Anna-Sofia Alklind Taylor | University of Skövde (original) (raw)
Journal articles by Anna-Sofia Alklind Taylor
The task of integrating games into an educational setting is a demanding one, and integrating gam... more The task of integrating games into an educational setting is a demanding one, and integrating games as a harmonious part of a bigger ecosystem of learning requires teachers to orchestrate a myriad of complex organizational resources. Historicall y, research on digital game‑based learning has focused heavily on the coupling between game designs, previously established learning principles, student engagement, and learning outcomes much to the expense of understanding how games function in their int ended educational contexts and how they impact the working processes of teachers. Given the significant investments of time and resources teachers need to make in order to conduct game‑based learning activities, the foci of past research is problematic as it obfuscates some of the pressing realities that highly affect games' viability as tools for teaching and learning. This paper aims to highlight the demands that the implementation and use of an educational game in formal educational settings puts on teachers' working processes and skillsets. The paper is based on two case studies in which a researcher collaborated with K‑12 teachers to use MinecraftEdu (TeacherGaming LLC, 2012) as a classroom activity over a five‑month long period. By documenting bot h the working processes involved in implementing the game into the classroom environment, as well as the execution of the actual game‑based classroom activities, the studies identified a wide variety roles that a teacher needs to take on if they are to ma ke games a central part of a school curriculum. Ultimately, the paper highlights the importance of understanding the constraints under which teachers work, and argues that a better understanding of the contexts in which games are to be used, and the roles teachers play during game‑based learning scenarios, is a necessary foundation for improving games' viability as educational tools.
Military organizations have a long history of using simulations, role-play, and games for trainin... more Military organizations have a long history of using simulations, role-play, and games for training. This also encompasses good practices concerning how instructors utilize games and gaming behavior. Unfortunately, the work of instructors is rarely described explicitly in research relating to serious gaming. Decision makers also tend to have overconfidence in the pedagogical power of games and simulations, particularly where the instructor is taken out of the gaming loop. The authors propose a framework, the coaching cycle, that focuses on the roles of instructors. The roles include instructors acting as game players. The fact that the instructors take a more active part in all training activities will further improve learning. The coaching cycle integrates theories of experiential learning (where action precedes theory) and deliberate practice (where the trainee’s skill is constantly challenged by a coach). Incorporating a coaching-by-gaming perspective complicates, but also strengthens, the player-centered design approach to game development in that we need to take into account two different types of players: trainees and instructor. Furthermore, the authors argue that the coaching cycle allows for a shift of focus to a more thorough debriefing, because it implies that learning of theoretical material before simulation/game playing is kept to a minimum. This shift will increase the transfer of knowledge.
Book chapters by Anna-Sofia Alklind Taylor
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2013
ABSTRACT
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2009
The goal of the project presented in this paper is to enable motor rehabilitation to stroke patie... more The goal of the project presented in this paper is to enable motor rehabilitation to stroke patients in their home environment and to utilise game enjoyment to achieve frequent training. Stroke patients have an average age above 70 years, which implies that they ...
Conference articles by Anna-Sofia Alklind Taylor
Proceedings of the 9th European Conference on Games Based Learning (ECGBL'15)
This paper examines what roles teachers need to take on when attempting to integrate and use comp... more This paper examines what roles teachers need to take on when attempting to integrate and use computer games in their educational environments. The task of integrating games into an educational setting is a demanding one, and integrating games as a harmonious part of a bigger ecosystem of learning requires teachers to orchestrate a myriad of complex organizational resources. Historically, the field of digital game-based learning research has had a tendency to focus heavily on the coupling between game designs, previously established learning principles, student engagement, and learning outcomes much to the expense of understanding how games impact the working processes of teachers. Given the significant investments of time and resources teachers need to make in order to conduct game-based learning activities, this research gap is problematic. Teachers needs to have a certain amount of gaming literacy in order to actively supervise, support, and guide their students before, during, and after the play sessions. The teacher also needs to be proficient in setting up play sessions in a limited amount of preparation time and tackle eventual technical difficulties. Beyond these demands, teachers also need to serve as a conduit between the learning context and the play context, and need to know how to continuously contextualize game activities and the content that students experience in the subject matter being taught. This paper describes the outcomes of two five month long studies where Swedish K-12 teachers were introduced to using MinecraftEdu as a classroom activity. The study identifies the different roles that a teacher takes on throughout game-based learning processes, such as technical administrator, game administrator, game tutor, subject matter expert, lecturer, debriefer, and classroom supervisor. Ultimately, the paper highlights the importance of understanding the constraints under which teachers work, and argues that a better understanding of the contexts in which games are to be used, and the roles teachers play during game-based learning scenarios, is a necessary foundation for improving games’ viability as educational tools.
Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Games and Virtual Worlds for Serious Applications (VS-Games)
While there is a wealth of studies on the subject of serious games, the same cannot be said on th... more While there is a wealth of studies on the subject of serious games, the same cannot be said on the issue of teaching with games, especially in game-based learning settings with adult learners. Over the years, most research in this area has been focused on the ‘active substance(s)’ of games for learning, focusing mainly on characteristics of games, but often failing to take the whole context of game-based learning into consideration, such as the role(s) of the teacher. However, the past two or three years has seen a shift in focus from merely the game as an isolated artefact, to also include more discussions on how games an successfully be integrated into an educational setting, as well as challenges as pitfalls of which instructors need to be aware. This paper aims to outline the contemporary research on instructor-led serious gaming and its implications for the design of serious gaming environments.
ABSTRACT A game-based learning environment is more than just a digital artefact. Factors such as ... more ABSTRACT A game-based learning environment is more than just a digital artefact. Factors such as where the game is played, how the learning experience is designed, the level of social interaction and so on, need to be considered when designing a game for learning or training. For instance, during gaming, the learners might physically leave the virtual environment to continue the gameplay in the physical environment. If the instructor wants to keep track of, for example, learning progress or game states, the gaming system needs to support these activities both in-game and outside the game, via different logging tools, e.g. video and voice recording. Military organisations have a long history of using games and simulations for training. This means that they have had the opportunity to develop and refine training practices that are both cost-effective and valuable for learning. However, these practices are largely based on instructors’ own experiences rather than scientific studies. This study aims to describe game-based training practices in order to (1) extricate good practices that may be transferred as inspirational examples for others, and (2) identify areas for improvement. Empirical material was collected using observations and interviews and then analysed and categorised. Interpretations made from the analysis were later validated through a questionnaire survey with military personnel directly or indirectly involved in simulator- or game-based training. The analysis shows that a game-based training cycle consists mainly of four phases: preparation, introductory lecture, gameplay and debriefing. Although the systems used are advanced in that they log user activity and support quick changes to the scenario during gameplay, running a training session is highly demanding for the instructors. Offline tools (e.g. pen and paper) are commonly used when there is a lack of system support in a specific situation. The paper concludes with a list of system support features for different aspects of game-based training.
This paper presents an online training game for incident commanders to enact and create incident ... more This paper presents an online training game for incident commanders to enact and create incident scenarios. The incident commander is the person in command on site when a rescue team is dispatched to a fire emergency. The challenge we are addressing in this work is to design a game and a game-based training process which can be used to support the change of work practice of fire fighters to become incident commanders (i.e. taking on a new professional role). The incident commander training game consists of two integrated parts: the IT artifact and the usage process. The two are integrated to provide necessary support for incident commander training via distance learning. The game is online and comprises three modules: The scenario player; the scenario creator, and; the log tool. The game and its pedagogical usage procedure are based on the theories of communities of practice and experiential learning. The novelty of this application lies in the combination of pedagogical theory and a specifically designed game. In comparison to other games for accident management training, the possibility for domain experts lacking of game design skills to create scenarios is an essential feature. Furthermore, the underlying fire simulation renders better "replayability" than a strictly branched scenario as the scenario creation is actually more of a process of setting conditions for the scenario than predicting each action of the player.
Proceedings of the 15th International Academic MindTrek Conference on Envisioning Future Media Environments - MindTrek '11, 2011
In this paper we describe four player roles in game-based learning and training, namely student p... more In this paper we describe four player roles in game-based learning and training, namely student player, student author, teacher player and teacher author. By this, we want to emphasise the creative and collaborative nature of gameplay, such as in-game feedback, scenario creation and "puckstering", that put students and teachers, not on opposite sides of a spectrum, but as members of
2009 Second International Conference in Visualisation, 2009
... Anna-Sofia Alklind Taylor, Per Backlund, Henrik Engström, Mikael Johannesson, Mikael Lebram I... more ... Anna-Sofia Alklind Taylor, Per Backlund, Henrik Engström, Mikael Johannesson, Mikael Lebram InGaMe Lab University of Skövde, Sweden {anna-sofia.alklind.taylor, per.backlund, henrik.engstrom, mikael.johannesson, mikael.lebram}@his.se ...
