Group Admins
Description
Much has been written in respect of the potential of digital games in education to engage learners however ;the uptake use and development of “Serious” or “applied” games within educational institutions in formal educational settings in particular has been quite fragmented. Whilst some educational domains including Health,the Military and Business studies have a rich history of the use of simulations and digital gaming other domains have not embraced their use of in quite the same way.
Research is emerging that identifies a number of significant major barriers to much broader implementation and uptake of games and these include ; the high cost of game development , the proprietary nature of development tools assets and platforms. the specialist development resource required to produce authentic digital game experiences and the time taken to develop high quality, engaging ,interactive digital gaming experiences It is these challenges that helped inform the instigation of the Realising an Applied Gaming Ecosystem (RAGE) European project. There are few games and or tools avaialble as Open Educational Resources (OER) and the project will help stimulate the development of games and games assets as OER.
The project brings together some nineteen partners from Academia, Education and Industry with the aim of stimulating the development, uptake and use of applied games. Whilst the primary objective of the project is to amplify the establishment of the fledgling European Applied Games industry, the availability and (Apache) open licences applied to the digital resources and technology components produced could result in a significant byproduct specifically the stimulation of Educational institutions to develop, use and share their own Open Educational Resources (OER) in the form of digital games or mini games.This will be achieved as a result of the project making available under open apache licence a significant number ,over 40 , of interoperable digital game assets, or technology components. These open licence interoperable assets or components will allow developers to incorporate complex pedagogical activities including such things as real time emotion detection and appraisal, text analysis, gesture recognition, speech to text conversion , play and learning analytics and cognitive load and personalisation game functions which, historically, have been beyond the technical ability and financial resources of many institutions , use of these components will significantly reduce the time and cost of development of games and result in the production of better quality applied Games.
The assets and components are currently being piloted and tested by practitioners in six independent pedagogic scenarios in case studies across Europe in domains as diverse as digital literacies, employability skills and interview techniques.
T.M. Connolly, E.A Boyle, E. MAcArthur, T. Hainey, and J.M.Boyle (2012) A systematic literature review of empirical evidence on computer games and serious games. Computers in Education Vol 59, No 2 pp 661-686
Hays R. The Effectiveness of Instructional Games (2005) : A literature Review and Discussion Orlando
https://opensource.com/education/13/12/gaming-open-education (acessed February 2016)
Hollins P & Whitton N (2011) From The Games Industry: Ten Lessons for Games Based Learning
Hollins P, Wistera W & Manero Iglesias Borja (2015) Amplifying game development and Uptake ECGBL conf
Kapp, K. (2012) The Gamification of Learning and Instruction Wiler and sons San Francisco
Michel D & Chen S (2006) Serious Games that educate, Train and inform Thomson Boston
