aligns only slightly to this development. Games while there to experience, explore and collaborate are almost exclusively designed by professionals. Despite, or maybe because, games are the exclusive domain of professional developers, the general impression is that games require complex technologies and that games are difficult to organise and to embed in a curriculum. This chapter will make a case that games are not necessarily the exclusive domain of game professionals. Rather than enforcing teachers to get acquainted with and use complex, technically demanding games, we will discuss approaches that teachers themselves can use to build games, make use of existing games and even one step beyond use tools or games that can be used by learners to create their own designs, e.g. games or virtual worlds

The world as playground: Mobile Serious Games with Augmented Reality

The talk gives an impression over the history, the state-of-the-art in mobile game-based learning and shows recent and expected developments in the field.University of South Africa (UNISA

Attuning a mobile simulation game for school children using a design-based research approach

We report on a design-based research study that was conducted over nine months. It chronicles the development and implementation of HeartRun, a cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) training approach for school children. Comparable to an unexpected emergency, HeartRun consists of authentic activities involving different roles, game tasks, locations and physical objects to support process-oriented learning for first responders. It aims to enhance the psychological preparedness of the rescuer and thus promotes a more prompt and appropriate response. In this paper, we describe a cycle of three design-based research (DBR) studies in which HeartRun was explored with school children. In order to better understand how to design mobile game environments that support dimensions of seamless learning, we analysed children and their knowledge-building practices while learning with HeartRun. The mobile game has evolved significantly from its initial conception through an iterative process of (re) designing and testing the synchronization between physical and digital worlds, learner collaboration and ubiquitous knowledge access, i.e. dimensions of mobile seamless learning activities. Based on our experiences, we conclude by discussing challenges and shortcomings of mobile game-based learning environments.This research was financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), regions of the Euregio Meuse-Rhine and the participating institutions under the INTERREG IVa programme (EMR.INT4-1.2.-2011-04/070, http://www.emurgency.eu)

Situation awareness in mixed realities

Specht, M. (2012, 13 September). Situation awareness in mixed realities. Invited presentation at the EEE project workshop at Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF), Barcelona. Spain.The presentation gives an introduction to the concept of situation awareness and shared situational awareness, it then illustrates the implementation of the concepts within several research projects and prototypes in CELSTEC

Ubiquitous Technology for Lifelong Learners

Nowadays, most people change their career throughout their lives, many times independently on what they learned during their formal education period. Therefore, the necessity to continually keep our skills sharp and up-to-date becomes increasingly important in a rapidly changing job market. The European Commission stressed the importance of lifelong learning as a key challenge for the knowledge society to adapt to the pace in which digital technology is transforming every aspect of people’s lives. Later on, the Commission published a reference framework comprising eight competences to flexibly adapt to a rapidly changing and highly interconnected world. In this thesis, we aim at supporting learners to understand the way they can better learn in-context using technology, therefore we focus on two specific competences, namely, learning to learn and digital competence