Development of an Educational Game : Augmented Reality Approach to Edutainment

In this paper, the authors examine the problems, capabilities, and benefits of implementing augmented reality technologies in higher education and integrating them into formal e-learning in the form of edutainment. The main goal is to design and develop an educational interactive game that features augmented reality and would enrich the teaching process with interesting content as well as motivate students and stimulate their acquisition of knowledge. The developed game is based on current internet mobile technologies, with AR aspects realized through the use of the Vuforia platform, and is implemented as a part of a smart classroom. It includes a web application for teachers to create tasks, small parts of the curriculum that are being tested, a mobile application that students use to interact with the game and solve tasks, an augmented reality module that supports distance learning and a component for integration with Moodle LMS. This paper will focus on the AR aspects of the game and the benefits that can be gained with its use in education. The game has been implemented within the educational process at Faculty of Organizational Sciences, University of Belgrade

Integration of Motion Sensing intoMobile Learning Applications

The use of mobile devices in education has greatly increased during the last decade. At the same time, technology advances have opened new spaces and possibilities for the field of mobile-based education in the form of entertainment—where learners can achieve their learning goals whilst having fun. Games on mobile phones have also become an important part of education experienced by young people. With the advancement in technology, utilizing motion-sensors in mobile learning systems have started to evolve. Research indicates that the potential of using motion-sensors in game-based learning could achieve maximum benefits from mobile technology in game-based learning activities, as well as improving this form of e-learning entertainment technology. This paper discusses our ongoing research that aims to improve current learning mobile technologies by integrating a new innovative motion-sensing feature. These advancements are reviewed and evaluated for integration and use in a motion-sensing edutainment mobile application

The role of edutainment in e-learning: An empirical study.

Impersonal, non-face-to-face contact and text-based interfaces, in the e-Learning segment, present major problems that are encountered by learners, since they are out on vital personal interactions and useful feedback messages, as well as on real-time information about their learning performance. This research programme suggests a multimodal, combined with an edutainment approach, which is expected to improve the communications between users and e-Learning systems. This thesis empirically investigates users’ effectiveness; efficiency and satisfaction, in order to determine the influence of edutainment, (e.g. amusing speech and facial expressions), combined with multimodal metaphors, (e.g. speech, earcon, avatar, etc.), within e-Learning environments. Besides text, speech, visual, and earcon modalities, avatars are incorporated to offer a visual and listening realm, in online learning. The methodology used for this research project comprises a literature review, as well as three experimental platforms. The initial experiment serves as a first step towards investigating the feasibility of completing all the tasks and objectives in the research project, outlined above. The remaining two experiments explore, further, the role of edutainment in enhancing e-Learning user interfaces. The overall challenge is to enhance user-interface usability; to improve the presentation of learning, in e-Learning systems; to improve user enjoyment; to enhance interactivity and learning performance; and, also, to contribute in developing guidelines for multimodal involvement, in the context of edutainment. The results of the experiments presented in this thesis show an improvement in user enjoyment, through satisfaction measurements. In the first experiment, the enjoyment level increased by 11%, in the Edutainment (E) platform, compared to the Non-edutainment (NE) interface. In the second experiment, the Game-Based Learning (GBL) interface obtained 14% greater enhancement than the Virtual Class (VC) interface and 20.85% more than the Storytelling interface; whereas, the percentage obtained by the game incorporated with avatars increased by an extra 3%, compared with the other platforms, in the third experiment. In addition, improvement in both user performance and learning retention were detected through effective and efficiency measurements. In the first experiment, there was no significant difference between mean values of time, for both conditions (E) & (NE) which were not found to be significant, when tested using T-test. In the second experiment, the time spent in condition (GBL) was higher by 7-10 seconds, than in the other conditions. In the third experiment, the mean values of the time taken by the users, in all conditions, were comparable, with an average of 22.8%. With regards to effectiveness, the findings of the first experiment showed, generally, that the mean correct answer for condition (E) was higher by 20%, than the mean for condition (NE). Users in condition (GBL) performed better than the users in the other conditions, in the second experiment. The percentage of correct answers, in the second experiment, was higher by 20% and by 34.7%, in condition (GBL), than in the (VC) and (ST), respectively. Finally, a set of empirically derived guidelines was produced for the design of usable multimodal e-Learning and edutainment interfaces.Libyan Embass

