Anastasios Theodoropoulos | University of the Peloponnese (original) (raw)

Papers by Anastasios Theodoropoulos

Research paper thumbnail of Πλαίσιο για την αποτελεσματική εφαρμογή εναλλακτικών μεθόδων διδασκαλίας στην πληροφορική

Research paper thumbnail of Η Εκπαιδευτική Ρομποτική στην Υποστήριξη της Εκπαιδευτικής Διαδικασίας

Open Schools Journal for Open Science, 2020

Στο παρόν κείμενο εστιάζουμε στην καταγραφή και περιγραφή της εμπειρίας μας με την εκπαιδευτική ρ... more Στο παρόν κείμενο εστιάζουμε στην καταγραφή και περιγραφή της εμπειρίας μας με την εκπαιδευτική ρομποτική, όπως αυτή αποκτήθηκε στα πλαίσια του 1ουRobotics Workshop που πραγματοποιήθηκε στην Τρίπολη από σχολεία της περιοχής, το Δεκέμβριο του 20171. Μέσα από ένα ταξίδι διάρκειας 12 εβδομάδων, 15 μαθητές από δύο λύκεια της περιοχής της Τρίπολης, καταλήξαμε να παρουσιάσουμε σε 500 μαθητές, έργα ρομποτικής που δημιουργήσαμε επιστρατεύοντας φαντασία, δημιουργικότητα και ομαδική εργασία. Η θεματολογία μας11οRobotics Workshop,τοποθεσία Τρίπολη, διοργάνωση 3οΓΕΛ Τρίπολης& ΓΕΛ Τεγέας, περισσότερα στον σύνδεσμο: https://goo.gl/MA2RWsπεριλάμβανε τεχνουργήματα με αξιοποίηση της πλατφόρμας Arduino καθώς και των Lego Mindstorms και γενικά έργα εκπαιδευτικών χρήσεων και εφαρμογών. Πιο συγκεκριμένα δημιουργήσαμε έργα αυτοματισμού, φωτισμού-ήχου, αισθητήρων-περιβάλλοντος, έξυπνα αντικείμενα, διατάξεις έγκαιρης ειδοποίησης, αυτόνομο όχημα, εφαρμογές ψυχαγωγίας και εφαρμογές ΙοΤ, αξιοποιώντας κυρίως γ...

Research paper thumbnail of Digital Game-Based Learning and Computational Thinking in P-12 Education

Advances in early childhood and K-12 education, 2020

The objective of this chapter is to explore the evolution and opportunities of the emerging field... more The objective of this chapter is to explore the evolution and opportunities of the emerging field of digital games for programming learning, the challenges and tensions that they present, and how educators may be able to collectively advance this work to benefit student learning. This work summarizes previous empirical evidence concerning the positive impacts and outcomes of digital games in computing education, or even impacts that do not let games to spread. Hence, a systematic literature review is carried out in this context to provide a comprehensive overview of works carried out towards incorporating digital games in order to acquire CT skills or learn basic programming concepts within P12 education. The chapter discusses on the range of indicators and measures used in the 44 selected studies, together with methodological limitations and recommendations for further work in this area.

Research paper thumbnail of Species' Citadel's Timeline: A Virtual Reality Experience in a peripheral Archaeological Museum

Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference of the ACM Greek SIGCHI Chapter

This study explores the effectiveness of VR escape games as engaging learning tools for archaeolo... more This study explores the effectiveness of VR escape games as engaging learning tools for archaeological venues. University students participated in the study to assess their motivation and immersion while using a VR escape room game set in a real archaeological venue. The game replicated the museum building in a virtual environment and incorporated scanned artifacts as interactive objects. Participants solved riddles related to the artifacts, creating an immersive and interactive storytelling experience. The study's results were promising, showing that the VR escape room game successfully motivated participants. The use of scanned artifacts and the realistic venue enhanced immersion. The findings highlight the potential of VR escape games for engaging students with archaeological content and fostering motivation and understanding of artifacts. CCS CONCEPTS • Applied computing → Interactive learning environments; • Human-centered computing → Human computer interaction (HCI).

