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eLearning Papers 25 www.elearningpapers.eu eLearning Papers ISSN: 1887-1542 www.elearningpapers.eu n.º 25 July 2011 1 From the field serious games, case studies, informal learning, evaluation Tags Authors Aristidis Protopsaltis Serious Games Institute (UK) [email protected]. ac.uk Lucia Pannese Imaginary srl – Innovation Network Politecnico di Milano (It) [email protected] Dimitra Pappa National Center for Scientific Research “Demokritos” (Gr) [email protected] Sonia Hetzner Senior researcher, Friedrich- Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (De) sonia.hetzner@fim.uni- erlangen.de Serious Games and Formal and Informal Learning The experience garnered from the eVITA project is used to explore the relaon between Serious Games (SGs) and formal and informal learning. The eVITA project promotes and invesgates pedagogy-driven innovaon by defining and evaluang four different ped- agogical approaches. In addion, it aims to facilitate knowledge-transfer mechanisms that integrate Game Based Learning with intergeneraonal learning concepts. Within the project framework, a set of games have been developed which aim to increase European cultural awareness by conveying the cross-border experiences of older Eu- ropeans, and the first part of the expert evaluaon of the outcomes is presented here. 1. Introduction The use of tradional games in educaon has a long standing tradion. Games always used to be part of the human learning experience either in formal or in informal sengs. Nowa- days, Serious Games (SGs) have become both a growing market in the video games industry (Alvarez & Michaud, 2008; Susi, Johanesson & Backlund, 2007) and a field of academic re- search (Rierfeld, Cody & Vorderer, 2009) receiving aenon from many diverse fields such as psychology, cultural studies, computer science, business studies, sociology and pedagogy (Breuer & Bente, 2010). The fact that people learn from digital games is no longer in dispute. Research (de Freitas, 2006; de Freitas & Neumann, 2009; Egenfeldt-Nielsen, 2005; Prensky, 2006; Squire, 2004; Squire & Jenkins, 2003) has shown that serious games can be a very effecve as an instruc- onal tool and it can assist learning by providing an alternave way of presenng instrucons and content. Game based learning and serious games can promote student movaon and interest in subject maer, enhancing thus the effecveness of learning. Learning through games offers increased movaon and interest to learners through the role of “fun” in learn- ing. Adding fun into the learning process makes learning not only more enjoyable and com- pelling, but more effecve as well (Prensky, 2002, p. 4). One of the main characteriscs of a serious game is the fact that the instruconal content is presented together with fun ele- ments. A game that is movang makes learners to become personally involved with playing it in an emoonal and cognive way. By engaging in a dual level, their aenon and mova- on is increased and that assists their learning. There is credible research that suggests that today’s students have a different learning style, enabled by gaming. Beck and Wade (2004) in their work examined a large number of young professionals and found that their approach to learning was deliberately overlooking the structure and format of formal educaon. They were extensively used trial and error, they were welcoming contribuon and instrucon from peers, and they were emphasising on ‘just in me’ learning to fulfil their needs and complete their tasks. All of these skills are considered essenal in the modern world and serious games can assist towards developing and praccing them.

Serious Games and Formal and Informal Learning

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Author(s): Aristidis Protopsaltis, sonia Hetzner, Dimitra Pappa, Lucia Pannese. Serious Games and Formal and Informal LearningThe experience garnered from the eVITA project is used to explore the relation between Serious Games (SGs) and formal and informal learning.

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Page 1: Serious Games and Formal and Informal Learning

eLearning

Papers25www.elearningp

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eLearning Papers • ISSN: 1887-1542 • www.elearningpapers.eu

n.º 25 • July 2011

1

From the field

serious games, case studies, informal learning, evaluation

Tags

Authors

Aristidis ProtopsaltisSerious Games Institute (UK)[email protected]

Lucia PanneseImaginary srl – Innovation Network Politecnico di Milano (It)[email protected]

Dimitra PappaNational Center for Scientific Research “Demokritos” (Gr)[email protected]

Sonia HetznerSenior researcher, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (De)[email protected]

Serious Games and Formal and Informal Learning

The experience garnered from the eVITA project is used to explore the relation between Serious Games (SGs) and formal and informal learning. The eVITA project promotes and investigates pedagogy-driven innovation by defining and evaluating four different ped-agogical approaches. In addition, it aims to facilitate knowledge-transfer mechanisms that integrate Game Based Learning with intergenerational learning concepts. Within the project framework, a set of games have been developed which aim to increase European cultural awareness by conveying the cross-border experiences of older Eu-ropeans, and the first part of the expert evaluation of the outcomes is presented here.

