SiLang: Culturally oriented language skill development in line with workplace needs

This paper introduces siLang, a serious gaming approach for situated learning of vehicular languages. Otherwise referred to as lingua franca, these languages are commonly understood and used across communities. They facilitate effective communication by individuals not sharing a mother tongue. In the context of ever increasing international collaboration, this work takes a new approach in language learning building on the added-value introduced by vehicular languages as cross-cultural communication tools. siLang takes into account cultural aspects by exposing learners to the use of vehicular languages by native as well as non-native speakers. The project integrates into a serious game culturallyinfluenced communication norms and language transfer effects including diverse pronunciations, expressions, and idioms through scenarios that draw inspiration from real-life. The learning game is supported by good practice recommendations targeting language instructors facilitating the effective integration of proposed situated, game-based learning into language education with applications in wider learning settings. The development of the serious game is work in progress. Validation activities will take place in Greece, Norway, Italy, Portugal, and Estonia involving undergraduate students, professionals, and vocational workers

A virtual city environment for engineering problem based learning

Secondary education students often struggle with Mathematics and Science, preventing them to follow a successful career in Engineering. At a higher education level, problems still exist, including in their motivation levels. A Problem-Based Learning approach can offer an interesting solution to help circumvent this issue by creating an environment in which the learners themselves seek out information and create strategies to solve the training situation. This present work, named project eCity, aims at creating a Virtual Learning Environment platform in the form of a city building simulator, in which students, often digital native, will feel at ease and encouraged to solve the practical engineering scenarios they will face. The eCity platform targets at the same time students from the secondary education and students from higher education, allowing them to work together in a close relation to solve the presented problems together. © ICST Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering 2016

A gamified community for fostering learning engagement towards preventing Early school leaving

Early school leaving is a complex phenomenon that may adversely affect on a learner’s future development. ESL is the result of a combination of factors, such as insufficient school curricula understanding, low value placed on education by families, unavailability or low capacity of parents to support learners in schooling, insufficient parent-teacher-learner communication, and more. Many factors are socio-economic and are related to the extended social environment of learners. This work aims at strengthening the ties of school networks aiming at preventing ESL risk factors to set root in a learner’s life through early interventions that start in primary school. This is pursued through a gamified school community and supporting gamified complementary to school curricula learning activities that aim at fostering engagement of parents, teachers, and learners. The community promotes a sense of affiliation, opens-up communication channels, and promotes a positive school environment for the benefit of learners and their parents. © ICST Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering 2016

Serious game design for vehicular language learning addressing work needs

In today’s open business environment peer communication across borders is the norm. It is commonplace in face-to-face interaction as well as on-line communities that facilitate work related collaboration of cross-border teams. To effectively work in these international surroundings, individuals resort to commonly understood, vehicular languages. In work-related contexts, impeccable use of a language is less important than effective communication towards addressing common goals. This work departs from typical professional language learning approaches by introducing a serious game for building language and cultural communication skills in a lingua franca. The game exposes professionals to typical deployment of a lingua franca by native and non-native speakers. Learners build communication competence through situated learning approaches that draw inspiration from the real world, which is both multilingual and multicultural. At the same time they become aware of the cultural wealth that is manifested in the individualized uses of vehicular languages by individuals with diverse backgrounds. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014

Playing games with observation, dependency and agency in a new environment for making construals

© 2016 IEEE.Making construals is a new digital skill that complements conventional programming. Its primary focus is on using computer-related technology to stage interactive experience of unprecedented richness and subtlety. This paper is a tutorial on the latest version of an instrument for making construals developed in the ongoing EU Erasmus+ CONSTRUIT! project. Its principal theme is the re-creation of "the OXO laboratory" - an interactive environment in which variants of the game of noughts-and-crosses can be freely designed and evaluated

Making Construals as a New Digital Skill: Dissolving the Program - And the Programmer - Interface

© 2015 IEEE.Making a construal is a way of using the computer to help us in making sense of a situation. Its merits as a new digital skill for developing open educational resources in the constructionist tradition are illustrated using a basic construal of shopping activity. Making construals is the central theme of the three year EU Erasmus+ CONSTRUIT! project. This paper takes the form of an introductory tutorial highlighting key qualities of construals that will shape the CONSTRUIT! agenda