Search

Scenario-based e-learning can be used to enable students to develop expertise, in situations that are rare or infrequent, too hazardous for the inexperienced, too expensive to permit practice and failure, or simply not available. Developing automated courses requires significant technical ability, separate from the subject expertise of the educator. This paper introduces a framework developed to simplify this process, along with a scenario authoring and cloud-based training environment, Pandora+

The intrinsic motivation demonstrated towards digital games provides the opportunity for its use as a learning tool irrespective of gender differences. This has resulted in the combination of the motivation of games with curricular content referred to as Digital Game-Based Learning. While some related studies have argued that there are no gender differences in the motivational appeal of digital educational games, others present an opposing view.\ud \ud This paper reports the result of an investigation into the motivational appeal of digital educational games for 11-14 years old girls and boys. There is evidence that this age group is pivotal to the shrinking pipeline phenomenon in which fewer females progressively engage with computer science education and careers.\ud \ud The investigation involved a two stage study composed of a qualitative exploratory study, which identified the key criteria for the successful appeal of some digital entertainment games to young girls and boys and a main study. The main study generate both qualitative and quantitative data to further investigate the motivational appeal of digital educational games for learning basic computer science concepts for both girls and boys of age 11-14 years old. For the main study, two experimental games for learning basic computer science concepts were created based on the key criteria identified from the exploratory study.\ud \ud The first included the game characteristics that appeared to support the motivational appeal of the girls. The second game was antithetical to the first. Both genders from the participating population engaged with both games and online questionnaires were used to capture data on their perception of both games.\ud \ud The outcome of the investigation which involved 304 participants (girls = 152 and boys =152) from Southeast England, United Kingdom provided the empirical evidence in support of the argument that there are gender differences in the motivational appeal of digital educational game characteristics which can either support or thwart motivation i.e. one size does not fit all.\ud \ud The result of this investigation should support educationists, researchers and digital educational game designers in having an inclusive approach towards the creation of digital educational games for learning.

This reflection paper considers the recent growth of online courses, in particular MOOCs, against the backdrop of growing demand for higher education, the failings of our existing higher education models, and the continued but unsuccessful attempts of new technologies to revolutionise education. The authors argue that focusing on technology alone will always be unsuccessful, as it fails to recognise that learning is a social experience, which technology can aid but not replace. They argue that online education must take on board and address the issues of social constructivism in order to be effective. They use their own experience of developing online courses, combined with a consideration of the existing research in the area, to propose a future model for online provision. They conclude by identifying the future research needed to realise this model, and highlighting research on the potential future evolution of higher education.

The term GROOC has recently been defined, by Professor Mintzberg of McGill University (McGill, 2015), to describe group-oriented MOOCs, based on one he has developed on social activism. He has also made it clear that he sees no requirement to provide additional support to address group dynamics, stating that groups should be able to handle losing a few members and still function appropriately (Poets & Quants, 2015). However, the existing research in this area, building from a massive research base in traditional group work theory (Cohen & Lotan, 2014), has identified that group formation and maintenance require considerable extra planning and support. The authors have recently completed the first instantiation of a MOOC, on Entrepreneurship and Innovation in IT, as part of the dCCD-FLITE (distributed Concurrent Design Framework for eLearning in IT Entrepreneurship) research project (dCCD-FLITE, 2015), and their research has confirmed the difficulties in both forming and maintaining groups, and student reluctance to engage in group-based activities. In this paper we discuss the existing research on establishing group dynamics in MOOCs, identifying the key factors influencing success and failure, and then consider the outcomes from the dCCD-FLITE MOOC. The authors have already reported on this work, and have now further analysed the data gathered from the MOOC to consider alternative approaches to establishing Group Dynamics in MOOCs, and are currently planning to run the course once more utilising social media as a catalyst for group formation and maintenance.

The Tourism Monitor project is concerned with the development and deployment of statistical models of information relating to tourism within Norway, particularly within Buskerud and Nordland counties. An online dashboard system, offering intensively graphical information tools and widgets, has been developed as the core of the system, and this is currently being trialled with end users. However, the majority of staff working in tourist-based activities are unskilled in the use of statistical information, and as a result may not be able to benefit themselves or their organisations from use of the system. Rather than see this as a problem, the project partners have seen this as an opportunity to design a system that is both easy to use for inexperienced users, and provides a range of online learning opportunities and materials to enable staff working in the tourism industry to use the dashboard as an online learning environment.

This research is part of an attempt to address the well-known problem of female underrepresentation in computer science education and industry. This problem starts between ages 11 to 14 and gets progressively worse in what is often referred to as the “shrinking pipeline effect”. There has been considerable research into the causes of the shrinking pipeline and attempts to halt or reverse it. In spite of this, the causes remain unclear and there is evidence that the problem may be worsening.\ud \ud Digital games are increasingly used in education because of their ability to engage and motivate young learners. Unfortunately, digital games used in the teaching of IT and computer science have been found to appeal less to females than males. This is in spite of the fact that digital games intended for entertainment, as opposed to education, are now very popular with girls. There has been some research into this issue, however more is needed, especially into what game features do and do not appeal to girls at the age that the pipeline starts to shrink.\ud \ud The study reported here aims to identify what characteristics of digital entertainment games appeal to young females and males. The results can be used to guide educators, researchers and game developers and provide criteria for evaluating the suitability of digital educational games for use with specific age groups and genders.\ud \ud We used open card sort with participants aged 11 to 14 to explore their attitude to a range of digital entertainment games. Open card sort allows participants to categorise items in ways that are meaningful to them. There were 32 participants (24 females and 8 males) from four schools in south-east England. They were shown video clips of ten popular games. The participants were then given ten cards, each representing one of the games and asked to sort them into categories based on shared characteristics. This process elicited 131 features (95 from the females and 36 from the males). The data was analysed to identify the features that were a) most significant and b) most appealing to the participants.\ud \ud The findings indicate that there are some gender differences in which game features are perceived as most significant. Some features, such as game action, are significant to the males whereas others, such as game levels, are significant to the females. Interestingly, some features that both genders find significant have different degrees of appeal for example “fun” and “violence”. \ud \ud We are currently using the findings in an experiment with 480 young people. Two digital educational games have been created: one includes features found to appeal to young females and the other includes the opposite or neutral features. The results of this experiment will be used to validate the findings of the initial investigation and form the basis for a framework to facilitate the inclusion of characteristics that appeal to specific groups in educational games and other software.