Proceedings of Iadis Game and Entertainment Technologies 2009, Jun 19, 2009
Game-based tools for rehabilitation of different types of physical and cognitive impairments are ... more Game-based tools for rehabilitation of different types of physical and cognitive impairments are becoming more and more popular. By introducing an element of fun, these systems aim at increasing patients' motivation to train and, from a further perspective, improve recovery ...
Theses by Anna-Sofia Alklind Taylor
This thesis explores the use of serious games from an instructor perspective. More specifically, ... more This thesis explores the use of serious games from an instructor perspective. More specifically, it aims to study the roles of instructors and how they can be facilitated within an instructor-led game-based training environment. Research within the field of serious games has mostly focused on the learners' perspective, but little attention has been paid to what the instructors do and what challenges that entails. In this thesis, I argue that serious games, as artefacts used for learning and training, cannot fully replace the instructors' tasks, but must rather be designed to facilitate the various activities of the instructors. Thus, instructors form an important target audience in serious game development – not just as subject matter experts, but also as users and players of the game – with a different set of needs than the learners. Moreover, serious gaming (the actualisation of a serious game) involves more than in-game activities, it also involves actions and events that occur off-game. These activities must also be considered when designing and utilising games for learning and training.
Using a qualitative approach, instructor-led serious gaming has been explored from a range of contexts, from rehabilitation to incident commander training and military training. Several different instructor roles have been identified and characterised, including in-game facilitator, puckster, debriefer, technical support and subject matter expert. Based on empirical and theoretical material, a framework for instructor-led serious gaming has been developed. It involves best practices in different phases of game-based training, such as scenario authoring, coaching-by-gaming, assessing in-game and off-game performance, giving feedback, and conducting a debriefing or after-action review. Furthermore, specific needs and challenges for instructors have been identified and reformulated into guidelines for instructor-led serious gaming. The guidelines highlight the importance of usability and visualisation, as well as the need for carefully designed support tools for instructors' situation awareness, assessment and debriefing. Lastly, a number of success factors pertaining to both the development and actualisation of serious games are presented. Since serious games aim to be both productive and engaging, it is advantageous to work with interdisciplinary teams when developing serious games. This includes subject matter experts well versed in serious gaming practices. Furthermore, a successful serious game should adhere to sound pedagogical theories, be easy to use and maintain, and include system support for instructors' tasks. Successful serious gaming practices also involve having an organisational culture that fosters knowledge sharing among practitioners.
Military organisations have a long history of using games for training. Over the years, they have... more Military organisations have a long history of using games for training. Over the years, they have developed training practices involving role-play, simulations, puckstering and gaming. Most researchers in serious games, i.e. games used for non-entertainment purposes, focus their studies on the learners. This licentiate thesis, instead, takes a closer look on the roles of instructors in game-based training situations, specifically at the Swedish Land Warfare Centre. Through a mix of theoretical and empirical studies, training practices were scrutinised, resulting in a framework for gamebased vocational training. A key element of this framework is the coaching by gaming perspective in which instructors give un-intrusive, formative feedback through role-play and gameplay. Another important aspect of the framework involves dynamic debriefing. These insights points to specific needs for system support for instructors involved in game-based training. They also emphasise the fact that serious gaming is a highly contextualised activity made up of more than the game and the players.
Papers by Anna-Sofia Alklind Taylor
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Dec 31, 2022
Military organizations have a long history of using simulations, role-play and games for training... more Military organizations have a long history of using simulations, role-play and games for training. This also encompasses good practices concerning how instructors utilize games and gaming behavior. ...
