European Conference on Games Based Learning最新文献

{"title":"The Language of Life: A Game-Based Workshop for Introducing Protein Biosynthesis","authors":"Fabio Chiarello, Daniela Fioretti, Tiziano Antognozzi, Francesca Romana Bertani, Ennio Bilancini, Matteo Bisanti, Leonardo Boncinelli, Luca Businaro, Roberto Di Paolo, Annamaria Gerardino, Sandra Iurescia","doi":"10.34190/ecgbl.17.1.1587","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.34190/ecgbl.17.1.1587","url":null,"abstract":"Protein biosynthesis is a complex process that involves the transcription of DNA into mRNA and the subsequent translation of mRNA into proteins according to the genetic code. To introduce this fundamental process to a broad audience, we developed \"The Language of Life\", a game-based workshop that was presented at the Genoa Science Festival 2022, the largest science communication event in Italy. The game-based workshop employed jigsaw puzzle-like elements to represent DNA, mRNA, and aminoacyl transfer RNAs, enabling participants to pair them through codon combinations. The game-based workshop lasted for an hour and the framing was a \"special mission\" inside a cell. It consisted of an initial training phase that incorporated videos, models, and explanations, followed by practical \"missions'' in which participants reproduce transcription and translation mechanisms by moving inside the cell and using the provided materials. The workshop was attended by 1,505 participants, primarily students aged 6-18, and received positive feedback. In this paper, we present our experience conducting this workshop and discuss its impact and potential for future use.","PeriodicalId":406917,"journal":{"name":"European Conference on Games Based Learning","volume":"43 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135295771","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Using an Escape Room activity to Enhance the Motivation of Undergraduate Life Science Students in Mathematics Classes - A Case Study","authors":"Sónia Pais, Ana Elisa Sousa, Ana Pires","doi":"10.34190/ecgbl.17.1.1431","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.34190/ecgbl.17.1.1431","url":null,"abstract":"Mathematics is one of the school subjects where demotivation, dislike and failure are frequent concerns. To address this, it is important to actively engage students in the classroom and employ resources that make math classes more appealing and captivating, leading to meaningful learning experiences.
 Active, cooperative, and participative learning methods should be prioritized over traditional didactic teaching and the mere transmission of knowledge. Active learning methods offer alternative approaches to the conventional lecture format, actively involving students in the learning process. The concept of an escape room, a gaming experience where participants must solve challenges to escape from a locked room, has gained popularity in educational contexts. The educational escape room is an extension of this concept, aiming to promote real-time problem-solving, teamwork, and discovery of clues and mysteries to facilitate active learning. By engaging in various tasks within a room, students work together in teams, fostering an active learning environment. The educational escape room offers several benefits, including the enhancement of problem-solving skills, student performance, and motivation. By incorporating gamification strategies into teaching and learning processes, this approach proves to be an effective way of promoting active learning in mathematics.
 In this paper, we present a case study that explores the use of an educational escape room with first-year undergraduate students from a Portuguese higher education institution, with the goal of improving their mathematical problem-solving skills. The study aims to evaluate how escape rooms can contribute to increased student motivation.
