Assessment-driven Learning through Serious Games: Guidance and Effective Outcomes

Evaluation in serious games is an important aspect; it aims to evaluate the good transmission of pedagogical objectives, the performance of student in relation to these objectives defined in the pedagogical scenario, the content of the course and the predefined criteria. However, the effectiveness of learning is under-studied due to the complexity involved to gamify the assessment concept, particularly when it comes to intangible measures related to the progression of learning outcomes, which is among the most important aspects of evaluation in serious games. This paper reviews the literature regarding assessment due to their importance in the learning process with a detailed assessment plan applied on serious game. Then, it presents a framework used to facilitate the assessment design integrated in serious games. Finally, a significant example of how the proposed framework proved successful with corresponding results will conclude the paper

Improving serious games evaluation by applying learning analytics and data mining techniques

Tesis inédita de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Facultad de Informática, Departamento de Ingeniería del Software e Inteligencia Artificial, leída el 15/06/2017. Tesis formato europeo (compendio de artículos)Serious games are highly motivational resources effective to teach, raise awareness, or change the perceptions of players. To foster their application in education, teachers and institutions require clear and formal evidences to assess students' learning while they are playing the games. However, traditional assessment techniques rely on external questionnaires, typically carried out before and after playing, that fail to measure players' learning while it is happening. The multiple interactions carried out by players in the games can provide more precise information about how players play, and even be used to assess them. In this regard, game learning analytics techiques propose the collection and analysis of such interactions for multiple purposes, including assessment. The potentially large game learning analytics data collected can be further analyzed with data mining techniques to discover unexpected patterns and to provide measures to evaluate the effect of fames on their players and assess their learning...Los juegos serios son recursos altamente motivadores y efectivos para enseñar, concienciar, o cambiar las percepciones de sus jugadores. Para fomentar su aplicación en educación, los profesores y las instituciones necesitan pruebas claras y automáticas con las que evaluar el aprendizaje de sus estudiantes mientras utilizan los juegos. Tradicionalmente, la evaluación con juegos serios se basa en cuestionarios externos, realizados normalmente antes y después de jugar, que no miden el aprendizaje de los jugadores durante el proceso en sí. Las múltiples interacciones que realizan los jugadores al jugar pueden proporcionar una información más precisa sobre cómo juegan los jugadores e, incluso, utilizarse para evaluar su aprendizaje. En este sentido, las analíticas de aprendizaje para juegos proponen técnicas para la recogida y el análisis de dichas interacciones con múltiples fines, incluida la evaluación de los jugadores. Los datos (potencialmente numerosos) de las analíticas de aprendizaje para juegos pueden analizarse en mayor detalle con técnicas d minería de datos que permiten descubrir patrones ocultos a simple vista y proporcionar mejores medidas para estudiar el efecto de los juegos en los estudiantes y evaluar su aprendizaje...Fac. de InformáticaTRUEunpu

App creation in schools for different curricula subjects - lesson learned

The next generation of jobs will be characterized by an increased demand for people with computational and problem solving skills. In Austria, computer science topics are underrepresented in school curricula hence teaching time for these topics is limited. From primary through secondary school, only a few opportunities exist for young students to explore programming. Furthermore, today's teachers are rarely trained in computer science, which impairs their potential to motivate students in these courses. Within the "No One Left Behind" (NOLB) project, teachers were supported to guide and assist their students in their learning processes by constructing ideas through game making. Thus, students created games that referred to different subject areas by using the programming tool Pocket Code, an app developed at Graz University of Technology (TU-Graz). This tool helps students to take control of their own education, becoming more engaged, interested, and empowered as a result. To ensure an optimal integration of the app in diverse subjects the different backgrounds (technical and non-technical) of teachers must be considered as well. First, teachers were supported to use Pocket Code in the different subjects in school within the feasibility study of the project. Observed challenges and difficulties using the app have been gathered. Second, we conducted interviews with teachers and students to underpin our onsite observations. As a result, it was possible to validate Pocket Codes' potential to be used in a diverse range of subjects. Third, we focused especially on those teachers who were not technically trained to provide them with a framework for Pocket Code units, e.g., with the help of structured lesson plans and predefined templates.Comment: 10 pages, 5 tables EduLearn 201

Just in Time: The Beyond-the-Hype Potential of E-Learning

Based on a year of conversations with more than 100 leading thinkers, practitioners, and entrepreneurs, this report explores the state of e-learning and the potential it offers across all sectors of our economy -- far beyond the confines of formal education. Whether you're a leader, worker in the trenches, or just a curious learner, imagine being able to access exactly what you need, when you need it, in a format that's quick and easy to digest and apply. Much of this is now possible and within the next decade, just-in-time learning will likely become pervasive.This report aims to inspire you to consider how e-learning could change the way you, your staff, and the people you serve transfer knowledge and adapt over time

