The Effects of Serious Games’ Genres and Frequency of Exposure on Children’s Dietary Preferences

Information technology artifacts can help to engender health behavior change but not enough is known about how to effectively do so. Despite the attractiveness of serious games for health promotion, we still lack an educational, theoretically founded and evidence-based framework to explain their pedagogic effectiveness and the extent to which transformative learning (health behavior change) takes place in serious games. Motivated thus, this study assesses the role of two serious games genres: simulation and puzzles in eliciting a sustained health behavior change and the moderating role of frequency of exposure on the effectiveness of these serious games’ genres. The effects of the serious games\u27 genres and the moderating role of frequency of exposure will be examined in a lab experiment

Gamification of research methods: an exploratory case

This work investigates the benefits of gamification in the taught research methods unit within the Business Management course. It utilises an exploratory design where the team attempted to use a gamified approach to teaching research methods. Two consecutive cohorts were chosen; both cohorts were studying research methods and had the same assessment, in the same format, and were taught and marked by the same teaching team. The first cohort studied the subject without any attempts in gamifying delivery, the second cohort engaged with a gamified curriculum. The latter cohort exhibited stronger final results and a higher level of engagement thus suggesting that a gamified approach to curriculum delivery enhanced the grade results. This first pilot then led to the development of a bespoke software that is imbued with the philosophical streaks from educational pedagogy and the learning literature to support a gamified approach to education

360-MAM-Affect: Sentiment Analysis with the Google Prediction API and EmoSenticNet

Online recommender systems are useful for media asset management where they select the best content from a set of media assets. We have developed an architecture for 360-MAM- Select, a recommender system for educational video content. 360-MAM-Select will utilise sentiment analysis and gamification techniques for the recommendation of media assets. 360-MAM-Select will increase user participation with digital content through improved video recommendations. Here, we discuss the architecture of 360-MAM-Select and the use of the Google Prediction API and EmoSenticNet for 360-MAM-Affect, 360-MAM-Select's sentiment analysis module. Results from testing two models for sentiment analysis, Sentiment Classifier (Google Prediction API) and EmoSenticNetClassifer (Google Prediction API + EmoSenticNet) are promising. Future work includes the implementation and testing of 360-MAM-Select on video data from YouTube EDU and Head Squeeze

Natural User Interface for Education in Virtual Environments

Education and self-improvement are key features of human behavior. However, learning in the physical world is not always desirable or achievable. That is how simulators came to be. There are domains where purely virtual simulators can be created in contrast to physical ones. In this research we present a novel environment for learning, using a natural user interface. We, humans, are not designed to operate and manipulate objects via keyboard, mouse or a controller. The natural way of interaction and communication is achieved through our actuators (hands and feet) and our sensors (hearing, vision, touch, smell and taste). That is the reason why it makes more sense to use sensors that can track our skeletal movements, are able to estimate our pose, and interpret our gestures. After acquiring and processing the desired – natural input, a system can analyze and translate those gestures into movement signals

Artists play games

Andrzej Pitrus discusses complex relationships between the two worlds – art and computer/ games. Numerous artists are looking for inspirations in the world of an interactive entertainment, yet some of them are creating new paths of its development. Some of the artists focus on new and unique interfaces. Others refer to the mechanics of games to create their own interactive works. Bill Viola’s The Night Journey is an excellent example of such project. The author also reviews critical games, which are based on the mechanisms easily found in commercial games. Yet, their goal is to deconstruct them, rather than followig well known tracks. Pitrus examines this strategy in the works of a famous studio “Tale of Tales”.Andrzej Pitrus discusses complex relationships between the two worlds – art and computer/ games. Numerous artists are looking for inspirations in the world of an interactive entertainment, yet some of them are creating new paths of its development. Some of the artists focus on new and unique interfaces. Others refer to the mechanics of games to create their own interactive works. Bill Viola’s The Night Journey is an excellent example of such project. The author also reviews critical games, which are based on the mechanisms easily found in commercial games. Yet, their goal is to deconstruct them, rather than followig well known tracks. Pitrus examines this strategy in the works of a famous studio “Tale of Tales”

Serious Game Development Model Based on the Game-Based Learning Foundation

Serious games or applied games are digital games applied in serious fields such as education, advertising, health, business, and the military. Currently, serious game development is mostly based on the Game Development Life Cycle (GDLC) approach. A serious game is a game product with unique characteristics that require a particular approach to its development. This paper proposes a serious game development model adapted from the Game-Based Learning Foundation. This paper’s main contribution is to enhance knowledge in the game development field and game-related application research. The proposed model was validated using the relativism approach and it was used to develop several game prototypes for universities, national companies, and the military