Research paper thumbnail of Effects of minimum content in cultural informatics

Proceedings of the 26th Pan-Hellenic Conference on Informatics, Nov 25, 2022

Research paper thumbnail of Developing an Interactive VR CAVE for Immersive Shared Gaming Experiences

This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative... more This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY

Research paper thumbnail of Temporality in Cultural Informatics

Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference of the ACM Greek SIGCHI Chapter

The present work wishes to highlight the role of temporality in cultural informatics and provides... more The present work wishes to highlight the role of temporality in cultural informatics and provides a review of concepts and practices. Temporality is often overlooked during the interaction design of cultural technologies, although aspects of it are crucial for the success of a cultural experience. Many researchers decide to support the visitor before, during and after her visit, planning for a continuation of the visit and providing an extended time frame. In addition, in technology assisted cultural experiences, temporality is again a key concept, since in different types of experiences can be synchronous or asynchronous. Furthermore, there are apps that directly ask the visitor to provide the estimated time of visit, in order to plan content delivery and experiences accordingly. Visitor studies also reveal that the amount of time people spend at a cultural space depends on external factors like tiredness, weather, etc, but also on internal factors such as visitor's personality. For all the above, specific examples are provided. When interaction in cultural informatics is designed, aspects of temporality should guide the design processes, thus the paper concludes with a summary of important design points.

Research paper thumbnail of Turtle Heroes: Designing a Serious Game for a VR Interactive Tunnel

Lecture Notes in Computer Science

Accumulating evidence indicates that game-based learning is emotionally charged. However, little ... more Accumulating evidence indicates that game-based learning is emotionally charged. However, little is known about the nature of emotions in game-based learning. We extended previous game-based learning research by examining epistemic emotions and their relations to flow experience and situational interest. Sixty-eight 15–18-year-old students played the Antidote COVID-19 game for 25 min. Epistemic emotions, flow, and situational interest were measured after the playing session. These measures indicated that the game engaged students. Students reported significantly higher intensity levels of positive epistemic emotions (excitement, surprise, and curiosity) than negative epistemic emotions (boredom, anxiety, frustration, and confusion). The co-occurrence network analyses provided insights into the relationship between flow and situational interest. We found an asymmetrical pattern of the “situational interest-flow” co-occurrence. When situational interest occurred, the flow was always c...

Research paper thumbnail of Collaboration Skills in Educational Robotics: A Methodological Approach—Results from Two Case Studies in Primary Schools

Education Sciences

This study proposes a methodological approach that allows educational robotics to be used in orde... more This study proposes a methodological approach that allows educational robotics to be used in order to develop collaboration skills in educational settings. Educational robotics is a promising educational tool that has the potential to become a platform for the development of a range of skills. However, there is a scarce amount of empirical case studies that present detailed information on the way it is implemented within formal primary school education. On the other hand, even though collaboration skills are considered vital for future school graduates, it is rarely discussed as the main focus of educational robotics. Most commonly collaboration or teamwork skills are viewed as a byproduct of the robotics activities. This work views collaboration skills as the main outcome. The methodological approach that this work proposes has been implemented during a period of three years in one pilot and two case studies. This research measures the reflection of the robotics tasks paired with t...

Research paper thumbnail of A Virtual Ship Evacuation Serious Game: Assessment of Data and Passenger Training

Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2022

Research paper thumbnail of Turtle Heroes: Designing a Serious Game for a VR Interactive Tunnel

Research paper thumbnail of VR Games in Cultural Heritage: A Systematic Review of the Emerging Fields of Virtual Reality and Culture Games

Applied Sciences

In recent years, the use of VR games in cultural heritage has been growing. VR Games have increas... more In recent years, the use of VR games in cultural heritage has been growing. VR Games have increasingly found their way into museums and exhibitions, highlighting the increasing cultural value associated with games and the institutionalization of game culture. In particular, serious VR games have a variety of benefits for educational purposes. There are several studies that deployed VR games to improve visitor experiences in several contexts. However, there are not sufficient studies in the field that examine the benefits and drawbacks of VR gaming. This lack of classification studies is regarded as an obstacle to developing more effective games and proposing guidance on the best way of using them in cultural heritage. This review aims to analyze how VR games are used in cultural heritage settings, to explore the evolution and opportunities of this emerging field, the challenges and tensions these innovations present, and to collectively advance this work to benefit visitor experiences.

