Using games for teaching crisis communication in higher education and training

© 2016 IEEE. Terror actions and catastrophes are frequently described in media. As more and more countries experience terror actions and natural disasters, there has been a greater focus on learning how to handle and to manage them. In Norway on the 22nd of July 2011, Anders Behring Breivik placed a bomb in a car that exploded near the Governmental Offices killing 8 persons. He went on to an island where there was a political camp for youths killing another 67. The rescue operations unveiled an unprepared task force. The Gjrv-report provide a massive critique towards the call out services [1]. This kicked off a major work on updating safety routines in all municipalities. The municipalities are now obliged to have a plan for crisis preparedness [2]. This again triggered the need for education within the area of crisis preparedness, crisis training and crisis management. Hedmark University of Applied Science now offers different study programs, including a BA within these areas. It is, however, very expensive to train realistically and the need for different approaches regarding training has been discussed. One of the solutions that the University is currently working on, is the use of games. Game based learning, also called 'serious games', has become an academic genre and using games for learning and training has proven fruitful [3-12]. In the military, games have been used for simulation purposes [13] and spin offs from these have also reached a commercial market [14, 15]. Using games in education opens up a range of opportunities. One of them is within the area of Crisis Communication. Crisis Communication as a curriculum is about how to approach the area of crisis communication, understanding the key concepts and develop skills within the curriculum. Games that support communication between the gamers can for instance contribute towards a greater understanding of communication in a crisis situation. What is needed to communicate and how messages are received, in order to support handling a crisis, are amongst the concrete learning objectives one can attribute towards this type of training. To use games to support the hands on training can thus provide the learners with valuable know how, and support their learning outcome. The learning from this will be beneficial to the organizations they work in as they will have an experience that will aid them in the work on planning for and preparing for crisis in their own organizations

Training For Crisis Using Games: Testing of Game Based Technology "In The Making"

Being prepared for crisis requires learning about crisis and training for handling crisis. Since the tragic event on July 22nd of 2011 where a man killed and injured men, woman and children in two separate terror strikes in Norway, the focus on learning about and training for handling crisis has contributed to a regulation ordering all municipalities to have a plan for handling crisis and crisis preparedness ((DSB), 2012). At Hedmark University College of Applied Sciences, Norway, it is possible to obtain a bachelor degree in crisis management. The degree offers courses that present theory and with practical examples that present different perspectives and that in total provide the students with a solid basis for handling crisis and being prepared for crisis. However, the need for expanding beyond theory and practical examples has been recognized. Simulations and realistic exercises are valuable, but may also represent huge costs resources to organize. With the emergence of video games other ways of simulating has been made possible. The digital games have also become more advanced and offer a user interface that is quite realistic. Games have been used for learning purposes for many years, and this has been subject for academic interest. This paper presents the work of testing a game “in the making”. The game is being developed by professional game developers and is based on a platform that games have been developed that have been used for educational purposes as well as having been sold as a commercial game. This is a part of a project at our campus called “Preparing for Future Crisis Management” (Skår, 2015)

Use of Role-play and Gamification in a Software Project Course

Soft skills are increasingly important to the engineering profession and course modifications are often needed to ensure students have opportunities to practice them prior to graduation. This suggests that engineering programs need to go beyond simply offering industry-based capstone courses and internships. Role-play has a long history as a tool for learning. It can be used to simulate real world practices in environments where consequences can be mitigated safely. In this paper, we discuss the use of team role-play activities to simulate the experience of working in a professional, game development studio as a means of enhancing an advanced undergraduate game design course. In conjunction with the role-play, a gamification framework was used within the course to allow students to customize their course participation. Gamification was used to reward students for compliance with software process steps and for taking the initiative to improve their “soft skills”. In this project, allowing students to negotiate the nature of their activities and rewards helped them develop those skills. We are using student feedback and our own lessons learned to plan the next iteration of this course

Designs for learning and image-based conceptual inquiry:a DBR research project

There has been a long tradition of mobilising images for purposes of supporting effective educational practice.This paper presents a design based study which aims to engage postgraduate students with reflecting on and discussing module concepts via self-selected images.The research finely tunes the nature of the pedagogical processes in the interest of creating a framework for Higher Education teaching and learning with and from images