Student experience of gamified learning: a qualitative approach

Student engagement and student outcomes in Higher Education continue to be the subject of academic concern, and thus receive research attention. To address these concerns, we aim to explore the use of gamification to enhance student engagement, and thereby improving student learning and performance. Gamification represents the use of game elements to enhance engagement in activities such as learning.  This paper highlights the use of game elements such as: leader boards, scores for activities, and multiplayer (group) activities.  The paper does this by exploring students’ learning journeys, as well as their experience of modules in which gamification had been introduced. Group-based competitive activities were introduced to modules undertaken by business students, student nurses, and paramedic students.  Students undertaking these modules were invited to participate in semi-structured interviews.  Twelve students drawn from the three disciplines took part in these semi-structured interviews, which were digitally recorded to enable production of accurate transcripts. Thematic analysis was used to identify key themes from the interviews. To explain student responses and their learning experience, four themes were developed; challenge, difference, group processes, and competition. Students often presented themselves as enjoying challenge, although this was sometimes contrasted with enjoyment of ‘easy’ activities.  Challenge was presented not only as a motivational factor, but also sometimes as a barrier to success.  This sense of challenge was often conceptually linked to students’ perception of difference within their gamified learning, which was pedagogically distinct from their typical learning experience.  Most, but not all, expressed positive views of this difference.  As with the theme of challenge, discussion of difference could be both positive and negative.  Participants highlighted competition as a positive factor.  The competition between groups influenced some group processes.  Some students noted previous challenges involved in group-work, such as unequal work distribution.  Participants observed the potential for intra-group friction, while identifying the positive learning outcomes of group work.  Taken together, the analysis suggests that competitive group work is a beneficial strategy for enhancing student engagement and performance

10 simple rules to create a serious game, illustrated with examples from structural biology

Serious scientific games are games whose purpose is not only fun. In the field of science, the serious goals include crucial activities for scientists: outreach, teaching and research. The number of serious games is increasing rapidly, in particular citizen science games, games that allow people to produce and/or analyze scientific data. Interestingly, it is possible to build a set of rules providing a guideline to create or improve serious games. We present arguments gathered from our own experience ( Phylo , DocMolecules , HiRE-RNA contest and Pangu) as well as examples from the growing literature on scientific serious games

Hyötypelit ja pelillistäminen koulutuksessa – mahdollisuuksia ja haasteita

Viihdepelien räjähdysmäisen suosion kasvun myötä myös hyötypeleille ja pelillistämiselle avautuu erilaisia mahdollisuuksia. Koulutus on yksi niistä yhteiskunnan osa-alueista, jossa hyötypelejä ja pelillistämistä voidaan hyödyntää paljon nykyistä enemmän. Kehityksen tiellä on useita haasteita, joista merkittävimmät ovat hyötypelien ja pelillistämisen tarkoituksenmukainen hyödyntäminen sekä oppimisympäristöjen kehittymättömyys. Hyötypelit ovat pelejä, joilla on huolellisesti mietitty, usein koulutuksellinen tarkoitus. Hyötypelejä ei ensisijaisesti ole tarkoitettu huvin vuoksi pelaamiseen, mutta se ei tarkoita sitä etteikö hyötypelin pelaaminen voisi olla viihdyttävää. Pelillistäminen tarkoittaa peleistä tuttujen rakenteiden soveltamista eri ympäristöihin. Visuaalisuus liittyy pelillistämiseen hyvin läheisesti, koska tärkeä osa pelillistämistä on visualisointi. SeGaBu-hanke (Serious Games Platform for Business and Education) on Euroopan sosiaalirahaston (ESR) rahoittama hanke, jota tehdään yhteistyössä Kajaanin ammattikorkeakoulun, Oulun ammattikorkeakoulun, Oulun yliopiston ja Tampereen ammattikorkeakoulun VirtuaaliAMK-verkoston kanssa. Hankkeessa kehitetään 30 opintopisteen laajuinen hyötypelialan kokonaisuus. Hankkeen opintojaksot ovat VirtuaaliAMK-verkoston hallinnoimalla Moodle-oppimisalustalla

SWISS FOODQUIZ: INDUCING NUTRITIONAL KNOWLEDGE VIA A VISUAL LEARNING BASED SERIOUS GAME

Nutritional education programs have been proposed to counter the trend of excessive energy intake, identified as the main driver of overweight. Still, due to lack of resources, only a small part of society can be included in these personnel-intensive programs. Health information systems (HIS) in nutritional education have the potential to overcome these limitations, but still suffer under low end-user acceptance and interaction rates. Their current focus lies in abstract, too generic behavioural recommendations, which the end user cannot directly translate into health-beneficial real-world choices. In order to address these issues, we have built an automatic HIS prototype tailored to support the average consumer in gaining nutritional knowledge by applying paradigms from visual learning and serious gaming, established approaches in related fields to improves users’ acceptance, motivation, intention and ultimately likelihood for health-beneficial behaviour changes. Preliminary results of a study with 350 users show high acceptance rates even for previously uninvolved users and measurable gains in nutritional knowledge over the usage phase. With the approach suggested in this paper, it can be shown that the extension of serious game principles to nutritional education can overcome contemporary HIS shortcomings of low acceptance and interaction rates among average, uninvolved and unhealthy users