1. IntroductionThe use of traditional games in education has a long standing tradition. Games always used to be part of the human learning experience either in formal or in informal settings. Nowa-days, Serious Games (SGs) have become both a growing market in the video games industry (Alvarez & Michaud, 2008; Susi, Johanesson & Backlund, 2007) and a field of academic re-search (Ritterfeld, Cody & Vorderer, 2009) receiving attention from many diverse fields such as psychology, cultural studies, computer science, business studies, sociology and pedagogy (Breuer & Bente, 2010).

The fact that people learn from digital games is no longer in dispute. Research (de Freitas, 2006; de Freitas & Neumann, 2009; Egenfeldt-Nielsen, 2005; Prensky, 2006; Squire, 2004; Squire & Jenkins, 2003) has shown that serious games can be a very effective as an instruc-tional tool and it can assist learning by providing an alternative way of presenting instructions and content. Game based learning and serious games can promote student motivation and interest in subject matter, enhancing thus the effectiveness of learning. Learning through games offers increased motivation and interest to learners through the role of “fun” in learn-ing. Adding fun into the learning process makes learning not only more enjoyable and com-pelling, but more effective as well (Prensky, 2002, p. 4). One of the main characteristics of a serious game is the fact that the instructional content is presented together with fun ele-ments. A game that is motivating makes learners to become personally involved with playing it in an emotional and cognitive way. By engaging in a dual level, their attention and motiva-tion is increased and that assists their learning.

There is credible research that suggests that today’s students have a different learning style, enabled by gaming. Beck and Wade (2004) in their work examined a large number of young professionals and found that their approach to learning was deliberately overlooking the structure and format of formal education. They were extensively used trial and error, they were welcoming contribution and instruction from peers, and they were emphasising on ‘just in time’ learning to fulfil their needs and complete their tasks. All of these skills are considered essential in the modern world and serious games can assist towards developing and practicing them.

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2. Serious Games in EducationSerious Games are perceived as games that engage users in activities other than pure entertainment. They involve goal orientated tasks based either in real world or non-real world scenarios and aim to improve the player’s motor and cognitive skills. Most often they are used for corporate training, educa-tion, problem solving, military training, health care, government management, disaster management. Serious games are slowly becoming a powerful tool in education (Torrente, Moreno-Ger, Fernández-Manjón & del Blanco, 2009).

Whilst Serious Games (SGs) are increasingly becoming accepted as a learning tool, the debate continues about what makes a game effective and how it should be used. Making “intellectual-ly appropriate, challenging and enriching” games is considered a key research challenge together with the integration of SGs into the learning process (de Freitas, 2006).

Serious Games offer a range of benefits such as making users feel responsible for success according to their actions, match high-quality content and high engagement, turn mistakes into learning elements avoiding the message that an error is some-thing that cannot be recovered, allow problem based learning, situated learning and make users feel more comfortable with the exercise etc. SGs offer the ability to participants to assume an active role in a situated and experiential learning process. For example, Squire (2007) referring to his personal experience describes fifth-grade kids interacting as equals with computer programmers from the Netherlands, improving their spelling through this interaction, and before long they were scripting their own sections of the game-participating in the design of a new world. Furthermore, it is common practice nowadays for millions of children to learning history first informally through games and then formally through books and educational mate-rial.

It is also widely accepted that educational games can increase the attractiveness of learning, giving a powerful tool in the effort against de-motivation and dropouts, two issues largely affecting academic performance and formal and informal learning in gen-eral. Moreover, Serious Games can help to connect specific con-tents and skills with a friendly environment, where the student is able to play, probe, make mistakes, and learn (Gee, 2003; Van Eck, 2006, 2007). More precisely, games employ strategies, such as differentiated roles, visualization of performance and just-in-time feedback, to guide learning in ways that are neither wholly

open-ended nor wholly directed but a hybrid of the two some-thing Squire (2006, p. 53) have called “designed experiences”.

To assess this kind of “fluency,” Squire (2006) suggests the use of assessments that judge how well or not students identify prob-lems within a domain; how well they can assess solutions; what kinds of conceptual understandings they develop; and how they communicate either verbally, written, visually, and “computa-tionally” (Squire, 2006). Furthermore, serious games can pro-vide feedback in multiple formats the such as charts, graphs, written, multimedia, synchronous and asynchronous peer feed-back and assessments, and so on, that might be leveraged to support learning in diverse settings. As such, games themselves may be much better forms of assessment than traditional meth-ods in both formal and informal settings (Squire, 2006).

