Maria Solomou

Game-based curriculum and transformational play: Designing to meaningfully positioning person, content, and context

Grounded in our work on designing game-based curriculum, this paper begins with a theoretical articulation of transformational play. Students who play transformationally become protagonists who use the knowledge, skills, and concepts of the educational content to first make sense of a situation and then make choices that actually transform the play space and themselves-they are able to see how that space changed because of their own efforts. Grounding these theoretical ideas, in this manuscript we describe one curriculum design informed by this theory. We also describe a study of the same teacher who was observed teaching two different curricula (game-based versus story-based) about persuasive writing. Results showed that while students in both classes demonstrated significant learning gains, the gains were significantly greater for students in the game-based classroom. Additionally, students assigned the game-based unit reported significantly higher levels of engagement, had different goals motivating their participation, and received fewer teacher reprimands to stay on task. Both quantitative and qualitative results are interpreted in terms of the theory of transformational play, which guided the design. Implications in terms of the power of game design methodologies for schools as well as learning theory more generally are discussed.

Building creativity: collaborative learning and creativity in social media environments

Purpose – Using a systems-based approach to creativity and a sociocultural constructionist approach to learning, this study aims to highlight how creative ideas emerge within a community and spread amongst its members. Design/methodology/approach – Using a design-based approach to research, this study took place within the social media environment, Quest Atlantis. Chat data were collected from 85 participants and screenshots were taken of the virtual architecture designed and built by players in the Quest Atlantis environment, in an effort to explore the nature of creativity and collaborative learning within the context of virtual 3D architectural construction. Findings – The findings illustrate the rise and spread of creativity in online communities and also point to the social and cultural nature of creativity. Research limitations/implications – This study, the first of its kind, focuses on how creativity operates within a single community in order to draw implications about digital creativity more broadly. Practical implications – Implications for designing virtual and physical communities to promote creativity are discussed. Originality/value – Documenting and analyzing an entire creative system in the everyday world can be a challenging endeavor. Social media, by contrast, offer an opportunity to document, describe, and analyze creativity, extend Csikszentmihalyi’s work into the realm of social media and push back on current conceptions of digital creativity.

Pedagogical Dramas and Transformational Play: Narratively Rich Games for Learning

Although every era is met with the introduction of powerful technologies for entertainment and learning, videogames represent a new contribution binding the two and bearing the potential to create sustained engagement in a curricular drama where the players knowledgeable actions shape an unfolding fiction within a designed world. Although traditionally, stories involve an author, a performer, and an audience, much of the power of videogames as media for advancing narrative springs from their affordance for the player to occupy more than one role—and sometimes all three—simultaneously. In the narratively rich videogames that we design, players have the opportunity to perform actions, experience consequences, and reflect on the underlying social values that these situations were designed to engage, affording a type of narrative transactivity. Elsewhere we have discussed designing these media as contexts for engaging academic content; here we illuminate the power of videogames to engage children in ideological struggles as they are experienced in game-based adaptations of classic literature. Toward this end, we present our theoretical argument for the power of games as a contemporary story medium, grounding this discussion in the context of two game design projects and their implementations. Implications are discussed in terms of the potential of immersive, interactive media—videogame technology, in short—for achieving wide-ranging educational ends.

Using educational design research methods to examine the affordances of online games for teacher learning

The purpose of this research was to examine the affordances and opportunities from using online games in teacher professional development. Following an educational design research approach, we developed an environment to provide opportunities for in-service teachers to engage in-game-based activities. Our work presented in this manuscript was of exploratory nature. The basic questions that guided our inquiry were as follows: (1) What affordances do online game environments provide for teacher professional development? (2) What opportunities and challenges arise from the implementation of games for teacher learning? Data were collected from online design sessions, semi-structured interviews with all participants, online and face-to-face observations, focus group discussions, and artifact review. Findings showed that online games provide great opportunities for learner engagement and teacher preparation. However, the challenges such as the lack of infrastructure, skills, time, and the structure of curricula and assessment are serious barriers that hinder wider adoption of games for learning and teacher preparation.

Pedagogical Dramas and Transformational Play: Realizing Narrative through Videogames Design

Whereas traditionally stories involve an author, a performer, and an audience, much of the power of videogames as media for advancing narrative springs from their affordance for the player to occupy more than one role--and sometimes all three--simultaneously. In the narratively-rich videogames that we design, players have the opportunity to perform actions, experience consequences, and reflect on the underlying social values that these situations were designed to engage. Here, our focus is on the use of these games to engage children in experiencing ideological struggles associated with realizing social commitments. Toward this end, we will present our theoretical argument for the power of games as a contemporary story medium, grounding this discussion in the demonstration of three game design projects and their implementations.

Implementation of Experiential Learning in Pathology: Impact of Hipon Project Concept and Attainment

Background: In pathology training, one of the current, hardest and most important tasks is the conversion of the extensive amount of available data into medical experience. This challenge is linked with an innovative project entitled “ICT emodules on HistoPathology: a valuable online tool for students, researchers and professionalsHIPON”. Aim & Objectives: The project has resulted in a multi-language elearning platform which aims to imprint professional experience in a way that medical students, researchers and professionals can develop their own necessary practical dexterities in the huge field of modern Pathology. Methods: The basic concept underling HIPON’s methodology is the