In deze rede wil ik ingaan op de paradox van serious games. Over het spel en de knikkers. Het lijkt tegenstrijdig dat je met een spel naast plezier ook serieuze verandering of kennisoverdracht wilt bewerkstelligen. De paradox gaat echter nog een stap verder, want voor wie is het spel eigenlijk en van wie zijn dan de knikkers. In ons vakgebied is de partij die het spel ontwikkelt veelal een andere dan de partij die het spel speelt en zelfs binnen de partij van potentiële spelers wordt er gewezen naar medespelers: “het zou toch zo goed zijn voor de buurman"
Most educational or training games, also referred to as serious games, have been developed without an underlying design theory. In order to make a contribution to the development of such a theory, we present the underlying design philosophy of Levee Patroller, a 3D first-person game used to train levee patrollers in the Netherlands. This approach stipulates that the design of a serious game is a multi-objective problem where trade-offs need to be made. Making these trade-offs takes place in a 'design space' defined by three general boundary criteria: 1. fun (game), 2. learning (pedagogy), and 3. validity (reality). The various tensions between these three criteria make it difficult to 'balance' or create harmony in a serious game. We illustrate this process with a discussion on the design of Levee Patroller. In addition, we translate the aforementioned general design criteria into a number of concrete design requirements for serious games.
To experience and appreciate the challenges involved in marine spatial planning (MSP), students enrolled in two MSP courses play stakeholder roles in a realistic serious game. The serious game is played with the participatory online MSP tool SeaSketch, and tackles the contemporary Dutch marine renewable energy challenge.
MULTIFILE
The project’s aim is to foster resilient learning environments, lessen early school leaving, and give European children (ages 4 -6) a good start in their education while providing and advancing technical skills in working with technology that will serve them well in life. For this purpose, the partnership has developed age appropriate ICT animation tools and games - as well as pedagogical framework specific to the transition phase from kindergarten to school.
A continuation and update of the first ALT-ER project, which produced an app for early-years students that allowed them to express their feelings and tell stories related to pro-social and important developmental themes. This follow-up project will expand the software and themes, particularly in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, to reflect a wider range of experiences for young people.
Physical rehabilitation programs revolve around the repetitive execution of exercises since it has been proven to lead to better rehabilitation results. Although beginning the motor (re)learning process early is paramount to obtain good recovery outcomes, patients do not normally see/experience any short-term improvement, which has a toll on their motivation. Therefore, patients find it difficult to stay engaged in seemingly mundane exercises, not only in terms of adhering to the rehabilitation program, but also in terms of proper execution of the movements. One way in which this motivation problem has been tackled is to employ games in the rehabilitation process. These games are designed to reward patients for performing the exercises correctly or regularly. The rewards can take many forms, for instance providing an experience that is engaging (fun), one that is aesthetically pleasing (appealing visual and aural feedback), or one that employs gamification elements such as points, badges, or achievements. However, even though some of these serious game systems are designed together with physiotherapists and with the patients’ needs in mind, many of them end up not being used consistently during physical rehabilitation past the first few sessions (i.e. novelty effect). Thus, in this project, we aim to 1) Identify, by means of literature reviews, focus groups, and interviews with the involved stakeholders, why this is happening, 2) Develop a set of guidelines for the successful deployment of serious games for rehabilitation, and 3) Develop an initial implementation process and ideas for potential serious games. In a follow-up application, we intend to build on this knowledge and apply it in the design of a (set of) serious game for rehabilitation to be deployed at one of the partners centers and conduct a longitudinal evaluation to measure the success of the application of the deployment guidelines.
