Using Epistemic Game Development to Teach Software Development Skills

This paper presents a pilot study on the evaluation of instruments for data gathering for an epistemic game development competition for high school students. The initial results show that a significant percentage of the students who participated in the competition appear to exhibit a skillset of professional attitude, software-related knowledge, and employability traits, and this skillset may be attributed to the intervention. The data was validated through a two-method triangulation technique that utilized expert evaluation and participant interviews. The data analysis shows early indicators of the desired learning outcomes, although a more thorough methodology is needed to verify this. Furthermore, the competition acts as an awareness campaign that promotes computer science studies through a gamification process. It is proposed that competitions of this type are held and evaluated on an annual basis to maximize the benefits and to further prepare students to acquire early in their studies a skillset that will make them the innovators of the future society.

Equal Opportunities Through Education

An inclusive society is a society that offers its members equal opportunities to participate in all aspects of public life, without discrimination, by exercising rights and assuming responsibilities so that progress is equally desired by the individuals and the society to which they belong. The human personality is formed by the interaction of the biological (heredity) with the factors of the social environment and under the influence of education. That is why it is necessary for education to be a modeling continuum, a process that begins in the family and is continued in school, the nucleus around which the free, independent, creative personalities of future adults will be formed. Today’s children are tomorrow’s adults, the ones who will make their mark on the future society. Whether tomorrow’s society will be an inclusive society or whether it will raise barriers and generate hostility depends on how we form the young generation today. This exploratory research, based on the analysis of official documents, statistics and concrete data of the observed reality, highlights important aspects regarding the access to education of disadvantaged groups, in a society that wants to be inclusive.

The Banking Financial System as a Critical Infrastructure of the Current and Future Society

The existence and development of current and future human society depends on the proper functioning of the banking financial system. The capital and the market, as essential elements of social development, are fully integrated into the global social system and represent the engine of progress. From a systemic perspective, with reference to the concept of critical infrastructure, for the economy and society, the banking financial system is like the circulatory system for a living organism. In this respect, this analysis demonstrates the essential role and necessity of the existence of the banking financial system as a critical infrastructure.

A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF USTADZ KHALID BASALAMAH’S LECTURE FRAGMENT ON YOUTUBE ABOUT “DURHAKA KEPADA ORANG TUA KARENA ISTRI”

<p><em>Religious lecture nowadays can be found not only by joining Tablighi Jamaat in the mosque but also by searching the desired religious lecture theme on Youtube which is delivered by desired ustadz. Even though sometimes the content of the lectures found on Youtube are not in their fully version. But still, the messages still can be received. The theme about wife as the cause of disobedient to parents still become a crucial and popular theme to be delivered by ustadz nowadays. This phenomenon can be related to the nature of woman as a wife that mostly found difficulty adapting to their spouse family because her nature to be dominantly self-controlled by feelings. This study aims to critically analysis the discourse of Ustadz Khalid Basalamah Lecture fragment found in Youtube about wife as the cause of disobedient to parents. This study was conducted by analyzing three aspects of Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis Method, namely textual analysis (microstructural analysis), discursive practice analysis (mesostructural analysis), and socio-cultural analysis (macrostructural analysis). The study found that the discourse are (1) using forbidding words repeteadly to show reinforcement of the messages, (2) distributing messages delivered by Ustadz Khalid Basalamah who is believed in having ‘power’ to deliver religious lecture to moeslim as the consumer by his way that is by persuading the audience to think logically, (3) having an important messages to be delivered in building a harmonious family and so harmonious future society</em>.</p>

Habilidades del siglo XXI y entornos de aprendizaje STEAM: una revisión

El desarrollo de las habilidades del siglo XXI se menciona actualmente como uno de los objetivos clave que deben alcanzar los sistemas educativos en todo el mundo, para que los ciudadanos en su conjunto puedan adaptarse adecuadamente al mercado laboral y en general, a la sociedad del futuro. El propósito de esta revisión es, dado el explosivo y creciente interés en este tema, identificar las diversas definiciones de las llamadas habilidades del siglo XXI para luego reconocer las relaciones que se puedan encontrar entre estas habilidades y los entornos de aprendizaje STEAM, los cuales recientemente han sido propuestos como escenarios capaces de desarrollarlas. El estudio se desarrolló como una revisión sistemática de literatura a partir de procesos de abstracting y lectura en profundidad de 153 artículos científicos publicados en revistas indexadas en Scopus y Scielo. Los resultados del estudio sugieren que, para conducir el desarrollo de las habilidades del siglo XXI, conviene tener en cuenta al momento de diseñar entornos de aprendizaje STEAM, asuntos como el cambio en la evaluación hacia una experiencia más formativa, la inclusión de ambientes colaborativos y sociales, la aplicación de estrategias de aprendizaje basadas en la investigación y la gamificación y el juego, entre otras. The development of the so-called 21st century skills is currently mentioned as one of the key objectives that education systems must achieve throughout the world, so that citizens as a whole can adapt adequately to the labor market and in general, to the future society. The purpose of this review is, given the explosive and growing interest in this topic, to identify the various definitions of the skills of the 21st century and then to recognize the relationships that can be found between these skills and STEAM learning environments, which recently have been proposed as suitable scenarios for developing them. The study was developed as a systematic literature review based on abstracting and in-depth reading of 153 scientific articles published in journals indexed in Scopus and Scielo. The results of the study suggest that, in order to guide the development of 21st century skills, it is convenient to consider when designing STEAM learning environments, issues such as the change in the assessment towards a more formative experience, the inclusion of collaborative and social environments, the use of research-based learning strategies and gamification and games, among others.