Fong Lok Lee

Harnessing computer Games in Education

Besides the ability of making learning more interesting, educators and researchers have been exploring other pedagogical potentials of computer games. How to employ games for constructivist learning and teaching has become an attention in the field of education and game design in recent years. This article gives an introduction to game-based learning. On top of discussing games’ intrinsic educational traits from the motivational, cognitive and socio-cultural perspectives, we also review two recent foci of game-based learning. The first one is “education in games” which is an approach for adopting existing commercial games for educational use. The second is “games in education” in which the games are designed specifically with underlying pedagogy for some curricula.

FARMTASIA: an online game-based learning environment based on the VISOLE pedagogy

Virtual interactive student-oriented learning environment (VISOLE) is a game-based constructivist pedagogical approach that encompasses the creation of an online interactive world modeled upon a set of interdisciplinary domains, in which students participate as “citizens” to take part cooperatively and competitively in shaping the development of the virtual world as a means to construct their knowledge and skills. FARMTASIA is the first online game designed using the VISOLE philosophy, encompassing the subject areas of biology, government, economics, technology, production system and natural environment. The “virtual world” deployed is a farming system covering the domains of cultivation, horticulture and pasturage, situated in a competitive economy governed by good public policies. The design and implementation of FARMTASIA pursue three vital principles. The first one is to make the game as realistic as possible so that students can learn in a near-real life environment; the second one is to inject motivational elements so that students can sustain to learn and acquire various knowledge and skills with the game; and the third one is to make easy for teachers to conduct various VISOLE facilitation tasks. According to our exploratory educational study, we show evidentially that positive perceptions and an advancement of subject-specific and interdisciplinary knowledge appeared among the students who participated in VISOLE learning with FARMTASIA.

Design and implementation of farmtasia: a game designed for the VISOLE teaching style

The expeditious growth of the Internet and the related technologies hastily contribute and fill up educational applications. While most of them are intended to facilitate the teaching process and are teacher-oriented, the society has continuously asked for a paradigm shift to a student-centred approach. The VISOLE teaching style is a learning paradigm is made up of student-oriented elements which contemplate to infuse learning with amusement. Farmtasia is an online game designed to implement the VISOLE idea with situated learning. Students are suggested to play this online game in groups, interact and compete with other group members. Eventually they are expected to learn the subject knowledge embedded in the game and develop high-order skills through playing the game. The design and implementation of the game follow two principles. The first one is to make the game as realistic as possible so that students can learn from an authentic environment. The second one is to inject fun and interactive components in the game, so that students are eager to immerse and interact in the multiuser environment.

VISOLE: A New Game-based Situated Learning Paradigm

VISOLE (Virtual Interactive Student-Oriented Learning Environment) is a new Game-based Situated Learning Paradigm for Web-based teaching and learning, which aims to help students learn from near real-life experiences and social constructions of knowledge. In this paper, we discuss the theoretical foundation, education paradigm, and technological implementation of VISOLE.

Harnessing Computer Games in Education

Besides the ability of making learning more interesting, educators and researchers have been exploring other pedagogical potentials of computer games. How to employ games for constructivist learning and teaching has become an attention in the field of education and game design in recent years. This article gives an introduction to game-based learning. On top of discussing games’ intrinsic educational traits from the motivational, cognitive and socio-cultural perspectives, we also review two recent foci of game-based learning. The first one is “education in games†which is an approach for adopting existing commercial games for educational use. The second is “games in education†in which the games are designed specifically with underlying pedagogy for some curricula.

Exploring the fourth dimension: the design of a multimedia learning system for generalization

This paper describes how the concept of four-dimensional world can be introduced to players through series of carefully sequenced games. Starting from playing games in one-dimensional world, and then followed by games in two-dimensional and three-dimensional ones, the players are progressively led to generalized rules that can be applied to the four-dimensional world, in which the generalized rule is tested. Different series of games were designed for players to learn the different features of four-dimensional world and were implemented into a web-based learning system which is now undergone field tests.