 To assess the perception of students regarding this escape room methodology, a quantitative survey was conducted. The findings indicate that using the escape room as an educational approach effectively increased student interest and improved learning outcomes in mathematics.","PeriodicalId":406917,"journal":{"name":"European Conference on Games Based Learning","volume":"27 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135295926","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Evaluating Playful Creative Problem Solving in Kyiv and Ukrainian Refugees in France","authors":"Oksana Strutynska, Margarida Romero","doi":"10.34190/ecgbl.17.1.1342","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.34190/ecgbl.17.1.1342","url":null,"abstract":"Creativity in playful creative problem-solving (CPS) is influenced by the emotional state of the learner-player. In this study, we evaluated how stressful situations (such as conditions of war) can impact divergent thinking (DT) in CPS. To evaluate divergent thinking, the main components of which are fluency, flexibility, and originality, creativity researchers have developed the Alternative Uses Test (AUT), where participants are asked to write about different uses of familiar objects in a limited amount of time. In educational robotics, DT has been operationalized with the same components of fluency, flexibility, and originality based on the diverse configurations made by the learner-players. In the present research, we engaged participants in a playful activity with modular robotics to evaluate divergent thinking. Participants engaged in the CreaCube task are Ukrainians. We recruited two groups of participants: Ukrainian refugees living in France and participants staying in Kyiv (Ukraine). These participants are experiencing a stressful situation due to the daily war events in Kyiv during the development of this study (missile attacks, power and heating restrictions, air sirens, and limited communication with partners on the frontlines). By comparing these two groups of learner-players in the CreaCube task, we aim to identify how stressful situations affect divergent thinking. The preliminary results showed that flexibility and originality as DT components of the participants from Kyiv in the first experiment are significantly higher than those of the refugee participants based in France. This may indicate that the participants from Kyiv, having been in stressful situations (war conditions) for almost a year, have developed more original ideas (originality component) and different ideas (flexibility component), which could be explained by the daily problem-solving activity under war constraints. Playful situations under war conditions permitted the Kyiv participants to distract themselves from the current situation and show originality in thinking better than participants playing in France who were not in stressful situations. This may indicate that wartime constraints have engaged the participants in better strategies for generating novel ideas, but it also indicates that the interest in game activities has a positive effect on DT even in stressful situations for the participants.","PeriodicalId":406917,"journal":{"name":"European Conference on Games Based Learning","volume":"62 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135296165","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Sandwich Robot for Computational Thinking: Reflections from testing with high school pupils","authors":"Emanuela Marchetti, Andrea Valente, Nina Bonderup Dohn","doi":"10.34190/ecgbl.17.1.1574","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.34190/ecgbl.17.1.1574","url":null,"abstract":"Our study discusses results from testing and co-designing Sandwich Robot, a game on algorithmic thinking targeting beginner programmers. The player composes code from a minimal set of blocks, to make a robotic character gather ingredients for a sandwich, following a specific order; the gameplay is similar to other Computational Thinking (CT) games like Karel the Robot or LightBot. The latest prototype of the game has been tested with three classes of 15-20 pupils from a technical high school in Denmark. The test was conducted in collaboration with their teacher in the subject Informatik, which focuses on CT and basic programming, and ended with a co-design workshop.
 Our results shows that pupils were interest in the basic concept behind our game, they generally described our game as “fun”. Pupils and their teacher saw learning potential in the game, as a tool for understanding algorithmic thinking, but also for refining their learning at later stages. This expanded the role we envisioned for our game, leading us to rethink its relation to the pupils’ learning process. On-going and future work involves addressing pupils’ feedback and providing a level editor to allow Kahoot-style challenges. Our main contribution provides an exemplar of how the thinking behind algorithmic problem-solving can be transposed into game mechanics, embodied in a casual game, and how a non-technical narrative can support beginners learning CT.","PeriodicalId":406917,"journal":{"name":"European Conference on Games Based Learning","volume":"29 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135296457","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Teaching GBL Principles to Japanese Students of Education in an EFL Setting","authors":"Andrew Gallacher, Stephen Case, Jay Palarino","doi":"10.34190/ecgbl.17.1.1894","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.34190/ecgbl.17.1.1894","url":null,"abstract":"A growing body of evidence shows that game-based learning (GBL) has become an invaluable tool for educators. Despite this fact, Japanese teacher training programs routinely ignore its inclusion. Aiming to address this issue, an innovative content language and integrated learning (CLIL) curriculum was developed in order to teach Japanese students of