MOOCs are a current trend in Higher Education; universities around the world offer open courses f... more MOOCs are a current trend in Higher Education; universities around the world offer open courses for lifelong and geographically distributed learners. Nevertheless, there is a high drop-out rate on these courses. The temporal aspects related to learner Temporal Perspectives (TP), self-regulation of learning, and temporal patterns could be related to drop-out rates and motivations for following a MOOC. This study aims to analyse student objective and subjective times in order to better understand their relationships with MOOC participation. The paper describes the case study methodology proposed to explore this relation: a pilot MOOC course on entrepreneurship (IE MOOC) with a total of 30 Catalan students who were active during the two-week course. The study examines the motivation and active participation of students in these learning methodologies, and practical issues on the schedule and temporal pace of MOOCs. Results show how student actions decrease as the MOOC progresses. Stude...
Serious games (SG) are innovative tools that are widely recognized as having considerable potenti... more Serious games (SG) are innovative tools that are widely recognized as having considerable potential to foster and support active learning. This article addresses the question of whether and how SG can contribute to the development of the so-called “21st century skills” in education. This article starts by characterizing the current need for 21st century skills and the identification of these core skills. Thereafter, it reports on a literature review of studies analyzing SG impact on the development of one or more 21st century skills; and finally, it analyzes which, among the most relevant game characteristics, are those that could facilitate 21st century skills development. This study offers a multifold perspective on the use of SG to support 21st century skills development that may be helpful for both teachers and SG designers.
Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics), 2011
ABSTRACT Despite the growing interest in the Game Based Learning (GBL) literature (Squire, 2005; ... more ABSTRACT Despite the growing interest in the Game Based Learning (GBL) literature (Squire, 2005; Gee, 2005), only a reduced number of studies have focused on the collaborative modality in GBL (Harteveld & Bekebrede, 2011). Knowledge Group Awareness (KGA) designates the intersubjective perception of teammates' knowledge. The use of especially designed gaming interfaces allows KGA declaration and displaying support by the introduction of the KGA explicitness systems, called by some authors KGA tools (Buder, 2010). This paper aims to study whether a structured explicitness of the KGA could play a core role in facilitating and improving collaborative face to face GBL performances. The KGA is operationalized through the Feeling of Knowledge (FOK) declaration. The FOK refers to the feelings a student has regarding his/her knowledge for a specific subject (Hart, 1965), it is defined by the student using a Confidence Level (CL) based in a 3 level scale. We expect that the FOK declaration process will have a positive impact in the learning process based in the GBL task, both in individual and collaborative phases of the GBL activity proposed to the students. However, we expect better performances in collaborative settings with the explicitness of the KGA thanks to the socially shared metacognition process, developed through the displaying of the intersubjective FOK. For this purpose we designed a collaborative SG in the field of finance, introducing an ad hoc KGA explicitness system with the aim of supporting the students' FOK declaration according to the 3 CL. The first is analyzing the impact of the declaration of the FOK in individual performance when playing alone. The second one is analyzing the influence of shared visualization of the intersubjective FOK in the individual and collaborative performances, according to the symmetry of knowledge between dyad members. This environment permits researchers study different variables in order to study four hypotheses on learner's performances and changes in their Feeling of knowledge (FOK) accuracies during collaborative game experience.
ABSTRACT The paper deals with the hot issue of entrepreneurship education and describes the ratio... more ABSTRACT The paper deals with the hot issue of entrepreneurship education and describes the rationale behind the gamified and collaborative courses for university students conceived, developed and deployed in the framework of the eSG (stimulating entrepreneurship through Serious Games) project, funded under the EU lifelong learning (LLP) Programme. The project aims to help students becoming familiar, mainly through practice, with basic concepts of entrepreneurship and company management and to stimulate the emergence of their entrepreneurial attitudes. In the framework of the project specific courses mainly grounded on the concepts of gamification and collaboration were designed and carried out in three different partner countries: Italy, Spain and the Netherlands. The main objectives of the courses are presented in this paper and a theoretical model supporting the choice of Serious Games is shown which keeps into account usability, pedagogy and the entrepreneurship skills expressed by state of the art models.
