Pio Alfredo Di Tore

Motor activities teaching and complexity: a reversal of the classical description of the mechanisms of perception and action

In the last decade we saw a heated debate on the implementation of complex learning theories in Physical Education. In the educational field there has been the difficulty to apply in the teaching practice a conception of the knowledge and learning which, on a theoretical level, has recognized the role of the body in movement, while it struggles, on the operative level, to define methodologies and tools usable in everyday’s activities. The constructivist hypothesis in Physical Education has faced serious difficulties in educationally interpreting the nature of the motor experience. This paper focuses on the concept of action and on the reversal of the process of perception-action operated by the phenomenological tradition (Merleau-Ponty), which has been confirmed in more or less recent neuroscientific evidences (Berthoz, Decety, Jeannerod). In this perspective, the subject builds his world according to his basic needs and action tools. From this point of view, faced with insurmountable difficulties posed by a multidimensional reality, the typical activity of living beings proceeds through the reduction of the dimensionality of the problems, a reduction that addresses complexity simply acting ahead. In other words, the body in action solves local complexity. This idea leads to the disintegration of cognitivist methodological model, based on a concept of information processing that involves discrete, separate, non-overlapping stages of perception-action, and moves in direction of an approach to complexity that shifts from a descriptive level (identification and understanding of the phenomenon) to a pragmatic level (supporting its existence and development).

MADRIGALE: A Multimedia Application for Dyslexia and Reading Improvement GAmifying Learning Experience

In modern society about 10% of children experience difficulty in learning to read. They suffer from a neuro-developmental disorder called dyslexia. Scientific research has shown that the ability to play action video games improves reading skills of dyslexic children. MADRIGALE research aims at designing and implementing an educational action game oriented to promote, through forms of engaging and motivating interaction, phonological training and visuo-spatial attention in dyslexic subjects aged between 7 and 9.

Natural User Interfaces as a powerful tool for courseware design in Physical Education

This article aims to describe a possible scenario for the applications of e-learning solutions to the field of Physical Education. Knowledge related to Physical Education is here defined as enactive knowledge, codified in the form of motor responses and acquired in the action, not mediated by the iconic and symbolic plan. The iconic and symbolic dimension, typical of Graphical User Interfaces, has been a barrier to the creation of e-learning strategies in Physical Education. The new paradigms of Human Computer Interaction such as Natural Interfaces, the spread of “everyday’’ technologies that retrieve to HCI the physical dimension, and the diffusion of exergames in education, now make it possible to imagine large-scale creative and collaborative elearning-based physical education. The article describes coarse-grained theoretical and methodological approaches underlying learning of motor skills and indicates the possible technological scenario, according to the type of interaction determined by the Natural Interfaces.

Visuo-spatial attention and reading abilities: an action game prototype for dyslexic children

Abstract The ability to play action videogames – not directly related to phonological or orthographic training – seems to be a teaching tool able to intervene specifically on spatial attention and drastically improve the reading skills of dyslexic children. The MADRIGALE project aims at the design and development of an action game, simultaneously involving both phonological and attention training in order to adapt educational game strategies for special needs. Within the MADRIGALE project, the design of the prototype was presented at the International Conference on Intelligent Networking and Collaborative Systems, while an experimentation about educational effectiveness of the prototype, conducted using ‘Prove MT2’ as a benchmarking tool for measuring accuracy and speed of reading, was published in the International Journal of Emerging Technologies in Learning (iJET). This paper is an extension of the work presented in SIREM – SIEL 2014 Conference, and presents the results of a Game Evaluation Sheet administered to 50 primary school teachers with experience of dyslexic students

A Simplex Approach to Learning, Cognition, and Spatial Navigation: Emerging Research and Opportunities

A Simplex Approach to Learning, Cognition, and Spatial Navigation: Emerging Research and Opportunities is an innovative source of scholarly material that presents a unique perspective on the convergence of game-based learning, empathy, cognition, and spatial understanding. Including a range of pertinent topics such as gender considerations, space representation, and user interfaces, this book is an ideal reference publication for academics, researchers, students, and educators interested in the role of spatial reference systems in education.

IKeWYSe – I Know What You See An educational tool for perspective-taking skills

Research on narrative and interaction with pedagogical studies which refer to disciplines that require strong immersion for the acquisition of knowledge in areas such as museum education lead scholars to question the importance of perspective taking. This work represents the evolution for educational purposes of a narrative video game designed for the measurement of perspective taking skills. Perspective taking skills, or the ability to change point of view, involve the need for a mental rotation, in relation to the environment or to an object in the environment, while maintaining a main perspective environment in question. This is the key feature, for Alain Berthoz, of empathy. Empathy is a dynamic process that requires a doubling, it is to adopt an egocentric point of view, but after an allocentric manipulation, while inhibiting the emotional contagion, which is rather typical of sympathy. Empathy is a process considered to be particularly relevant in the field of education. Historically, the interest of the educational community focused on the empathic abilities of the teacher, primarily due to the influence of the work of Carl Rogers. The main goal of this research is to design an smart environment that allows to intervene in adaptive way on the empathic abilities of the students, working on their perspective taking skills, and to analyze the different building blocks that may be used to create the proposed educational tools. The prototype of the narrative game from which this study started is aimed at assessing the age at which students develop perspective-taking and mental rotation skills. The present study shifts the focus of research from skills measuring to skills training. The specific educational needs have led to a complete re-design of the application and to the introduction of a semantic layer that can adaptively support user whit ad hoc feedback. This paper presents the spatial theory of empathy framework, describes the narrative game prototype, an smart environment aimed at measuring the perspective taking skills, and introduces the design of a specific ontology for the educational version.