Serious Games offer learning experiences that engage users and, through the use of novel pedagogic approaches assists in developing higher levels of cognitive thinking. Serious Games can also incorporate data tracking to support assessment to high levels of detail and provide tools for self-assessment and analysis. Playing Serious Games, information and sensations ex-perienced remain strongly impress and let the player improve perception, attention and memory, promoting behavior chang-es through “learning by doing”. Serious Games allow situated learning and make users feel more comfortable with the exer-cise. In fact, internalize something you actively did is more sim-ple than learning during traditional frontal lessons, a so called “passive learning”. Serious Games are useful in the learning be-cause they represent a new way to learn exploiting the synergy between emotions and learning (Pappa et al., In Press).

Despite the widespread use of commercial games and the in-creased attention that the domain of games-based learning has received, strategies for supporting the more efficacious meth-ods of learning with games were uncertain until very recently. In a study undertaken by de Freitas and Oliver (2006), tutors were unsure which games to use, which context to use games and how they could be evaluated and validated. This work led to the development of conceptual frameworks that were subse-quently used for testing game-based learning. In particular the four dimensional framework proposed by de Freitas and Oliver, (2005) with its four dimensions of the learner, pedagogies used, the representation of the game itself and the context, allowed researchers to evaluate serious games and to interrogate what metrics and measures could be used both to validate game-based learning, and to support the learning design process. The

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eVITA approach was based on the four dimensional framework and it produced four different serious games, based on four dif-ferent pedagogical approaches.

Most of what happens with technology outside the classroom was and still is according to Squire (Squire, 2007) ignored. He (Squire, 2007) advocates that there is a need for mixed ap-proaches that combine instruction with well-designed feedback and scaffolding activities. More precisely, there is a need for incorporating formative assessment practices into formal and maybe into informal learning. For doing so, it is necessary to change classroom traditional activities and interactions among students and teachers (Bell & Cowie, 2001), to change the tra-ditional communication, and to give students more independ-ence, activity and intentionality in their learning that go beyond traditional intrinsic and extrinsic motivation (Bereiter & Scar-damalia, 1989; Scardamalia, 2002).

Serious games can be used as additional option to classroom lecturing. The intention of serious games is to address new ways of ICT based instructional design and at the same time to pro-vide learners the possibility to acquire skills and competencies. By means of serious games learners/players should be able to apply factual knowledge, learn on demand, gain experiences in the virtual world that can later shape their behavioural patterns and directly influence their reflection, etc. (Pivec & Kearney, 2007).

Squire (Squire, 2006, 2007) is arguing that instructional theory approaches need to seek to explain how particular game-based approaches work within particular contexts. This is what eVI-TA is ambitious of doing. By developing four different versions based on four different pedagogies, eVITA evaluates how these four different approaches work within particular context and in

this case in the context of intergenerational learning and in for-mal and informal learning.

3. Formal and non-formal learningIn the past diverse attempts were made to define formal, non-formal and informal learning as well as to provide main indi-cators for their occurrence. The CEDEFOP glossary (Tissot, P., 2000; Tissot, P., 2004) after intensive literature review in Europe defines as follows: formal learning consists of learning that oc-curs within an organised and structured context (formal edu-cation, in-company training), and that is designed as learning, formal learning may lead to formal recognition (certification). Non-formal learning consists of learning embedded in planned activities that are not explicitly designated as learning, but which contain an important learning element. Informal learning is defined as learning resulting from daily life activities related to work, family, or leisure. It is often referred to as experien-tial learning and can, to a degree, be understood as accidental learning.

According to these definitions we could place Serious Games learning activities as non-formal learning activities. Although they are explicitly designed for learning, if well designed learn-ing occurs as a side effect of gaming. The approach can be dif-ferent, if we approach Serious Games as learning elements that can be integrated in multiple learning environments. In this way Serious Games can be a part of formal, non-formal or informal learning settings. According to Colardyn and Bjørnåvold (2005) the different learning forms have to be approach in a two di-mensional framework: 1. Structure of the context 2. Intention to learn.