Research paper thumbnail of Participatory design and participatory debugging: Listening to students to improve computational thinking by creating games

International Journal of Child-Computer Interaction

Research paper thumbnail of The Little ones, the Big ones and the Code: Utilization of digital educational games in primary school pupils

This paper is a case study on the use of educational digital games to elementary pupils and deals... more This paper is a case study on the use of educational digital games to elementary pupils and deals with games that promote algorithmic thinking as well as the basic principles of programming. The study involved 94 young pupils who worked in pairs (Pair Programming) trying to solve puzzle games from code.org website during their visit to the University of Pelo-ponnese in the context of the European Code Week. Factors such as satisfaction, evaluation of perceived knowledge and willingness to use games in future in the learning process were examined. Furthermore it's discussed whether a short activity like this can result to long term motivation of pupils. The article concludes that: (a) the pupils enjoyed the games and wished to repeat corresponding activities. (b) They considered that by playing, they acquired basic skills and knowledge as far as programming principles were concerned. (c) They preferred Pair Programming and estimated that they could learn better by assisting one another. Finally, it seems that the few hours visit was not enough to motivate most pupils to carry on with the activities at home by themselves.

Research paper thumbnail of Framework for the effective implementation of alternative teaching methods for informatics

Η δυναμική εξέλιξη του πεδίου της Πληροφορικής, εισάγει νέες εκπαιδευτικές και παιδαγωγικές προκλ... more Η δυναμική εξέλιξη του πεδίου της Πληροφορικής, εισάγει νέες εκπαιδευτικές και παιδαγωγικές προκλήσεις, συμπεριλαμβανομένου του σχεδιασμού και της μεθοδολογικής οργάνωσης της διδασκαλίας και της μάθησης. Πώς μπορούμε να διδάξουμε τους μαθητές μας καλύτερα σε ένα πεδίο όπως της Πληροφορικής, το οποίο αναπτύσσεται ταχύτατα και με ιδιαίτερες απαιτήσεις; Επιπλέον, πώς μπορούμε να τους δώσουμε κίνητρα επιτυγχάνοντας ταυτόχρονα καλύτερα μαθησιακά αποτελέσματα; Αυτά είναι τα δύο κύρια ερωτήματα που καλείται να απαντήσει η παρούσα διδακτορική διατριβή.Οι εκπαιδευτικοί και οι ερευνητές διαθέτουν πληθώρα μεθόδων διδασκαλίας που μπορούν να εφαρμοστούν και οι οποίες στοχεύουν στη μείωση της πολυπλοκότητας και στην υποστήριξη της εκπαίδευσης σε διαφορετικές καταστάσεις στην Εκπαίδευση της Πληροφορικής. Δυστυχώς, αυτές εστιάζουν σε διαφορετικά θέματα και επίπεδα της εκπαιδευτικής διαδικασίας και μεμονωμένα αδυνατούν να παράσχουν ολοκληρωμένες απαντήσεις στα βασικά ερευνητικά μας ερωτήματα. Μια συ...

Research paper thumbnail of Design and development of a game-engine-based simulator specialised on ships evacuation

International Journal of Human Factors Modelling and Simulation

Research paper thumbnail of Facebook as Teaching Tool in Higher Education: A Case Study

Social networks (SN) seem to play a significant role in young adults ’ and university students ’ ... more Social networks (SN) seem to play a significant role in young adults ’ and university students ’ lives. Since students already use them in their daily life, why shouldn’t formal higher education incorporate them? The paper presents qualitative and quantitative data gathered through one academic term, after using Facebook as a teaching tool in Higher Education and investigates ways that SN can be used in teaching and learning. Issues of students’ personalities, learning efficiency, motivation, cultural differences, gender differences and patterns of use are discussed.

Research paper thumbnail of The Human Computer Interaction and Virtual Reality Lab (University of Peloponnese): Overview and Current Challenges

HCI-VR lab in Short. The Human-Computer Interaction and Virtual Reality Lab, at the Department of... more HCI-VR lab in Short. The Human-Computer Interaction and Virtual Reality Lab, at the Department of Informatics and Telecommunications of the University of Peloponnese, aims to conduct high quality research in areas related to the analysis, design, development, and evaluation of HCI and VR systems and applications, and in parallel to support the teaching requirements of the department in the respective field. Over the last years the HCI-VR lab particularly focuses on Cultural Heritage and develops technologies primarily for spaces of cultural heritage that cover the diverse needs of heterogeneous audiences providing holistic visitor experience. The HCI-VR lab is actively participating in National and European projects on Cultural Heritage, such as FP7 Experimedia (https://hci-vr.dit.uop.gr/experimedia), H2020 CrossCult (www.crosscult.eu) and multiple projects from the National Strategic Reference Framework.