Innovating Pedagogy 2015: Open University Innovation Report 4

This series of reports explores new forms of teaching, learning and assessment for an interactive world, to guide teachers and policy makers in productive innovation. This fourth report proposes ten innovations that are already in currency but have not yet had a profound influence on education. To produce it, a group of academics at the Institute of Educational Technology in The Open University collaborated with researchers from the Center for Technology in Learning at SRI International. We proposed a long list of new educational terms, theories, and practices. We then pared these down to ten that have the potential to provoke major shifts in educational practice, particularly in post-school education. Lastly, we drew on published and unpublished writings to compile the ten sketches of new pedagogies that might transform education. These are summarised below in an approximate order of immediacy and timescale to widespread implementation

Technology-enhanced Personalised Learning: Untangling the Evidence

Technology-enhanced personalised learning is not yet common in Germany, which is why we have tasked scientists with summarising the current status of international research on the matter. This study demonstrates the great potential of technology in implementing effective personalised learning. Nevertheless, it has not been assessed yet whether the practical implementation actually works: Even in countries such as the U.S., which lead the way in using techology in classroom settings, hardly any evaluation studies have been done to prove the effectiveness of technology-enhanced personalised learning. In the light of the above, the authors make recommendations for actions to be taken in Germany to make best use of the potential of technology in providing individual support and guidance to students

Exploring The Effect of Online Course Design on Preservice Teachers’ Knowledge Transfer and Retention Through Learning Analytics

There is a vast amount of data collected on e-learning platforms that can provide insight and guidance to both learners and educators. However, this data is rarely used for evaluation and understanding the learning process. Hence, to fill this gap in the literature this study explored the effect of online course design on students’ transfer and retention of knowledge through learning analytics. The aim was to reveal study behaviours of participants over a short time while exploring their academic performance. Using a mixed method approach, this research is conducted in two different countries in a limited time. The results showed that the more times students visited the learning module and the longer these visits, the higher the students’ transfer knowledge scores in this module. Most importantly, the only variable found to be a significant predictor of students’ transfer learning outcome was the number of sessions in the module website

Responsible research and innovation in science education: insights from evaluating the impact of using digital media and arts-based methods on RRI values

The European Commission policy approach of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) is gaining momentum in European research planning and development as a strategy to align scientific and technological progress with socially desirable and acceptable ends. One of the RRI agendas is science education, aiming to foster future generations' acquisition of skills and values needed to engage in society responsibly. To this end, it is argued that RRI-based science education can benefit from more interdisciplinary methods such as those based on arts and digital technologies. However, the evidence existing on the impact of science education activities using digital media and arts-based methods on RRI values remains underexplored. This article comparatively reviews previous evidence on the evaluation of these activities, from primary to higher education, to examine whether and how RRI-related learning outcomes are evaluated and how these activities impact on students' learning. Forty academic publications were selected and its content analysed according to five RRI values: creative and critical thinking, engagement, inclusiveness, gender equality and integration of ethical issues. When evaluating the impact of digital and arts-based methods in science education activities, creative and critical thinking, engagement and partly inclusiveness are the RRI values mainly addressed. In contrast, gender equality and ethics integration are neglected. Digital-based methods seem to be more focused on students' questioning and inquiry skills, whereas those using arts often examine imagination, curiosity and autonomy. Differences in the evaluation focus between studies on digital media and those on arts partly explain differences in their impact on RRI values, but also result in non-documented outcomes and undermine their potential. Further developments in interdisciplinary approaches to science education following the RRI policy agenda should reinforce the design of the activities as well as procedural aspects of the evaluation research

Towards a System of Guidance, Assistance and Learning Analytics Based on Multi Agent System Applied on Serious Games

With the revolution that the education field has known concerning the methods of learning and especially the integration of new technology, several new tools have appeared to replace the tools already existing, and among them there are serious games, serious games as new tool dedicated to education have occupied an important place, and replaced other tools often used in the learning process. But in the order that serious games reach the intended objectives and help instructors to achieve their perspectives considered, they must be equipped with a guidance and assistance system that will assist the learners during the progression in the sequence of the video game, and in addition, they must be equipped with a system of learning analytics that will help instructors to improve the learning process and teaching methods according to the learning outcomes and feedbacks of their learners. In this perspective of research and development we will establish in this paper a new system of assistance, guidance and learning analytics based on a multi agent system that will work in tandem with a web-based serious game