Modeling educational quizzes as board games

In last decades, online computer games are used for e-learning purposes with significant success which determines steadily increasing interest in game development. Board games are special group of computer games where figures are manipulated on a surface according predefined rules. The paper presents a new, formalized model of traditional quizzes, puzzles and quests as multimedia board games created for facilitating the construction process of games of such types. By several examples authors show the model is quite general in order to support not only quiz, puzzle and quest presentation but also any instructional set of teaching activities presented as a race game. An adaptive game control strategy is proposed where dices are used for random selection of complexity of next questions. The model is going to be used as a basic paradigm for construction of a software platform for multimedia game development for adaptive education

Computational Intelligence and Human- Computer Interaction: Modern Methods and Applications

The present book contains all of the articles that were accepted and published in the Special Issue of MDPI’s journal Mathematics titled "Computational Intelligence and Human–Computer Interaction: Modern Methods and Applications". This Special Issue covered a wide range of topics connected to the theory and application of different computational intelligence techniques to the domain of human–computer interaction, such as automatic speech recognition, speech processing and analysis, virtual reality, emotion-aware applications, digital storytelling, natural language processing, smart cars and devices, and online learning. We hope that this book will be interesting and useful for those working in various areas of artificial intelligence, human–computer interaction, and software engineering as well as for those who are interested in how these domains are connected in real-life situations

"Game" in history, historical in "game"

This paper is considered with relation between game and the History, in three various aspects: first part is dedicated to the meaning of noun "game" from its early stages till today, the second part relates to influences of game on human development and the third part deals with objectivity of historical facts in computer games

Why so serious? On the relation of serious games and learning

Serious games have become a key segment in the games market as well as in academic research. Although the number of games that identify themselves as belonging to this category as well as the research done on their effects has been rapidly growing, there has thus far been no attempt to define all of the various opportunities that digital games provide for learning. To address this issue we look at existing definitions of serious games and their potential for learning. We identify the shortcomings of existing definitions and typologies. We discuss opportunities for an educational use of serious games which have been marginalized so far and develop a more flexible classification system for serious games in order to include commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) games for learning purposes and description options for future developments of gaming technology. This classification system for digital and serious games uses labels and tags as a preferable solution instead of fixed genre categories. The aim of this paper is to move the focus from what serious games and their uses for learning currently are to what they can be

Liberal studies students' conceptions of "edutainment"

This study attempts to discover and describe students’ conceptions towards edutainment (i.e. the integration of education and entertainment) in Liberal Studies, the application of a novel educational notion in a novel subject. Seventeen junior secondary and senior secondary students from the practicum school where the researcher worked were interviewed individually for around half an hour. The teaching and learning activities focusing on various edutainment genres and elements (e.g. the use of multimedia, ICT, and games) throughout the LS lessons was point of departure to unfold students’ conceptions of edutainment in the interview. Open-ended questions on what is edutainment and what edutainment means to the informants were asked to enable students to express their ideas. Five conceptions of edutainment were found. The revealed conceptions were of different degree of complexity and found to be in hierarchical order and formed an outcome space which showed students’ conception of edutainment. Students interviewed demonstrated intra-contextual shifts in conceptions and changes in focal awareness amidst the interviews. On one hand, the conceptions of edutainment perceived by the students in this study surprisingly contained rudiments of the concepts of edutainment developed by the educational theorists; on the other hand, students’ conceptions of edutainment were found strongly associated with the Hong Kong educational context. The students’ conceptions of edutainment are greatly shaped by the ways in which the tasks were framed in the learning and teaching contexts. The conceptions revealed provide implication and insight for teaching and learning to benefit students in Hong Kong.published_or_final_versionEducationBachelorBachelor of Education in Liberal Studie

Edutainment App on Malaysia

The idea of designing content that educates as well as entertains and the rapid growth of development of Android applications contributed to the author’s decision to develop this app. It is an edutainment app that contains facts and general knowledge about Malaysia which will help students in their Geography and History subjects. It acts as the supplementary material to the text books that students are currently using right now. The application can help to improve students’ method of study. Instead of reading a boring, thick text books, they can learn or gain the knowledge through an interactive mobile apps. The study focus on how to design an interactive mobile app which will make the students, particularly or foreign tourists to learn about Malaysia