Research paper thumbnail of Towards a Framework for Adaptive Gameplay in Serious Games that Teach Programming: Association Between Computational Thinking and Cognitive Style

Learning basic programming principles is the main process to acquire computational thinking skill... more Learning basic programming principles is the main process to acquire computational thinking skills, which comprise an essential capability for education worldwide. The game-based learning approach is a very promising learning strategy towards that direction. Digital games help learners become active and engaging in the acquisition of knowledge. Though, the learning process is not always clear through serious games that teach programming. Personality characteristics like cognitive style, seem to affect how efficiently and effectively learners perceive the knowledge. Cognitive style deals with the way learners perceive information and is a significant feature in improving programming learning. Thus, in order learners to achieve better performances through serious games that teach programming concepts, we need to investigate how cognitive style can be incorporated into the design of game-based learning environments. This article proposes a framework for adaptive gameplay that can support and encourage researchers and game designers to properly identify the concept of cognitive style when designing game-based learning environments for programming learning. The framework models an ontology that searches personality traits and enables personalised decision-making learning activities.

Research paper thumbnail of Digital Game-Based Learning and Computational Thinking in P-12 Education

Research Anthology on Developments in Gamification and Game-Based Learning

The objective of this chapter is to explore the evolution and opportunities of the emerging field... more The objective of this chapter is to explore the evolution and opportunities of the emerging field of digital games for programming learning, the challenges and tensions that they present, and how educators may be able to collectively advance this work to benefit student learning. This work summarizes previous empirical evidence concerning the positive impacts and outcomes of digital games in computing education, or even impacts that do not let games to spread. Hence, a systematic literature review is carried out in this context to provide a comprehensive overview of works carried out towards incorporating digital games in order to acquire CT skills or learn basic programming concepts within P12 education. The chapter discusses on the range of indicators and measures used in the 44 selected studies, together with methodological limitations and recommendations for further work in this area.

Research paper thumbnail of Πλαίσιο για την αποτελεσματική εφαρμογή εναλλακτικών μεθόδων διδασκαλίας στην πληροφορική

Research paper thumbnail of Η Εκπαιδευτική Ρομποτική στην Υποστήριξη της Εκπαιδευτικής Διαδικασίας

Open Schools Journal for Open Science, 2020

Στο παρόν κείμενο εστιάζουμε στην καταγραφή και περιγραφή της εμπειρίας μας με την εκπαιδευτική ρ... more Στο παρόν κείμενο εστιάζουμε στην καταγραφή και περιγραφή της εμπειρίας μας με την εκπαιδευτική ρομποτική, όπως αυτή αποκτήθηκε στα πλαίσια του 1ουRobotics Workshop που πραγματοποιήθηκε στην Τρίπολη από σχολεία της περιοχής, το Δεκέμβριο του 20171. Μέσα από ένα ταξίδι διάρκειας 12 εβδομάδων, 15 μαθητές από δύο λύκεια της περιοχής της Τρίπολης, καταλήξαμε να παρουσιάσουμε σε 500 μαθητές, έργα ρομποτικής που δημιουργήσαμε επιστρατεύοντας φαντασία, δημιουργικότητα και ομαδική εργασία. Η θεματολογία μας11οRobotics Workshop,τοποθεσία Τρίπολη, διοργάνωση 3οΓΕΛ Τρίπολης& ΓΕΛ Τεγέας, περισσότερα στον σύνδεσμο: https://goo.gl/MA2RWsπεριλάμβανε τεχνουργήματα με αξιοποίηση της πλατφόρμας Arduino καθώς και των Lego Mindstorms και γενικά έργα εκπαιδευτικών χρήσεων και εφαρμογών. Πιο συγκεκριμένα δημιουργήσαμε έργα αυτοματισμού, φωτισμού-ήχου, αισθητήρων-περιβάλλοντος, έξυπνα αντικείμενα, διατάξεις έγκαιρης ειδοποίησης, αυτόνομο όχημα, εφαρμογές ψυχαγωγίας και εφαρμογές ΙοΤ, αξιοποιώντας κυρίως γ...