This report outlines trends and application areas within the research field of intelligent user i... more This report outlines trends and application areas within the research field of intelligent user interfaces(IUIs) from 2010-2018. The purpose of the report is to give an overview of the IUI research area andpoint out particular subfields that have been given attention in the recent years, indicating possible trendsfor future research. Our report indicates that the field of IUIs is very broad, resulting in rather diverseresearch trends within the area. However, general trends could be identified, such as an increasing interest inbetter human-machine decision-making, where strategies for explaining the automatic reasoning are beinginvestigated together with ways of improving the trustworthiness of the systems and their possible adaptationsto individuals’ needs. The report also outlines research on multimodal interactions, adaptivity and humanrobotcollaboration, addressing challenges such as increased human workload, unobtrusiveness, privacy andmultiparty communication
A pre-study of spectators' perspectives on eSports was conducted in collaboration with two Swedis... more A pre-study of spectators' perspectives on eSports was conducted in collaboration with two Swedish game development companies. The main goal was to identify factors that contribute to qualitative spectator experiences and how they can influence game design. A qualitative approach was chosen to explore spectators' perspectives on eSports through observations and focus-group interviews of 28 participants in total. Results indicate that spectatorship is a complex issue that goes beyond the mere watching of a game. We identified four themes that are important for qualitative spectator experiences: the need for an overview of game events; highlighting and exposing hidden objects and events; viewerand commentator-friendly game pacing; the importance of professional commentators and casters. Based on the results, we present design guidelines and recommendations for the development of games in eSports.
The task of integrating games into an educational setting is a demanding one, and integrating gam... more The task of integrating games into an educational setting is a demanding one, and integrating games as a harmonious part of a bigger ecosystem of learning requires teachers to orchestrate a myriad of complex organizational resources. Historicall y, research on digital game‑based learning has focused heavily on the coupling between game designs, previously established learning principles, student engagement, and learning outcomes much to the expense of understanding how games function in their int ended educational contexts and how they impact the working processes of teachers. Given the significant investments of time and resources teachers need to make in order to conduct game‑based learning activities, the foci of past research is problematic as it obfuscates some of the pressing realities that highly affect games' viability as tools for teaching and learning. This paper aims to highlight the demands that the implementation and use of an educational game in formal educational settings puts on teachers' working processes and skillsets. The paper is based on two case studies in which a researcher collaborated with K‑12 teachers to use MinecraftEdu (TeacherGaming LLC, 2012) as a classroom activity over a five‑month long period. By documenting bot h the working processes involved in implementing the game into the classroom environment, as well as the execution of the actual game‑based classroom activities, the studies identified a wide variety roles that a teacher needs to take on if they are to ma ke games a central part of a school curriculum. Ultimately, the paper highlights the importance of understanding the constraints under which teachers work, and argues that a better understanding of the contexts in which games are to be used, and the roles teachers play during game‑based learning scenarios, is a necessary foundation for improving games' viability as educational tools.
Military organizations have a long history of using simulations, role-play, and games for trainin... more Military organizations have a long history of using simulations, role-play, and games for training. This also encompasses good practices concerning how instructors utilize games and gaming behavior. Unfortunately, the work of instructors is rarely described explicitly in research relating to serious gaming. Decision makers also tend to have overconfidence in the pedagogical power of games and simulations, particularly where the instructor is taken out of the gaming loop. The authors propose a framework, the coaching cycle, that focuses on the roles of instructors. The roles include instructors acting as game players. The fact that the instructors take a more active part in all training activities will further improve learning. The coaching cycle integrates theories of experiential learning (where action precedes theory) and deliberate practice (where the trainee’s skill is constantly challenged by a coach). Incorporating a coaching-by-gaming perspective complicates, but also strengthens, the player-centered design approach to game development in that we need to take into account two different types of players: trainees and instructor. Furthermore, the authors argue that the coaching cycle allows for a shift of focus to a more thorough debriefing, because it implies that learning of theoretical material before simulation/game playing is kept to a minimum. This shift will increase the transfer of knowledge.
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2013
ABSTRACT
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2009
The goal of the project presented in this paper is to enable motor rehabilitation to stroke patie... more The goal of the project presented in this paper is to enable motor rehabilitation to stroke patients in their home environment and to utilise game enjoyment to achieve frequent training. Stroke patients have an average age above 70 years, which implies that they ...