education the basics of GBL within their English communication classes. This paper presents a comprehensive account of the curriculum's development, the rationale behind it, and explores preliminary evidence regarding students' attitudes towards using GBL principles in their prospective teaching careers following course completion. A total of 147 students with English communication classes were included in the study, ranging from Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) levels B2 to C1. Although exploratory in nature, early evidence suggests that after having undergone the course, students recognized the value of GBL principles and considered them useful for their future careers as educators. From an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) perspective, instructors observed that the method of teaching described herein fostered a livelier, more enthusiastic, and interactive learning environment compared to traditional EFL classrooms. These findings imply that GBL and game design principles might be useful to include in teacher-training programs, both in Japan and elsewhere.","PeriodicalId":406917,"journal":{"name":"European Conference on Games Based Learning","volume":"48 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135296493","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Introducing Resource Management Into a Large-Scale Cyber Security Seminar Game: A Case Study","authors":"Peadar Callaghan","doi":"10.34190/ecgbl.17.1.1913","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.34190/ecgbl.17.1.1913","url":null,"abstract":"In seminar wargames, participants are asked to resolve problems presented by an umpire, who also adjudicates the outcome of the player decisions. This type of game has been used across a wide range of contexts, including notably in cybersecurity training. Seminar games, however, have been criticized for their lack of rigor. The solutions developed during the game can often be idealized. It is also common for these games to have pre-scripted outcomes. This minimizes the agency of the player and reduces the investment the player can have in the game. This paper focuses on the design and development of a seminar wargame with a novel resource management component. This component expands on the traditional seminar game and addresses some underrepresented training needs. The game was designed using a participatory design framework and the process is clearly described in the paper. The game was then played during a large-scale cybersecurity event by governmental representatives from 18 different countries using a hybrid game system. Data was gathered through a series of observations made during play, interviews with participants, and discussion during a debriefing session. Preliminary results show that the participants and sponsors felt that the game improved the overall quality and utility of the seminar style wargame. While the practical implementation of the game requires refinement, the overall approach is viable for a broad range of contexts in which seminar-style games can be used.","PeriodicalId":406917,"journal":{"name":"European Conference on Games Based Learning","volume":"7 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135295520","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Computer Games as a Pedagogical Tool for Creating Cyber Security Awareness","authors":"Per Arne Godejord, Beata Joanna Godejord","doi":"10.34190/ecgbl.17.1.1407","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.34190/ecgbl.17.1.1407","url":null,"abstract":"Cyberattacks are increasing world-wide, both on corporate networks and public institutions network. During 2022 hackers were widening their aim to target business collaboration tools such as Slack, Teams, OneDrive, and Google Drive with phishing exploits, making for a rich harvest of sensitive data given that most organizations’ employees continued to work remotely. In the later years we have also seen academic institutions becoming more frequent targets for both cybercriminals and state sponsored hackers. In 2022 the education/research sector was most attacked industry globally, seeing a 43% increase compared to 2021, with an average of 2,314 attacks per organisation every week. Schools and universities have the unique challenge of dealing with children or young adults, many of which use their own devices, work from shared locations, and often connect to public Wi-Fi without thinking of the security concerns. Additionally, Russia’s war on Ukraine has led to an increase in spear-phishing activity targeting educational institutions in NATO countries. This situation calls attention to the need for awareness raising about personal cyber security. In Norway, Nord University is one of a few universities with specific focus on security and preparedness, including cyber security awareness. The university has two information security courses: one belonging to furthering education and one within the MBA-study program in Security and Preparedness Management. This paper examines the question whether serious games and online quizzes can create heighten cyber security awareness and motivate individual students to change their cyber security behaviour. The paper reports on the findings based on written reflection notes from students belonging to both courses. The technique of examination and interpretation applied to the data was qualitative thematic content analysis supported by computer-assisted qualitative data analysis software NVivo. Theoretical analysis was guided by social constructionist perspective on knowledge creation. While many advantages of the use of online quizzes and computer games were specified by students, challenges were identified as well. However, the findings show that the use of serious games and online quizzes can be an efficient approach to raising security awareness among participating students.","PeriodicalId":406917,"journal":{"name":"European Conference