Uwe Terton

ReadAct - Alternate Reality, Serious Games for Reading-Acting to Engage Population and Schools on Social Challenges.

This paper presents a gamified empowerment approach to train future teachers. The approach aims to innovate teaching strategies and to provide a system which motivates players to read and to apply acquired knowledge towards actions to address social challenges within their community. The approach is supported by an alternate reality serious game called “ReadAct” which blends reading instruction with opportunities to act on social responsibility in the real world. Validation results are offered for experiments with the ReadAct approach in different but related contexts of drama reading, environmental education and introduction to computing. Results provide evidence that ReadAct motivates players (young readers) to engage themselves and to attract their schools’ and families’ communities to act on social challenges. The underlying challenges in the experiments are water conservation, urban violence and bullying at school. The paper contributes to the literature on computer-based educat ion by indicating how a ReadAct game may turn the school community, where it is played out, into a community school with an integrated view of academics and social services.

Reducing the Split-Attention Effect in Assembly based Instruction by Merging Physical Parts with Holograms in Mixed Reality.

Split attention in instructional materials is a recognised problem known to cause an increase in cognitive load. Instructional designers often try to resolve this by using a variety of methods that do not account for the spatial disconnect between diagrams being matched up with physical parts during an assembly task. The emergence of Mixed Reality offers a solution, using “holograms” which can project 3d images into the physical environment around the user. This paper reports on a project that proposes the creation of a software prototype that simultaneously enables part identification and tracking of parts for assembly. It conceives a new way of providing instructions when assembling flat pack furniture by endeavouring to facilitate working memory constrains. The software prototype will assist the user by showing where parts should be placed and by providing real-time feedback based on interaction.

Student’s Perspectives Concerning the Use of Social Media as Communication and Educational Tools in a Tertiary Environment

Social media is currently being used to effectively engage and communicate with students in universities across the globe. As Beidelman (2015, p.1) acknowledges, “Social media is a tool that teachers can use to make their classroom more engaging, relevant and culturally diverse”. This action research project is entitled “Increasing student engagement and community via the integration of social media technologies to enhance/inform blended learning at University”, and was funded by a University Exploratory and Enhancement Learning and Teaching Grant. This paper focuses on the first phase of a two-phase project. The overall purpose of the project was to explore whether a blended learning approach, that combines the University’s existing Learning Management System (LMS) with social media applications, strengthens the quality of teaching, and therefore enhances the level of student learning, engagement and community. The first research phase constituted an online survey, distribut ed to 647 students within six University disciplines and investigates university students’ perspectives and attitudes in relation to the use of social media as a pedagogical tool. Respondents reported varying views on the issue. The overarching positive themes were: communication, connection and engagement. Neutral themes included: the win/lose situation and social media being a supplement to teaching. Negative themes comprised: distraction, poor use of time and face-to-face being a more appropriate form of learning. A small proportion of respondents reported having no opinion on the matter and one student raised the need for students to increase their social media usage in the higher education setting.

Designing Gamified E-Learning Applications for Children with Down's Syndrome - The Case of Teaching Literacy and Language Skills.

Down’s syndrome (DS) is the most common genetic cause of intellectual disability worldwide, with language being one of the most affected area. Language skills and literacy acquisition thus require special care. It is still rare to use software to support such care while, simultaneously, providing education and entertainment. This paper presents results of research on the design of gamified software applications to support pedagogical processes of literacy and language acquisition, making them fun, motivating and effective for children with DS. The paper analyses rankings of design domains of gamified e-learning applications done earlier in the research according to pedagogical benefits in entertaining education of DS children. The paper is believed to offer contributions to requirements engineering of e-learning, gamified software applications in general and to computer-assisted education of DS children in particular. The paper directly contributes to the concretization of article 24 (access to Education) of the General Principles, Accessibility, of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD). Usage of applications that implement most beneficial requirements may also indirectly contribute to UNCRPD article 19 –Living independently and being included in the community; article 21 – access to Information and communication services; and, article 27 Work and employment.