Proceedings of the 9th European Conference on Games Based Learning (ECGBL'15)
This paper examines what roles teachers need to take on when attempting to integrate and use comp... more This paper examines what roles teachers need to take on when attempting to integrate and use computer games in their educational environments. The task of integrating games into an educational setting is a demanding one, and integrating games as a harmonious part of a bigger ecosystem of learning requires teachers to orchestrate a myriad of complex organizational resources. Historically, the field of digital game-based learning research has had a tendency to focus heavily on the coupling between game designs, previously established learning principles, student engagement, and learning outcomes much to the expense of understanding how games impact the working processes of teachers. Given the significant investments of time and resources teachers need to make in order to conduct game-based learning activities, this research gap is problematic. Teachers needs to have a certain amount of gaming literacy in order to actively supervise, support, and guide their students before, during, and after the play sessions. The teacher also needs to be proficient in setting up play sessions in a limited amount of preparation time and tackle eventual technical difficulties. Beyond these demands, teachers also need to serve as a conduit between the learning context and the play context, and need to know how to continuously contextualize game activities and the content that students experience in the subject matter being taught. This paper describes the outcomes of two five month long studies where Swedish K-12 teachers were introduced to using MinecraftEdu as a classroom activity. The study identifies the different roles that a teacher takes on throughout game-based learning processes, such as technical administrator, game administrator, game tutor, subject matter expert, lecturer, debriefer, and classroom supervisor. Ultimately, the paper highlights the importance of understanding the constraints under which teachers work, and argues that a better understanding of the contexts in which games are to be used, and the roles teachers play during game-based learning scenarios, is a necessary foundation for improving games’ viability as educational tools.
Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Games and Virtual Worlds for Serious Applications (VS-Games)
While there is a wealth of studies on the subject of serious games, the same cannot be said on th... more While there is a wealth of studies on the subject of serious games, the same cannot be said on the issue of teaching with games, especially in game-based learning settings with adult learners. Over the years, most research in this area has been focused on the ‘active substance(s)’ of games for learning, focusing mainly on characteristics of games, but often failing to take the whole context of game-based learning into consideration, such as the role(s) of the teacher. However, the past two or three years has seen a shift in focus from merely the game as an isolated artefact, to also include more discussions on how games an successfully be integrated into an educational setting, as well as challenges as pitfalls of which instructors need to be aware. This paper aims to outline the contemporary research on instructor-led serious gaming and its implications for the design of serious gaming environments.
ABSTRACT A game-based learning environment is more than just a digital artefact. Factors such as ... more ABSTRACT A game-based learning environment is more than just a digital artefact. Factors such as where the game is played, how the learning experience is designed, the level of social interaction and so on, need to be considered when designing a game for learning or training. For instance, during gaming, the learners might physically leave the virtual environment to continue the gameplay in the physical environment. If the instructor wants to keep track of, for example, learning progress or game states, the gaming system needs to support these activities both in-game and outside the game, via different logging tools, e.g. video and voice recording. Military organisations have a long history of using games and simulations for training. This means that they have had the opportunity to develop and refine training practices that are both cost-effective and valuable for learning. However, these practices are largely based on instructors’ own experiences rather than scientific studies. This study aims to describe game-based training practices in order to (1) extricate good practices that may be transferred as inspirational examples for others, and (2) identify areas for improvement. Empirical material was collected using observations and interviews and then analysed and categorised. Interpretations made from the analysis were later validated through a questionnaire survey with military personnel directly or indirectly involved in simulator- or game-based training. The analysis shows that a game-based training cycle consists mainly of four phases: preparation, introductory lecture, gameplay and debriefing. Although the systems used are advanced in that they log user activity and support quick changes to the scenario during gameplay, running a training session is highly demanding for the instructors. Offline tools (e.g. pen and paper) are commonly used when there is a lack of system support in a specific situation. The paper concludes with a list of system support features for different aspects of game-based training.
This paper presents an online training game for incident commanders to enact and create incident ... more This paper presents an online training game for incident commanders to enact and create incident scenarios. The incident commander is the person in command on site when a rescue team is dispatched to a fire emergency. The challenge we are addressing in this work is to design a game and a game-based training process which can be used to support the change of work practice of fire fighters to become incident commanders (i.e. taking on a new professional role). The incident commander training game consists of two integrated parts: the IT artifact and the usage process. The two are integrated to provide necessary support for incident commander training via distance learning. The game is online and comprises three modules: The scenario player; the scenario creator, and; the log tool. The game and its pedagogical usage procedure are based on the theories of communities of practice and experiential learning. The novelty of this application lies in the combination of pedagogical theory and a specifically designed game. In comparison to other games for accident management training, the possibility for domain experts lacking of game design skills to create scenarios is an essential feature. Furthermore, the underlying fire simulation renders better "replayability" than a strictly branched scenario as the scenario creation is actually more of a process of setting conditions for the scenario than predicting each action of the player.
