Velimir Štavljanin

Motivation and Multimodal Interaction in Model-Driven Educational Game Design

In this correspondence, we present an approach to identifying and constructing profiles of user interfaces for educational games. Our approach is based on framing games as educational tools that incorporate fun and learning through motivation as the key ingredient in the learning process and multimodal interaction as the medium for conveying educational material. The proposed solution formalizes the design process, describing educational games in terms of estimated effects that they produce on players. Building upon research on learning and motivation theory, we are connecting these effects with player learning preferences and motivation states. The essence of our solution is the educational game metamodel (EGM), which defines platform-independent educational game concepts. Using the EGM, we have explored novel design approaches for educational games. The metamodel can be used as a conceptual basis for creation of platform-independent educational games, allowing authoring for device and network independence.

Adventure Game Learning Platform

Educational games display great potential as an active form of knowledge transfer. This research field is young, but some patterns in educational game development can be recognized. In this paper, the authors present a new approach to educational game development that overcomes some downsides of more traditional systems. The paper provides the opportunity to create an educational adventure game by using specialized software tool as well as integrating knowledge in that specific game instance. As a result of that process, game definition is created as a form of XML document. On the other side, a web-based interpreter is used to present the adventure game to user in runtime. XML format provides us with platform independency. By use of this tool, the educator gains the ability to create an educational game without programming knowledge, and to reuse some previously created knowledge.

Educational Games Design Issues: Motivation and Multimodal Interaction

In this paper we present an approach to identifying and constructing profiles of user interfaces for educational games. Our approach is based on framing games as educational tools that incorporate fun and learning through motivation as the key ingredient in the learning process, and multimodal interaction as the medium for conveying educational material. To date, there is no common standard to design this kind of games and individual solutions are usually carried out by an ad hocprocess. Proposed solution formalizes design process describing educational games in terms of estimated effects they produce on players. Building upon research on learning and motivation theory, we are connecting these effects with player learning preferences and motivation states. Our main contribution is to suggest design issues that should be taken into account when designing educational games. We exemplify the approach through our ongoing VStrat project, framework for designing educational games.

Surviving the design of educational games: Borrowing from motivation and multimodal interaction

R&D challenges in design of games for learning focus on research and empirical studies to understand better what features of games can be used to improve learning outcomes, and guidelines based on that research to enable the community of developers to build effective educational games. To date, there is no common standard to design this kind of games and individual solutions are usually carried out by an ad hoc process. Our approach is based on framing games as educational tools that incorporate fun and learning through motivation as the key ingredient in the learning process, and multimodal interaction as the medium for conveying educational material. Proposed solution formalizes design process describing educational games in terms of estimated effects they produce on players. Building upon research on learning and motivation theory, we are connecting these effects with player learning preferences and motivation states. Our main contribution is to suggest design issues that should be taken into account when designing educational games. We exemplify the approach through our ongoing V-Strat project, framework for designing educational games.

Educational Games and IT Professionals: Perspectives from the Field

In this paper the authors will give a perspective on educational games application in the field of IT. Main topic of this research will be capacity for applying modern information technologies for developing game-based learning platform. During analysis, they found that more research is needed in order to improve application of games in education of IT professionals. At first place, researches should cover listed problems: how to design educative games in order to achieve better learning effects; how to develop software tools to automate educative game development process; and establish methods and techniques for knowledge and skills assessment utilizing educative games.

User-centered Design of m-Learning System: Moodle On The Go

In order to truly integrate e-Learning system into regular curriculum at a university, mobile access to Learning Management Systems has to be enabled. Mobile devices have the potential to be integrated into the classroom, because they contain unique characteristics such as portability, social interactivity, context sensitivity, connectivity and individuality. Adoption of Learning Management Systems by students is still on the low rate, mostly because of poor usability of existing e-Learning systems. Our initial research has confirmed this hypothesis. Usability issue is rising to the higher level on the mobile platform, because of the mobile devices’ limited screen size, input interfaces and bandwidth, and also because of the context of use. Our second hypothesis was that it is wrong to consider a mobile device as a surrogate for desktop or laptop personal computer (PC). By just adopting the existing Learning Management System on mobile devices with adaptive technologies such as Google proxy, we do not acquire the satisfactory results. Usability can prove to be even lower compared to desktop application. One possible solution to the problem could be development of rich client applications for today’s mobile devices that would raise the usability to a higher level. We developed a PocketPC prototype application by using user-centered design principles, which we presented as a third alternative in usability research conducted among university students. Results gathered in such a way have confirmed that the development of e-Learning systems, in order to be widely accepted by students, needs to have the user (student) in the center of development process.

Gamified educational website conversion optimization

In this paper, we proposed novel approach to e-learning website conversion optimization using gamification. Analysis of current website analytics has identified several gaps between expected and present state. We used traditional three-stage conversion optimization process to first set up new conversion goals, next to track realization, and further to perform optimization using gamified landing pages. Our expectations are focused on content download and student engagement optimization. Though our research focus was on education, findings from this paper may be applicable to other fields.

Social Media in Marketing and PR

Social media as a new communication channel has managed to radicalize the way companies communicate with consumers and other stakeholders. Companies that are not on time engaged in social media weaken its ability for competitive struggle. In this paper we present possibilities of different types of social media in relation to marketing and public relations. Also, the paper will give specific recommendations for the use of social media in mark eting and public relations.

Comparison of Perceived Interactivity Measures of Actual Websites Interactivity

Interactivity is a concept of enormous importance for digital marketing. It was recognized as a key feature of website, a hub of all digital marketing activities. But, almost all interactivity measures were conceptualized one or two decades ago. In the meantime, technological novelties changed the face of websites. Also, a number of interactivity features increased exponentially. Those changes had a huge impact on practice and could influence user’s perception of interactivity. Aim of this paper is to explore whether several selected existing measures of perceived interactivity could cope with those changes. Paper reports a study in which two websites of low and high interactivity were developed and in an experimental setting as stimuli used to test three perceived interactivity measures. Results show that all measures estimated perceived interactivity of a high interactivity website better than of a low interactivity website. Also, results show that particular dimensions of a model could be used to estimate overall interactivity.