Crowdfunding Serious Games

In serious game design, addressing issues related to the value and opportunity of the development of a game is vital in the early stages, creating a more structured and robust approach by exploring the business case. Present frameworks provide an in-depth analysis of game design models but often fail to state the case of predetermined target markets and new funding options for serious game design. Crowdfunding is an emerging funding path for these games and one that leads the vanguard in breaking with traditional forms of raising funding. This chapter aims to help in addressing an existing limitation in the literature by reviewing an existing framework on game design and blending this with the concept of crowdfunding. This chapter proposes the extension of a framework that reflects the possibility for early crowdfunding of a serious game.

Gamification Design in Education

Gamification consists of the usage of game elements in non-entertainment applications to improve the motivation and results of their users. Guidelines can prevent the problem of poor gamification design and, in the world of education, be used in gamified educational systems to help students finish their courses. Some popular gamification design frameworks were studied, leading to the creation of a set of five guidelines that bring together their strengths while addressing their weaknesses. These guidelines were used for the development of a Moodle course aimed at college students, along with a plugin called “Gamification Banner.” This environment was evaluated by a group of volunteers, and it was found that students favor gamification, although it was not possible to prove that their grades are positively influenced given the short time of the tests.

Evaluation of the Player's Performance in Entrepreneurship Serious Games

Entrepreneurship serious games offer an innovative model for developing entrepreneurial skills with students. Furthermore, they provide a highly engaging and risk-free environment for students to become aware of the challenges posed in the early stages of building and developing a start-up. In this sense, it becomes relevant to explore the process of adopting this type of game in the classroom. This study aims to explore how the formative and summative components of an assessment are mapped into seven serious entrepreneurship games. Through this information, this study seeks to help instructors in the process of adopting a serious game and understanding how the evaluation of these games can be used in the context of an entrepreneurship course.

Game Design as Part of Disciplinary Curriculum on Pedagogy

Guided by the principles of digital game design, the author proposes a reformulation of the pedagogical objectives and focuses of the pedagogical graduate courses, especially in relation to internship and training stages, in a problem-solving model based on digital games intending to shift the formation of future teachers from an abstract model to a real-life-based problem, thus proposing guidelines for an interdisciplinary project. The chapter summaries this proposal enlisting the necessary structural changes needed to achieve this goal to guide those wishing to adjust their pedagogical projects in a way to insert the digital games as educational devices in their courses without having to remodel the entire existing course. An introduction to the problem is made, its theorical background presented, followed by a contextualization of the Brazilian educational area with the proposition delineated and a conclusion.

Harnessing the Power of Gamification

The chapter examines the effect of integrating gamification in the activity system of an undergraduate course. Activity theory is used as a framework in order to investigate the anchoring of gamification as a second-order mediation for improving student engagement in the course Wiki. The chapter examines the main gamification patterns that emerged, documents how gamification mitigated persistent problems of student participation in the Wiki, and analyzes how the activity system was reconfigured through the study of new tensions. The work is concluded with a discussion of how gamification can be integrated in an activity system so as to capitalize on its potential.

E-Constructivism

The constructivist teaching is based on the idea that students actively ‘construct' knowledge – they do not just ‘accumulate' new information, but rather ‘adjust' it to the foundation of the individual experiences, beliefs and assumptions. This chapter examines the constructivist theory in the context of e-learning. Constructivism-based lesson includes multiple modes of activity, such as contextual games or intense social interaction in groups. The nature of embedded learning or ‘learning-while-doing' is best captured in a collaborative study environment, whereby the students negotiate to achieve a corporate goal. There is a bewildering array of ways, in which the constructivist approach might be applied in a modern study environment. First, the chapter describes constructivism as a theoretical concept – and then morphs it into real-live examples from the pedagogical practice. Finally, it comments on the project initiated in Riga Technical University – a new online platform for anonymous peer review sessions created by the author to entwine constructivist pedagogy with digital technologies.

Gamifying the English Language Classroom to Motivate Omani Teenagers

Students in Oman have negative attitudes towards learning English. An action research where a gamification implementation including various elements such as a leaderboard, badges, and a progress bar was conducted. Three instruments were used to investigate how gamification could increase the learners' motivation: motivation tests, interview protocols, and complete participant observations. The motivation tests were analyzed using Wilcoxon signed-rank test. The interview and observation data were analyzed using a thematic coding qualitative method. Results revealed that over the two cycles of implementation of the gamified approach to learning English, 92% of students demonstrated an increase in their motivation to learn English. The interviews revealed the specific aspects of the gamified approach that contributed to this increase. Extrinsic motivation was replaced by intrinsic motivation. This leads to implications for a future study where the gamified approach to teaching could be trialed across different classes and subjects in the same school.

Examining the Guji Oromo Ethnomathematical Games and Concepts

This chapter explores how the Guji Oromo people undertake ethnomathematical activities by applying their indigenous methods. Ethnomathematical activities include counting, locating (the activity of grouping, clustering, making network, etc.), measuring (the actions of quantifying, weighting, etc.), designing (planning, building, and pattern activities), playing (puzzles, paradoxes, models, games, hypothetical reasoning), and explaining (how to do things, activities [e.g., classifications, conventions, generalizations, and symbolic explanations]). This predominantly qualitative study identifies the indigenous ethnomathematical games and concepts and assesses the potential effectiveness of an integration of the ethnomathematics and formal mathematics on the learning/teaching experiences of pupils and teachers. Impacts of such integration on pupils' performance in mathematics assessment are examined. Such an action could enable to amalgamate the Western knowledge system with an African knowledge system to create synergy that might boost the quality of primary mathematics education in Ethiopia.