Proceedings of the 15th International Academic MindTrek Conference on Envisioning Future Media Environments - MindTrek '11, 2011
In this paper we describe four player roles in game-based learning and training, namely student p... more In this paper we describe four player roles in game-based learning and training, namely student player, student author, teacher player and teacher author. By this, we want to emphasise the creative and collaborative nature of gameplay, such as in-game feedback, scenario creation and "puckstering", that put students and teachers, not on opposite sides of a spectrum, but as members of
2009 Second International Conference in Visualisation, 2009
... Anna-Sofia Alklind Taylor, Per Backlund, Henrik Engström, Mikael Johannesson, Mikael Lebram I... more ... Anna-Sofia Alklind Taylor, Per Backlund, Henrik Engström, Mikael Johannesson, Mikael Lebram InGaMe Lab University of Skövde, Sweden {anna-sofia.alklind.taylor, per.backlund, henrik.engstrom, mikael.johannesson, mikael.lebram}@his.se ...
Proceedings of Iadis Game and Entertainment Technologies 2009, Jun 19, 2009
Game-based tools for rehabilitation of different types of physical and cognitive impairments are ... more Game-based tools for rehabilitation of different types of physical and cognitive impairments are becoming more and more popular. By introducing an element of fun, these systems aim at increasing patients' motivation to train and, from a further perspective, improve recovery ...
This thesis explores the use of serious games from an instructor perspective. More specifically, ... more This thesis explores the use of serious games from an instructor perspective. More specifically, it aims to study the roles of instructors and how they can be facilitated within an instructor-led game-based training environment. Research within the field of serious games has mostly focused on the learners' perspective, but little attention has been paid to what the instructors do and what challenges that entails. In this thesis, I argue that serious games, as artefacts used for learning and training, cannot fully replace the instructors' tasks, but must rather be designed to facilitate the various activities of the instructors. Thus, instructors form an important target audience in serious game development – not just as subject matter experts, but also as users and players of the game – with a different set of needs than the learners. Moreover, serious gaming (the actualisation of a serious game) involves more than in-game activities, it also involves actions and events that occur off-game. These activities must also be considered when designing and utilising games for learning and training.
Using a qualitative approach, instructor-led serious gaming has been explored from a range of contexts, from rehabilitation to incident commander training and military training. Several different instructor roles have been identified and characterised, including in-game facilitator, puckster, debriefer, technical support and subject matter expert. Based on empirical and theoretical material, a framework for instructor-led serious gaming has been developed. It involves best practices in different phases of game-based training, such as scenario authoring, coaching-by-gaming, assessing in-game and off-game performance, giving feedback, and conducting a debriefing or after-action review. Furthermore, specific needs and challenges for instructors have been identified and reformulated into guidelines for instructor-led serious gaming. The guidelines highlight the importance of usability and visualisation, as well as the need for carefully designed support tools for instructors' situation awareness, assessment and debriefing. Lastly, a number of success factors pertaining to both the development and actualisation of serious games are presented. Since serious games aim to be both productive and engaging, it is advantageous to work with interdisciplinary teams when developing serious games. This includes subject matter experts well versed in serious gaming practices. Furthermore, a successful serious game should adhere to sound pedagogical theories, be easy to use and maintain, and include system support for instructors' tasks. Successful serious gaming practices also involve having an organisational culture that fosters knowledge sharing among practitioners.
Military organisations have a long history of using games for training. Over the years, they have... more Military organisations have a long history of using games for training. Over the years, they have developed training practices involving role-play, simulations, puckstering and gaming. Most researchers in serious games, i.e. games used for non-entertainment purposes, focus their studies on the learners. This licentiate thesis, instead, takes a closer look on the roles of instructors in game-based training situations, specifically at the Swedish Land Warfare Centre. Through a mix of theoretical and empirical studies, training practices were scrutinised, resulting in a framework for gamebased vocational training. A key element of this framework is the coaching by gaming perspective in which instructors give un-intrusive, formative feedback through role-play and gameplay. Another important aspect of the framework involves dynamic debriefing. These insights points to specific needs for system support for instructors involved in game-based training. They also emphasise the fact that serious gaming is a highly contextualised activity made up of more than the game and the players.
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Dec 31, 2022
Military organizations have a long history of using simulations, role-play and games for training... more Military organizations have a long history of using simulations, role-play and games for training. This also encompasses good practices concerning how instructors utilize games and gaming behavior. ...