Intention to learn

Structure of the context Learning is intentional Learning is non-intentional

Planned learning activities Formal learning

Planned activities Non-formal learning(or contextual learning)

No planning Informal learning

Table 1: Definiting formal, non-formal and informal learning according to learning intention and structure of the context. Source: Colardyn and Bjornavold (2005).

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Depending on the adopted perspective, Serious Games can be framed in different areas of the above table: If defined as an independently running learning environment with integrate pedagogical elements such as didactical design, help, phases, assessment and feedback, social interaction applications, etc. Serious Games are aimed at intentional learning and usually embedded in planned learning activities. In this case we talk about formal learning. If we switch the perspective and observe Serious Games as one possible didactical element of a more complex learning environment, which can be intentional (in the educational context) but also non-intentional (purely gaming) and it can be planned (in the classroom) or non-planned (eve-rywhere) as merely leisure activity. Then we can define Serious Games as suitable elements in every type of learning. And this is one particular gain of Serious Games in education. Educa-tion is heading to a big change. The lines between formal and informal, planned or unplanned learning are more and more blurred, and mostly a shift to less formal education occurs. Sefton-Green (2004) mentions that the use of computer in and outside the classroom allow children and young people a wide variety of activities and experiences that can support learning, yet many of these transactions do not take place in traditional educational settings, often synonymous for formal learning. In this contextual change Serious Games contain a great potential to a) set clear pedagogical aims but at the same time b) pro-

vide an open learning environment, supporting each individual learning choice and learning-motivation. Serious Games does not restrain when, where and why learning occurs.

The American National Educational Technology Plan 2010 (short NETP) presents a model of 21st century learning powered by technology, with goals and recommendations in five areas: learning, assessment, teaching, infrastructure, and productiv-ity. The plan calls for engaging and empowering learning experi-ences for all learners. It wants to bring state-of-the art technol-ogy into learning to enable, motivate, and inspire all students, regardless of background, languages, or disabilities, to achieve. It leverages the power of technology to provide personalized learning instead of a one-size-fits-all curriculum, pace of teach-ing, and instructional practices. Serious Games would fit per-fectly in this educational plan.

Serious Games support students mobility, can be developed by students and shared with others, allows students to participate in social networks to collaborate and learn new things. Quoting the Executive summary of NETP (2010, p. 4): “Outside school, students are free to pursue their passions in their own way and at their own pace. The opportunities are limitless, borderless, and instantaneous.” In this interpretation of future learning Se-rious Games are definitely excellent knowledge buildings tools in every learning situation.

Source: “Model of Learning” NETP (2010, p. 27)

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however should be to balance the two, in order to create an optimal experience and achieve a completely focused player motivation in line with the theory of flow proposed by Csik-szentmihalyi (1996). Successful games are those that can bring players in a mental state of operation, in which they find them-selves fully immersed in the game environment and compelled to explore and experiment further. According to Csikszentmiha-lyi (1996) the eight components that contribute to an optimal experience are:

• Clearly defined goals

• Concentration on task at hand

• Merging of action and awareness

• An altered sense of time

• Clear and responsive feedback

• Balanced level of challenge and difficulty

• A sense of control over the task at hand

• A challenging task requiring skill to execute

In this light, three critical dimensions emerge in educational games development. In line with the threefold nature of SGs as: (a) IT products, (b) Games and (c) Learning Instruments, ef-fective SGs need to be (a) technically sound and easy-to-use IT products, (b) fun and engaging games and (c) effective learning instruments that lead to the desired learning outcome.

The preliminary validation of the e-VITA prototype game (an ex-periential game evolving around the adventures of a journalist who has to write an article about the “East and West block” and the times before the fall of the Berlin wall) involved a broad tar-get group from several European countries (Spain, Portugal, Po-land, Italy, Greece, UK), namely young people (school children and young adults) interested in acquiring intergenerational and intercultural knowledge by means of game playing. It featured a questionnaire-based evaluation that was complimented by in-formal interviews, during which users were asked to elaborate on their feedback/rating. The three analysis dimensions includ-ed: technical solidity & usability, cognitive & affective aspects and pedagogical aspects (achievement of learning outcome), yet particular attention was placed on usability issues and cog-nitive and affective aspects, namely on the game’s graphical de-sign, navigation, story line etc, as well as on its ability to achieve player involvement and motivation, or to induce enjoyment and emotions (e.g. gratification). The transferring of factual knowl-edge was also investigated.