Research paper thumbnail of Digital Game-Based Learning and Computational Thinking in P-12 Education

Advances in early childhood and K-12 education, 2020

The objective of this chapter is to explore the evolution and opportunities of the emerging field... more The objective of this chapter is to explore the evolution and opportunities of the emerging field of digital games for programming learning, the challenges and tensions that they present, and how educators may be able to collectively advance this work to benefit student learning. This work summarizes previous empirical evidence concerning the positive impacts and outcomes of digital games in computing education, or even impacts that do not let games to spread. Hence, a systematic literature review is carried out in this context to provide a comprehensive overview of works carried out towards incorporating digital games in order to acquire CT skills or learn basic programming concepts within P12 education. The chapter discusses on the range of indicators and measures used in the 44 selected studies, together with methodological limitations and recommendations for further work in this area.

Research paper thumbnail of Species' Citadel's Timeline: A Virtual Reality Experience in a peripheral Archaeological Museum

Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference of the ACM Greek SIGCHI Chapter

This study explores the effectiveness of VR escape games as engaging learning tools for archaeolo... more This study explores the effectiveness of VR escape games as engaging learning tools for archaeological venues. University students participated in the study to assess their motivation and immersion while using a VR escape room game set in a real archaeological venue. The game replicated the museum building in a virtual environment and incorporated scanned artifacts as interactive objects. Participants solved riddles related to the artifacts, creating an immersive and interactive storytelling experience. The study's results were promising, showing that the VR escape room game successfully motivated participants. The use of scanned artifacts and the realistic venue enhanced immersion. The findings highlight the potential of VR escape games for engaging students with archaeological content and fostering motivation and understanding of artifacts. CCS CONCEPTS • Applied computing → Interactive learning environments; • Human-centered computing → Human computer interaction (HCI).

Research paper thumbnail of Effects of minimum content in cultural informatics

Proceedings of the 26th Pan-Hellenic Conference on Informatics, Nov 25, 2022

Research paper thumbnail of Developing an Interactive VR CAVE for Immersive Shared Gaming Experiences

This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative... more This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY

Research paper thumbnail of Temporality in Cultural Informatics

Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference of the ACM Greek SIGCHI Chapter

The present work wishes to highlight the role of temporality in cultural informatics and provides... more The present work wishes to highlight the role of temporality in cultural informatics and provides a review of concepts and practices. Temporality is often overlooked during the interaction design of cultural technologies, although aspects of it are crucial for the success of a cultural experience. Many researchers decide to support the visitor before, during and after her visit, planning for a continuation of the visit and providing an extended time frame. In addition, in technology assisted cultural experiences, temporality is again a key concept, since in different types of experiences can be synchronous or asynchronous. Furthermore, there are apps that directly ask the visitor to provide the estimated time of visit, in order to plan content delivery and experiences accordingly. Visitor studies also reveal that the amount of time people spend at a cultural space depends on external factors like tiredness, weather, etc, but also on internal factors such as visitor's personality. For all the above, specific examples are provided. When interaction in cultural informatics is designed, aspects of temporality should guide the design processes, thus the paper concludes with a summary of important design points.

Research paper thumbnail of Turtle Heroes: Designing a Serious Game for a VR Interactive Tunnel

Lecture Notes in Computer Science

Accumulating evidence indicates that game-based learning is emotionally charged. However, little ... more Accumulating evidence indicates that game-based learning is emotionally charged. However, little is known about the nature of emotions in game-based learning. We extended previous game-based learning research by examining epistemic emotions and their relations to flow experience and situational interest. Sixty-eight 15–18-year-old students played the Antidote COVID-19 game for 25 min. Epistemic emotions, flow, and situational interest were measured after the playing session. These measures indicated that the game engaged students. Students reported significantly higher intensity levels of positive epistemic emotions (excitement, surprise, and curiosity) than negative epistemic emotions (boredom, anxiety, frustration, and confusion). The co-occurrence network analyses provided insights into the relationship between flow and situational interest. We found an asymmetrical pattern of the “situational interest-flow” co-occurrence. When situational interest occurred, the flow was always c...