This report outlines trends and application areas within the research field of intelligent user i... more This report outlines trends and application areas within the research field of intelligent user interfaces(IUIs) from 2010-2018. The purpose of the report is to give an overview of the IUI research area andpoint out particular subfields that have been given attention in the recent years, indicating possible trendsfor future research. Our report indicates that the field of IUIs is very broad, resulting in rather diverseresearch trends within the area. However, general trends could be identified, such as an increasing interest inbetter human-machine decision-making, where strategies for explaining the automatic reasoning are beinginvestigated together with ways of improving the trustworthiness of the systems and their possible adaptationsto individuals’ needs. The report also outlines research on multimodal interactions, adaptivity and humanrobotcollaboration, addressing challenges such as increased human workload, unobtrusiveness, privacy andmultiparty communication
A pre-study of spectators' perspectives on eSports was conducted in collaboration with two Swedis... more A pre-study of spectators' perspectives on eSports was conducted in collaboration with two Swedish game development companies. The main goal was to identify factors that contribute to qualitative spectator experiences and how they can influence game design. A qualitative approach was chosen to explore spectators' perspectives on eSports through observations and focus-group interviews of 28 participants in total. Results indicate that spectatorship is a complex issue that goes beyond the mere watching of a game. We identified four themes that are important for qualitative spectator experiences: the need for an overview of game events; highlighting and exposing hidden objects and events; viewerand commentator-friendly game pacing; the importance of professional commentators and casters. Based on the results, we present design guidelines and recommendations for the development of games in eSports.
University of Skövde, 2019
This report outlines trends and application areas within the research field of intelligent user i... more This report outlines trends and application areas within the research field of intelligent user interfaces(IUIs) from 2010-2018. The purpose of the report is to give an overview of the IUI research area andpoint out particular subfields that have been given attention in the recent years, indicating possible trendsfor future research. Our report indicates that the field of IUIs is very broad, resulting in rather diverseresearch trends within the area. However, general trends could be identified, such as an increasing interest inbetter human-machine decision-making, where strategies for explaining the automatic reasoning are beinginvestigated together with ways of improving the trustworthiness of the systems and their possible adaptationsto individuals’ needs. The report also outlines research on multimodal interactions, adaptivity and humanrobotcollaboration, addressing challenges such as increased human workload, unobtrusiveness, privacy andmultiparty communication
A pre-study of spectators' perspectives on eSports was conducted in collaboration with two Sw... more A pre-study of spectators' perspectives on eSports was conducted in collaboration with two Swedish game development companies. The main goal was to identify factors that contribute to qualitative s ...
This paper examines what roles teachers need to take on when attempting to integrate and use comp... more This paper examines what roles teachers need to take on when attempting to integrate and use computer games in their educational environments. The task of integrating games into an educational sett ...
Military organizations have a long history of using simulations, role-play and games for training... more Military organizations have a long history of using simulations, role-play and games for training. This also encompasses good practices concerning how instructors utilize games and gaming behavior. ...
Hogskoleforordningens krav pa att studenter ska kunna identifiera sitt kompetensbehov och behov a... more Hogskoleforordningens krav pa att studenter ska kunna identifiera sitt kompetensbehov och behov av ytterligare kunskap tenderar att hamna i skymundan inom hogre utbildning. Vi har infort ett examin ...
2015 7th International Conference on Games and Virtual Worlds for Serious Applications (VS-Games), 2015
While there is a wealth of studies on the subject of serious games, the same cannot be said on th... more While there is a wealth of studies on the subject of serious games, the same cannot be said on the issue of teaching with games, especially in game-based learning settings with adult learners. Over the years, most research in this area has been focused on the 'active substance(s)' of games for learning, focusing mainly on characteristics of games, but often failing to take the whole context of game-based learning into consideration, such as the role(s) of the teacher. However, the past two or three years has seen a shift in focus from merely the game as an isolated artefact, to also include more discussions on how games can successfully be integrated into an educational setting, as well as challenges as pitfalls of which instructors need to be aware. This paper aims to outline the contemporary research on instructor-led serious gaming and its implications for the design of serious gaming environments.