4. The e-VITA experienceThe e-VITA project (“European Life Experiences”) proposes an innovative and creative methodology for intergenerational knowledge sharing and transfer (intergenerational learning), which combines storytelling and SGs. Intergenerational learn-ing, which refers to the sharing of information, thoughts, feel-ings and experiences between different generations. Typically this process is informal, taking place during regular everyday exchanges with older relatives and friends, but can also be pro-moted through organised or planned activities (e.g. elderly peo-ple making lectures in schools, school children visiting nursing homes, reminiscence projects, etc).

e-VITA, in addition to demonstrating the learning potential of SGs for the purposes of intergenerational learning, is also set to highlight and investigate important aspects of games design. In particular, the project explores the pedagogic dimension of SGs through the adoption of four differing approaches, imple-mented and analysed in the form of four distinct SGs. Each has the same learner, context, and representational medium, yet the pedagogic underpinnings are varied so as to provide a basis for comparative study. The four approaches include:

1. A narrative-based game which uses storytelling to achieve engagement and flow; in this respect it can be seen to draw on oral history pedagogy (King & Stahl, 1990);

2. An experiential game, where the player is transferred into the state of affairs faced by the narrator, and as such in-fluenced by situative pedagogy;

3. A puzzle-based game, wherein the player has to solve puzzles and overcome challenges in order to proceed, and finally;

4. An exploratory game focused on increasing the learner’s zone of proximal development by directing them to web and other external material and resources in order to overcome the challenges or problems presented by the game.

Overall, games represent a complex electronic medium, de-signed to allow users to experience an artefact, a situation etc. Setting up effective SGs is a complex task that requires meticu-lous planning following a holistic examination of a number of parameters. Often game design either focuses solely on the learning goal (e.g. on teaching a specific skill or procedure) thus giving player entertainment a lesser role, or accentuates the fun elements of game playing at the cost of learning. The purpose

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Overall the evaluation results were satisfactory. Some aspects of the game were criticised, yet all attributes have received a positive rating. For example this was the case with the game’s “graphical design” and “navigation”. Among the critics some questioned the use of two-dimensional design which they char-acterised as “Old”, others the use of photographs, the design of the characters, the use of colour, the lack of movement etc. Most users responded that they had no problem concentrating while enjoying the contents of the game. Yet the majority disa-grees that “the activities proposed in the game were engaging and “kept interest alive”.

perience and they believe the gaming experience improves the retention of new knowledge gained.

Similarly, varying points of view were recorded among male and female respondents. Based on the evaluation results it would seem that the prototype game appeals more to female users. More specifically, female gamers appreciate more look of the game and also have a more clear view of the game’s objectives, appreciate more the instructions and feedback provided during and at the end of the game, would be more motivated to seek additional information after having played the game and also

Figure 1: Deviation on preference between under 20 and over 20

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Some differences between age groups (i.e. under and over 20 years old users) and also between female and male re-spondents were evident, while there were no significant variations with re-spect to the country.

Figure 1 illustrates the major points of deviation between 20+ and 20- users. Overall, it would seem that the proto-type game appeals more to 20+ play-ers, who feel more in command while using the game, understand better the content of the game and appreciate more the way the different life situa-tions are presented. Older users would be more interested in repeating the ex-

would be more willing to repeat the experience compared to male users. Figure 2 illustrates the major points of deviation recorded.

These gender and age differences that are often evident in leisure gam-ing clearly stress the need to take gender and age into consideration during game design. This clearly dem-onstrates that it is difficult to create a game that appeals equally to all. The patterns of game-play of the in-tended target group should be taken into consideration during SGs design, in order to achieve an optimal mix be-tween education and entertainment.

