Alessandra Antonaci

Serious games and the development of an entrepreneurial mindset in higher education engineering students

Abstract The paper discusses adoption of Serious Games (SGs) for supporting development of an entrepreneurial mindset in university students of technical and scientific universities. The paper relies on the authors experience in the eSG project, which aims at introducing students, mainly through practice, to basic concepts of entrepreneurship and company management. In the framework of the project, courses have been designed and carried out in three different countries: Italy, Spain and the Netherlands. The paper discusses the main requirements for the courses and presents a table template, based on state of the art models for entrepreneurship education, that we have used for the scouting of the most suited SGs and defining the most appropriate mix for their use in the courses, keeping into account targeted competences and skills, usability and pedagogical effectiveness. Using the template, the paper draws a comprehensive overview of relevant SGs available on the market and identifies, through an expert analysis, key benefits and issues concerning their adoption in teaching entrepreneurship for the target students. Finally, the paper critically analyzes the state of the art, indicating directions for future research that should lead to development of more effective SGs for entrepreneurship education.

Towards Design Patterns for Augmented Reality Serious Games

For professional workers today, keeping up with knowledge and the continuous technology progress is challenging. Increased innovation speed and dynamic work situations shorten preparation times for new tasks significantly. Traditional professional training approaches preparing employees for new tasks are becoming inappropriate. Thus new educational means are needed. These would help employees get acquainted with new situations faster and more efficiently.

A gamified collaborative course in entrepreneurship

The paper deals with three gamified collaborative courses for entrepreneurship education (EE).A theoretical model for EE, developed on purpose, guided the identification of the objectives.The Serious Games (SGs) to be adopted during the courses have been selected based on the model.Courses outcomes and knowledge acquired could lead to developing of more effective SGs for (EE). The paper deals with the hot issue of entrepreneurship education and describes the rationale behind the gamified and collaborative courses for university students conceived, developed and deployed in the framework of the eSG (stimulating entrepreneurship through Serious Games) project, funded under the EU lifelong learning (LLP) Programme. The project aims to help students becoming familiar, mainly through practice, with basic concepts of entrepreneurship and company management and to stimulate the emergence of their entrepreneurial attitudes. In the framework of the project specific courses mainly grounded on the concepts of gamification and collaboration were designed and carried out in three different partner countries: Italy, Spain and the Netherlands. The main objectives of the courses are presented in this paper and a theoretical model supporting the choice of Serious Games is shown which keeps into account usability, pedagogy and the entrepreneurship skills expressed by state of the art models.

Entrepreneurship education: matters for reflection

This contribution deals with Entrepreneurship Education (EE), a growing area of education that reaches beyond the strict confines of economics and business studies. Indeed, the fundamental aim of EE is to develop an entrepreneurially oriented mindset. While this does involve providing learners with specific business skills, it also means fostering general competencies such as self-confidence, creativity, communication and collaboration.After briefly outlining the EE scene in Italy, the paper reports a field experience carried out in the framework of the European project calledeSG. It also offers some reflections about the suitability and effectiveness of activities based on innovative learning tools such as serious games and on non-traditional educational strategies like gamification.

Digital technology and transmission of Intangible Cultural Heritage: The case of Cantu a Tenore

The “Cantu a Tenore” is a typical artistic expression from Sardinia Italy, which is also recognized by UNESCO as one of the ICH (Intangible Cultural Heritage), those “traditions or living expressions inherited from our ancestors” to be passed down to our descendants. The transmission modalities of the rare know behind “Cantu a Tenore” is progressively changing. Can digital technology affect the way this particular type of singing is/can be transmitted? For sure, it is gradually becoming and, whats more important, is increasingly being “felt” as a suitable means not only to spread knowledge but also to sustain the transmission process itself. In particular new possibilities are opened by the adoption of cutting the edge sensor technologies as proposed by the I-treasures EU project, which proposes novel methodologies and new technological paradigms for the analysis and modeling of a variety of different ICHs, including the “Cantu a Tenore”.