on Games Based Learning","volume":"48 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135295920","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Assessing Creative Awareness and Literary Writing Games in the Norwegian Context","authors":"Allen Jones","doi":"10.34190/ecgbl.17.1.1385","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.34190/ecgbl.17.1.1385","url":null,"abstract":"This paper reports on a survey and teaching intervention done with Norwegian students in their first (VG1), second (VG2), and third year (VG3) of high school English (16-19 years old). The goals of the project: 1. To examine Norwegian student/teacher attitudes toward creativity; 2. To design, play-test, and asses creative reading games. The study found students surprisingly open to creativity and games in education, however, there was a general wariness of assessment. As the students progressed through high school, they increasingly saw writing as something one is forced to do, and resisted sharing their writing. Almost all students saw themselves as outside the community of writers. While the novel nature of the games made for initial difficulties, this was also a motivator. The key to effectiveness was pairing theory with practice to give students a clear sense of the pedagogical goal: to develop and experience the use of creativity (divergent thinking). The use of multimodality in games (drawing) was immensely effective for student engagement and collaboration; however, it was less effective in terms of maintaining clear pedagogical goals in the time given. Finally, the most effective approach in terms of engagement was to involve students as game designers. This paper will focus on a presentation of student views on creativity followed by an assessment of the game results in light of these views.","PeriodicalId":406917,"journal":{"name":"European Conference on Games Based Learning","volume":"29 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135295924","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A Conflict Management Game in Project-based Learning","authors":"Robin Isfold Munkvold, Line Kolås, Adam Palmquist","doi":"10.34190/ecgbl.17.1.1375","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.34190/ecgbl.17.1.1375","url":null,"abstract":"In project-based learning environments, students often face team frustration and conflicts, necessitating the development of conflict management skills. This study examines how integrating a game-based learning approach impacts students' perspectives on managing conflicts in game development project courses. Drawing on theoretical frameworks related to project-based learning, conflict management, and serious games in conflict resolution education, a case design is employed in higher education that incorporates the game \"Cards of Conflict\". Document analysis of student reflection notes is utilised to assess the outcomes. The results demonstrate heightened engagement among participants during the game session, leading to awareness and understanding of conflict managing principles. This encompasses the what, the why´s, and the how’s of conflict management, as well as the diverse perspectives of peer students.","PeriodicalId":406917,"journal":{"name":"European Conference on Games Based Learning","volume":"62 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135296327","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Exploring In-Game Scaffolds for Higher-Order Learning in a Case-Based RPG Learning Game","authors":"Danielle Oprean, Declan Brown, Nate McGorry, Blake Pieper, Nicholas Rankin, Soren Larsen","doi":"10.34190/ecgbl.17.1.1590","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.34190/ecgbl.17.1.1590","url":null,"abstract":"As active learning tools, digital games often focus on including interface and design features to scaffold progression. However, little emphasis on the use of such in-game scaffolds for higher-order learning exists in the literature. We focused this study on the second interaction of a working prototype game called Stories of a GeoFarmer. The study evaluates the importance of in-game scaffolds for engaging learners in higher-order thinking in undergraduate Geography education. Stories of a GeoFarmer is a case-based role-playing game where players take on the role of a farmer in different countries. The game utilizes documented case studies of different environmental issues relating to cultural geography to place players into the role of the individuals impacted by the various situations. The situations are ill-structured presenting interesting arguments for no-win situations meant to engage more thinking about geographic implications. We incorporated several in-game scaffold types that connected to the learning objectives including metacognitive, conceptual, and procedural. We use a mixed methods exploratory design approach consisting of thematic analysis and correlation of post-game survey responses. Our research question asks how does in-game scaffolding in the geography game Stories of GeoFarmer affect the adult learners' experience? Results from 63 undergraduates indicate that students can regularly recall and extrapolate how their in-game actions affect the environment. However, fewer students are able to evaluate why no singular solution exists to the game’s problem despite all the provided in-game scaffolds. Metacognitive scaffolds play the largest role in prompting students to recognize cause and effect but also highlight the necessity of making multiple scaffold types more prominent in order to reach higher-order thinking. This study holds implications for serious game designers to consider how in-game scaffolds can be presented to support high-order learning in adults.","PeriodicalId":406917,"journal":{"name":"European Conference on Games Based Learning","volume":"26 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135296332","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}