2011 Third International Conference on Games and Virtual Worlds for Serious Applications, 2011
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The rapid development of information technology and the Internet has important academic implicati... more The rapid development of information technology and the Internet has important academic implications, which in the long run will have far reaching consequences for teaching and learning on university level. With this in mind, five different success factors for the development of digital literacy and competence in higher education in general, and online courses in particular, are being identified and discussed in this article. These factors are: a shared view on learning and teaching, teamwork, a collaborative teaching culture, a positive attitude towards technology, as well as administrative, pedagogical and technical support resources. The dicussion is largely based on theories on learning and e-learning, and many examples draw from the authors' own experiences and observations.
Utbredningen av kommunikations- och IT-verktyg (IKT) i samhallet influerar aven undervisningen in... more Utbredningen av kommunikations- och IT-verktyg (IKT) i samhallet influerar aven undervisningen inom hogre utbildning (se t.ex., Ala-Mutka, Punie & Redecker, 2008; Glenn, 2008). Olika larplattformar har utvecklats som mojliggor skilda former av interaktion mellan larare och studenter. En konsekvens av detta ar att andelen distansstudenter kraftigt okat de senaste aren. Forutom de mojligheter och begransningar som de nya tekniska verktygen erbjuder for natbaserat larande, behovs det aven nya kunskaper hos den undervisande universitetslararen och behovet av en god pedagogisk digital kompetens blir darmed aktuellt (EUT, 2006; Glenn, 2008; Krumsvik, 2008).Syftet med detta bidrag ar att delge andra universitetslarare som vill borja med eller vidareutveckla natbaserad undervisning vara praktiska erfarenheter och kunskaper for hur detta kan genomforas med utgangspunkt utifran pedagogisk digital kompetens.Utifran en fallstudie (Patton, 2002) har vi genom ett aktionsforskningsperspektiv identifierat fem framgangsfaktorer for utveckling av pedagogisk digital kompetens vid hogre studier:En gemensam pedagogisk grundsynTeamworkUndervisningskulturPositiv installning till teknikAdministrativa, pedagogiska och tekniska stodresurserDe identifierade framgangsfaktorerna presenteras med ett abduktivt upplagg. Vi utgar utifran vara praktiska erfarenheter och kopplar samman dessa med teorier och relevant litteratur inom omradet for varje framgangsfaktor.For att aktivt arbeta med att utveckla den digitala pedagogiska kompetensen ar det viktigt att inte enbart fokusera pa de tillgangliga tekniska verktygen, utan det ar viktigt att framhava i vilket sammanhang ett visst undervisningsmoment ingar i. Det ar valdigt latt att se lararen som en ensam individ som ska stodja studentens kunskapsutveckling under en kurs, men verkligheten ar nagot helt annat. En bra larare, enligt oss, ar en larare som kan se sin egen undervisning i ett storre sammanhang, t.ex. hur en kurs hanger ihop med andra kurser inom utbildningen eller hur den kopplar till en framtida yrkesroll. Pa sa satt har man storre mojlighet att motivera sina studenter till larande och i det storre perspektivet till ett kontinuerligt larande som fortgar under hela livet i dagens kunskapssamhalle. En fara med informationssamhallet ar att den tolkande och varderande formagan underskattas (Gardenfors, 2005) vilket vi anser har konsekvenser for hogre utbildning, som bor undvika att bega detta misstag genom att fokusera i alltfor stor grad pa IKT-losningar i sig, utan satsa storre resurser pa att stodja och utveckla studenternas larande och tolkande formaga av olika former av information och kallor. Med andra ord, fokusera mer pa innehallet an pa formen, och detta okar vikten av en god pedagogisk digital kompetens.ReferenserAla-Mutka, K., Punie, Y & Redecker, C. (2008) Digital competence for lifelong learning. JRC Technical Notes. Policy brief by the Institute for Prospective Technological Studies (IPTS), part of the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC). Tillganglig pa http://ftp.jrc.es/EURdoc/JRC48708.TN.pdf [Hamtad: 2011-05-28].EUT (Europeiska unionens officiella tidning) (2006) L 394 10.Glenn, M. (2008) The future of higher education: How technology will shape learning. A report from the Economist Intelligence Unit.Gardenfors, P. (2005) Tankens vindlar: Om sprak, minne och berattande. Nora: Nya DoxaKrumsvik, R. J. (2008) Situated learning and teachers’ digital competence. Education and Information Technologies, 13, 279–290.Patton, M.Q. (2002) Qualitative research and evaluation methods. (3:e upplagan). Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.