MOOCs are a current trend in Higher Education; universities around the world offer open courses f... more MOOCs are a current trend in Higher Education; universities around the world offer open courses for lifelong and geographically distributed learners. Nevertheless, there is a high drop-out rate on these courses. The temporal aspects related to learner Temporal Perspectives (TP), self-regulation of learning, and temporal patterns could be related to drop-out rates and motivations for following a MOOC. This study aims to analyse student objective and subjective times in order to better understand their relationships with MOOC participation. The paper describes the case study methodology proposed to explore this relation: a pilot MOOC course on entrepreneurship (IE MOOC) with a total of 30 Catalan students who were active during the two-week course. The study examines the motivation and active participation of students in these learning methodologies, and practical issues on the schedule and temporal pace of MOOCs. Results show how student actions decrease as the MOOC progresses. Stude...
Serious games (SG) are innovative tools that are widely recognized as having considerable potenti... more Serious games (SG) are innovative tools that are widely recognized as having considerable potential to foster and support active learning. This article addresses the question of whether and how SG can contribute to the development of the so-called “21st century skills” in education. This article starts by characterizing the current need for 21st century skills and the identification of these core skills. Thereafter, it reports on a literature review of studies analyzing SG impact on the development of one or more 21st century skills; and finally, it analyzes which, among the most relevant game characteristics, are those that could facilitate 21st century skills development. This study offers a multifold perspective on the use of SG to support 21st century skills development that may be helpful for both teachers and SG designers.
Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics), 2011
ABSTRACT Despite the growing interest in the Game Based Learning (GBL) literature (Squire, 2005; ... more ABSTRACT Despite the growing interest in the Game Based Learning (GBL) literature (Squire, 2005; Gee, 2005), only a reduced number of studies have focused on the collaborative modality in GBL (Harteveld & Bekebrede, 2011). Knowledge Group Awareness (KGA) designates the intersubjective perception of teammates' knowledge. The use of especially designed gaming interfaces allows KGA declaration and displaying support by the introduction of the KGA explicitness systems, called by some authors KGA tools (Buder, 2010). This paper aims to study whether a structured explicitness of the KGA could play a core role in facilitating and improving collaborative face to face GBL performances. The KGA is operationalized through the Feeling of Knowledge (FOK) declaration. The FOK refers to the feelings a student has regarding his/her knowledge for a specific subject (Hart, 1965), it is defined by the student using a Confidence Level (CL) based in a 3 level scale. We expect that the FOK declaration process will have a positive impact in the learning process based in the GBL task, both in individual and collaborative phases of the GBL activity proposed to the students. However, we expect better performances in collaborative settings with the explicitness of the KGA thanks to the socially shared metacognition process, developed through the displaying of the intersubjective FOK. For this purpose we designed a collaborative SG in the field of finance, introducing an ad hoc KGA explicitness system with the aim of supporting the students' FOK declaration according to the 3 CL. The first is analyzing the impact of the declaration of the FOK in individual performance when playing alone. The second one is analyzing the influence of shared visualization of the intersubjective FOK in the individual and collaborative performances, according to the symmetry of knowledge between dyad members. This environment permits researchers study different variables in order to study four hypotheses on learner's performances and changes in their Feeling of knowledge (FOK) accuracies during collaborative game experience.
ABSTRACT The paper deals with the hot issue of entrepreneurship education and describes the ratio... more ABSTRACT The paper deals with the hot issue of entrepreneurship education and describes the rationale behind the gamified and collaborative courses for university students conceived, developed and deployed in the framework of the eSG (stimulating entrepreneurship through Serious Games) project, funded under the EU lifelong learning (LLP) Programme. The project aims to help students becoming familiar, mainly through practice, with basic concepts of entrepreneurship and company management and to stimulate the emergence of their entrepreneurial attitudes. In the framework of the project specific courses mainly grounded on the concepts of gamification and collaboration were designed and carried out in three different partner countries: Italy, Spain and the Netherlands. The main objectives of the courses are presented in this paper and a theoretical model supporting the choice of Serious Games is shown which keeps into account usability, pedagogy and the entrepreneurship skills expressed by state of the art models.
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Papers by Mireia Usart