The Masters of STEM project seeks to excite young people about the positive impact of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics) research and innovation, both throughout history and in the current day, and to introduce and reinforce positive role models from the STEM community. The purpose is to promote broader knowledge of STEM and the impact it has had on society, and to encourage more young people to undertake higher education and follow careers in STEM. The project already has partners in Europe, USA and Brazil, and continues to grow the partnership and funding base.\ud \ud At the core of the project is the development and deployment of an online game platform, supporting users playing short game scenarios developed by the project, and allowing them to develop their own scenarios utilising characters developed by the project to represent the role models we identify, the Masters of STEM. The game platform will support multi-lingual versioning, and role models will be identified and characterised for the scenarios at both global and local level. Rules and constraints will be applied at character level to ensure the scenarios developed by users are within acceptable limits of behaviour and activity. A number of types of scenarios will be developed, offering interest and engagement for users of all ages, from infant to adult, and this will permit the development of a user community generating their own content for the platform.\ud \ud The project will disseminate these outcomes widely throughout the world, particularly through the schools networks. To achieve this, websites will be developed by the project partners providing localised information on STEM activities, careers and opportunities in different regions. This will permit the development of region-specific linguistic and cultural representation of information, and identification of role models, both real and media-generated. Information on these role models will feed through to the game platform, which will be linked to these websites to provide both general and region-specific scenarios. The project partners will also use online surveys to capture information on young peoples attitudes towards STEM, positive views on characters from the STEM community, and interest in games.\ud \ud Initial work on the games platform has already begun, based on the Unity games engine and existing work on the scenario-authoring tool from the Pandora+ platform. Contact has been established with a number of media groups to ascertain the potential to use media characters as STEM role models, e.g. Big Bang Theory & CSI characters, and, where possible, real individuals will be approached to give their permission for their images and stories to be used in the system. Historical characters should not require such permissions, but the project will ensure that all characters are treated with respect, and the system will not permit inappropriate scenarios to be generated. User evaluation of the system will be sought continuously through feedback surveys, frequency of use measures, and user ratings. Impact measures will be established by agreement with the wider community.

At ICEL 2014 in Valparaiso the authors presented a paper on the importance of developing metacognition in students, to support changes and developments in pedagogy and learning models. Following on from that paper, we now consider and present outcomes from three projects reflecting different stages of the learning continuum, with which we are engaged. \ud \ud Firstly, the Computing at Schools project in the UK has been running for over five years, and has been successful in gaining the support of the UK government for the introduction of Computer Science teaching in schools at both primary and secondary levels. Critical to the success of this project is a change in the pedagogic model adopted by the schools, moving from fairly standard instructivist models for teaching in the primary schools and in teaching coding and factual information to more constructivist approaches, using flip classrooms and other TEL (technology enhanced learning) tools and techniques to help pupils develop Computational Thinking skills.\ud \ud Within our own University, we have been working on a project called Greenwich Connect, which aims to provide our students with a comprehensive set of online services and facilities supporting all aspects of the student experience. As part of this project staff are encouraged to develop learning materials using TEL tools, and to adopt more constructivist and student-centric teaching approaches. Within the UK University context, we already have an excellent example of a strong constructivist, student centric teaching model in the PhD studentship. A PhD student is encouraged to investigate the body of knowledge, with appropriate advice and guidance from experienced and knowledgeable supervisors, and then to take control of their own learning process by identifying their research question, experimental model and analytical methodology. They then carry out and write up their research, with their supervisors now available as experts to be consulted at need, and produce an outcome, which, at the point of viva, proves them to be the current world expert in their field. The issues are in applying this model to large numbers of students at an earlier stage in their learning and the resourcing of the facilities required to support this.\ud \ud One potential approach to deal with the issues of resourcing a student-centric approach to online learning is being investigated in the dCCD-FLITE project, an EU funded project with 7 partners from 6 European countries. The project is developing learning materials on the subject of Entrepreneurship in the IT Industry, and aims to deliver these materials to students in online courses that offer a constructivist, student-centric learning approach, with limited tutor resources and engagement. To achieve this, it allows students to self-select groups to work in, and then introduces two key learning frameworks to be used by the groups to organise and develop their learning - Concurrent Design Method, designed by NASA, and the Osterwalder Canvas.

Recognizing the powerful role that technology plays in the lives of people, researchers are increasingly focusing on the most effective uses of technology to support learning and teaching. Technology enhanced learning (TEL) has the potential to support and transform students’ learning and allows them to choose when, where and how to learn. This paper describes two different approaches for the design of personalised and non-personalised online learning\ud environments, which have been developed to investigate whether personalised e-learning is more efficient than non-personalised e-learning, and discuss some of the student’s experiences and assessment test results based on experiments conducted so far.