Research paper thumbnail of Collaboration Skills in Educational Robotics: A Methodological Approach—Results from Two Case Studies in Primary Schools

Education Sciences

This study proposes a methodological approach that allows educational robotics to be used in orde... more This study proposes a methodological approach that allows educational robotics to be used in order to develop collaboration skills in educational settings. Educational robotics is a promising educational tool that has the potential to become a platform for the development of a range of skills. However, there is a scarce amount of empirical case studies that present detailed information on the way it is implemented within formal primary school education. On the other hand, even though collaboration skills are considered vital for future school graduates, it is rarely discussed as the main focus of educational robotics. Most commonly collaboration or teamwork skills are viewed as a byproduct of the robotics activities. This work views collaboration skills as the main outcome. The methodological approach that this work proposes has been implemented during a period of three years in one pilot and two case studies. This research measures the reflection of the robotics tasks paired with t...

Research paper thumbnail of A Virtual Ship Evacuation Serious Game: Assessment of Data and Passenger Training

Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2022

Research paper thumbnail of Turtle Heroes: Designing a Serious Game for a VR Interactive Tunnel

Research paper thumbnail of VR Games in Cultural Heritage: A Systematic Review of the Emerging Fields of Virtual Reality and Culture Games

Applied Sciences

In recent years, the use of VR games in cultural heritage has been growing. VR Games have increas... more In recent years, the use of VR games in cultural heritage has been growing. VR Games have increasingly found their way into museums and exhibitions, highlighting the increasing cultural value associated with games and the institutionalization of game culture. In particular, serious VR games have a variety of benefits for educational purposes. There are several studies that deployed VR games to improve visitor experiences in several contexts. However, there are not sufficient studies in the field that examine the benefits and drawbacks of VR gaming. This lack of classification studies is regarded as an obstacle to developing more effective games and proposing guidance on the best way of using them in cultural heritage. This review aims to analyze how VR games are used in cultural heritage settings, to explore the evolution and opportunities of this emerging field, the challenges and tensions these innovations present, and to collectively advance this work to benefit visitor experiences.

Research paper thumbnail of Participatory design and participatory debugging: Listening to students to improve computational thinking by creating games

International Journal of Child-Computer Interaction

Research paper thumbnail of The Little ones, the Big ones and the Code: Utilization of digital educational games in primary school pupils

This paper is a case study on the use of educational digital games to elementary pupils and deals... more This paper is a case study on the use of educational digital games to elementary pupils and deals with games that promote algorithmic thinking as well as the basic principles of programming. The study involved 94 young pupils who worked in pairs (Pair Programming) trying to solve puzzle games from code.org website during their visit to the University of Pelo-ponnese in the context of the European Code Week. Factors such as satisfaction, evaluation of perceived knowledge and willingness to use games in future in the learning process were examined. Furthermore it's discussed whether a short activity like this can result to long term motivation of pupils. The article concludes that: (a) the pupils enjoyed the games and wished to repeat corresponding activities. (b) They considered that by playing, they acquired basic skills and knowledge as far as programming principles were concerned. (c) They preferred Pair Programming and estimated that they could learn better by assisting one another. Finally, it seems that the few hours visit was not enough to motivate most pupils to carry on with the activities at home by themselves.

Research paper thumbnail of Framework for the effective implementation of alternative teaching methods for informatics

Η δυναμική εξέλιξη του πεδίου της Πληροφορικής, εισάγει νέες εκπαιδευτικές και παιδαγωγικές προκλ... more Η δυναμική εξέλιξη του πεδίου της Πληροφορικής, εισάγει νέες εκπαιδευτικές και παιδαγωγικές προκλήσεις, συμπεριλαμβανομένου του σχεδιασμού και της μεθοδολογικής οργάνωσης της διδασκαλίας και της μάθησης. Πώς μπορούμε να διδάξουμε τους μαθητές μας καλύτερα σε ένα πεδίο όπως της Πληροφορικής, το οποίο αναπτύσσεται ταχύτατα και με ιδιαίτερες απαιτήσεις; Επιπλέον, πώς μπορούμε να τους δώσουμε κίνητρα επιτυγχάνοντας ταυτόχρονα καλύτερα μαθησιακά αποτελέσματα; Αυτά είναι τα δύο κύρια ερωτήματα που καλείται να απαντήσει η παρούσα διδακτορική διατριβή.Οι εκπαιδευτικοί και οι ερευνητές διαθέτουν πληθώρα μεθόδων διδασκαλίας που μπορούν να εφαρμοστούν και οι οποίες στοχεύουν στη μείωση της πολυπλοκότητας και στην υποστήριξη της εκπαίδευσης σε διαφορετικές καταστάσεις στην Εκπαίδευση της Πληροφορικής. Δυστυχώς, αυτές εστιάζουν σε διαφορετικά θέματα και επίπεδα της εκπαιδευτικής διαδικασίας και μεμονωμένα αδυνατούν να παράσχουν ολοκληρωμένες απαντήσεις στα βασικά ερευνητικά μας ερωτήματα. Μια συ...