Figure 2: Differences on preference between males and females

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when some groups of the young target group were interviewed both in Italy and in Germany. Overall around 90 students were interviewed (Hetzner & Pannese, 2009), both teen-agers in the 14-18 years age group and university students (Pannese, Hall-meier, Hetzner & Confalonieri, 2009). This participatory ap-proach already underlined several aspects, like the difference in expectations which vary quite substantially between the teen-ager groups and the university students, although again this difference is reduced, once teen-agers are able to focus on se-rious games as alternative learning means to some more “clas-sical” or “formal” approach, which they consider boring and definitely non-entertaining. Making them imagine that informal approaches like gaming could be introduced in their formal cur-ricula and lessons, makes them much more flexible and able to accept compromise as well as it reduces their expectations. This was definitely the case when discussing the gaming interface in the above mentioned focus groups. While to them a game interface must definitely be a high sophisticated 3D, especially for males, when considering an informal learning approach, they would “surrender” accepting 2D, simple interface. Univer-sity students on the other hand tend to have expectations that are more similar to the teachers’ ones: they concentrate much more on the contents and on the engagement that is induced by interesting and sometimes surprising, new information. Teach-ers definitely concentrate on contents that must be in line with topics that they teach in formal lessons and need some certain-ty that no bias was introduced for narrative or engagement rea-sons. They envisage some games that can guarantee a flexible use for them, a meaningful experience for the learners, some cross-discipline content to work on students skills and enable them to bridge gaps between one subject and another. These gaps are sometimes even provoked by formal lessons, when each teacher considers their subjects and no exercise allows some critical thinking about connections between different top-ics and subjects. The point in this context is definitely reflection that can be triggered through the gaming experience. As Watt (2009) puts it, it is the intended result of playing the game that defines it as serious, not the playing activity itself.

Interestingly enough, most of the expectation to have fun and be active must be used and enhanced by teachers: it is the way to introduce the informal factors in the formal setting that makes every feedback and the whole experience meaningful and that allows to maximize context-bound reflection and thus situated learning. Very much of the learning outcome depends on the overall experience set up around and with the game, turning game play into a social activity. This is true within a group or in a

While SGs have a clear value for transmitting explicit, factual knowledge, perhaps their greater strength relates to the trans-ferring of tacit knowledge, skills, behaviours that can be embed-ded in games. The purpose of SGs used in the context of inter-generational learning, is not only to engage/entertain younger generations of players, or convey practical or historical informa-tion about past decades, but rather to immerse players in this era and allow them to experience the life of older generations. In this light it would be difficult for many users to put into words what they have learning by playing this game.

5. Conclusions: Challenges in design and development of games for formal-informal learning

The Games are normally by their intrinsic nature a means for in-formal learning, although they can be used in formal settings as well as for self-regulated learning. Independently on how they might be used, there are several challenges that designers and developers of serious games must face, some pertaining more to the learning aspect, some more to the gaming aspect and some others to technological and implementation details.

To sum up the most frequent challenges the following can be listed:

• matching users’ expectations

• matching trainers’ expectations

• finding balance between learning & fun/engagement

• finding a form suited for self-learning but also for introduc-tion in a training programme at the same time to guarantee freedom of use

• giving enough guidance without taking the challenge away and without interfering with the narrative and the game play

• how to give meaningful feedback

• how to make it a meaningful experience

• how to involve the emotional side of the learner

• how to consider gender-dependent aspects

• being close to context (no bias in the content to introduce narrative aspects)

• graphical appeal

We will not enter in technological details here, but we will re-flect about and investigate some of the challenges that emerged already from the 2 focus groups held during the e-VITA project,

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classroom but also in self-regulated learning with online group dynamics and social online interaction around the game. This social phenomenon can be observed even with simple exam-ples (not even serious games) in Facebook, like FarmVille for example.

At the same time, the core role of the teacher is determining if a good balance between fun and learning can be reached. Obviously the serious game itself must already contain some valid learning elements as well as some engaging aspects but the whole experience can be changed or even reversed accord-ing to the specific use of the game and its context of use. This again brings us to another challenge: how much guidance must be given inside the game and how much can or should be given around it by the teacher? Or again: how much can be delegated to peer-to-peer supporting and teaching? This has to do once more with meaningful feedback as well: in order to be mean-ingful, feedback should again probably be adaptive to the spe-cific user/player and his or her specific competences or level of expertise (Bente & Breuer, 2009). On the one hand feedback must be given within the game play (without disturbing or inter-rupting this) and as part of the game, which means that careful attention must be given by learners to details of dialogues or happenings that should unveil what other characters think, how they perceive the player’s actions or how the dynamics of the action change. On the other hand a final, explicit feedback must be given, which allows analyzing every decision, behaviour and consequence during the game play.

To conclude, there is no unambiguous answer to the challenges while confronting with the creative experience of conceiving a serious game: everything must carefully de designed and de-veloped according to the specific use that will be done of the serious game, of the target group, their skills, preferences, ex-perience with these tools, the experience of the teacher and the role that informal methods will take up in formal learning settings. Probably the reason for this is, as Watt (2009) puts it, that serious games research nowadays is facing the same chal-lenges that HCI (Human-Computer-Interaction) was facing 15 years ago.

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