Vanessa Camilleri

Social Interactive Learning in Multiplayer Games

The way people have been learning and living is constantly evolving. Whereas, a couple of decades ago, society required a workforce dominated primarily by the ‘production-line’ paradigm, nowadays the balance has tipped towards the necessity of a work-force which is dynamic, innovative, creative, and able to deal with problems in the most efficient manner. These characteristics are most often inherent of ‘Gamers’ or that section of the work-force which society is harbouring. This chapter will explore some of the characteristics, which games are capable of extracting and extrapolate them to a learning continuum shifting from the individual to the more collaborative framework. Ultimately this chapter aims to show why a shift in the mentality needs to occur when it comes to education and learning, as we move forward in the same steps which games have successfully undertaken.

Using Mobile Technology and a Participatory Sensing Approach for Crowd Monitoring and Management During Large-Scale Mass Gatherings

A real-time understanding of the behavior of pedestrian crowds in physical spaces is important for crowd monitoring and management during large-scale mass gatherings. Thanks to the proliferation of location-aware smartphones in our society, we see a big potential in inferring crowd behavior patterns by tracking the location of attendees via their mobile phones. This chapter describes a framework to infer and visualize crowd behavior patterns in real-time, using a specially developed smartphone app. Attendees at an event voluntarily provide their location updates and in return may receive timely, targeted and personalized notifications directly from the security personnel which can be of help during an emergency situation. Users also have access to event-related information including travel advice to the location. We conducted a systems trial during the Lord Mayor’s Show 2011 in London, UK and the Notte Bianca festival 2011 in Valletta, Malta. In this chapter, besides verifying the technological feasibility, we report on interviews conducted with app users and police forces that were accessing the monitoring tools during the event. We learned from both sides that the created feedback loop between the attendees of the event running the app and the security personnel is seen as a strong incentive to follow such a participatory sensing approach. The researchers worked closely with policy makers, the emergency services and event organisers and policy implications of using the Socionical App will be discussed; as well as the response of users to being guided by an AmI device during a possible emergency.

Virtual World Presence for Pre-service Teachers: Does the TAM Model Apply?

In this paper, we would like to present a model framework for testing the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) initially proposed by Davis [5] with pre-service teachers using Virtual Worlds (VWs). The main hypothesis of this study states that the use of VWs will enhance technology acceptance by pre-service teachers, and will also facilitate adoption of technology applications within the classroom environment. There have been plenty of studies which have tested the TAM within work-related environments. Other breakthrough studies have also tried to apply the TAM for an education environment, investigating reasons for the possible lack of adoption of technology by teachers within the classroom environment. However, as yet, the models effectiveness has not been investigated with immersive technology applications such as VWs and their possible use and adoption within the teacher training framework.

Enhancing Teacher Resilience: From Self-Reflection to Professional Development

Self-reflection is a crucial element of enhancing personal resilience. The TRSR (Teacher Resilience Self-Reflection) tool is an instrument that can be used by teachers to identify protective and risk factors related to their professional resilience. It is a web-based instrument, with scales adapted, developed and validated for this specific application which reflect the factors that contribute to teacher resilience as outlined in the theoretical framework discussed in this chapter. The TRSR gives users specific individual feedback regarding which aspects of resilience could be enhanced online or in face-to-face workshops. It also gives trainers information regarding their learning group so that they can tailor the workshops to the specific needs of their participants. This chapter gives an overview of the theoretical framework and the TRSR which serves to guide the reflection process. In addition, it details how to use the TRSR and it discusses its educational potential.