Research paper thumbnail of Design and development of a game-engine-based simulator specialised on ships evacuation

International Journal of Human Factors Modelling and Simulation

Research paper thumbnail of Facebook as Teaching Tool in Higher Education: A Case Study

Social networks (SN) seem to play a significant role in young adults ’ and university students ’ ... more Social networks (SN) seem to play a significant role in young adults ’ and university students ’ lives. Since students already use them in their daily life, why shouldn’t formal higher education incorporate them? The paper presents qualitative and quantitative data gathered through one academic term, after using Facebook as a teaching tool in Higher Education and investigates ways that SN can be used in teaching and learning. Issues of students’ personalities, learning efficiency, motivation, cultural differences, gender differences and patterns of use are discussed.

Research paper thumbnail of The Human Computer Interaction and Virtual Reality Lab (University of Peloponnese): Overview and Current Challenges

HCI-VR lab in Short. The Human-Computer Interaction and Virtual Reality Lab, at the Department of... more HCI-VR lab in Short. The Human-Computer Interaction and Virtual Reality Lab, at the Department of Informatics and Telecommunications of the University of Peloponnese, aims to conduct high quality research in areas related to the analysis, design, development, and evaluation of HCI and VR systems and applications, and in parallel to support the teaching requirements of the department in the respective field. Over the last years the HCI-VR lab particularly focuses on Cultural Heritage and develops technologies primarily for spaces of cultural heritage that cover the diverse needs of heterogeneous audiences providing holistic visitor experience. The HCI-VR lab is actively participating in National and European projects on Cultural Heritage, such as FP7 Experimedia (https://hci-vr.dit.uop.gr/experimedia), H2020 CrossCult (www.crosscult.eu) and multiple projects from the National Strategic Reference Framework.

Research paper thumbnail of Towards a Framework for Adaptive Gameplay in Serious Games that Teach Programming: Association Between Computational Thinking and Cognitive Style

Learning basic programming principles is the main process to acquire computational thinking skill... more Learning basic programming principles is the main process to acquire computational thinking skills, which comprise an essential capability for education worldwide. The game-based learning approach is a very promising learning strategy towards that direction. Digital games help learners become active and engaging in the acquisition of knowledge. Though, the learning process is not always clear through serious games that teach programming. Personality characteristics like cognitive style, seem to affect how efficiently and effectively learners perceive the knowledge. Cognitive style deals with the way learners perceive information and is a significant feature in improving programming learning. Thus, in order learners to achieve better performances through serious games that teach programming concepts, we need to investigate how cognitive style can be incorporated into the design of game-based learning environments. This article proposes a framework for adaptive gameplay that can support and encourage researchers and game designers to properly identify the concept of cognitive style when designing game-based learning environments for programming learning. The framework models an ontology that searches personality traits and enables personalised decision-making learning activities.

Research paper thumbnail of Digital Game-Based Learning and Computational Thinking in P-12 Education

Research Anthology on Developments in Gamification and Game-Based Learning

The objective of this chapter is to explore the evolution and opportunities of the emerging field... more The objective of this chapter is to explore the evolution and opportunities of the emerging field of digital games for programming learning, the challenges and tensions that they present, and how educators may be able to collectively advance this work to benefit student learning. This work summarizes previous empirical evidence concerning the positive impacts and outcomes of digital games in computing education, or even impacts that do not let games to spread. Hence, a systematic literature review is carried out in this context to provide a comprehensive overview of works carried out towards incorporating digital games in order to acquire CT skills or learn basic programming concepts within P12 education. The chapter discusses on the range of indicators and measures used in the 44 selected studies, together with methodological limitations and recommendations for further work in this area.