eLearning Papers #43 - Applied Games and Gamification – Drivers for Change

In this issue of eLearningPapers we explore different approaches and models that spark creative potential of people and bring together interdisciplinary teams to collaborate and produce applied games and gamified apps. This issue is a collaboration with the ECGBL mini track on the same theme (Pivec & Torrent, 2015).
The selected papers explore the basic requirements and success factors for applied games and gamified approaches. We open with Kampf, who compares two games designed to promote a better understanding of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This is followed by De la Hera et al., who consider the potential of games for multicultural education. Both of these papers illustrate the use of existing commercial games for education with the purpose of driving change in perception, understanding and behaviour. By contrast, Coakley et al. describe the design and development of a purpose built game and the associated pedagogy aimed at promoting sustainable living; Green Games (Green Games, 2015) is another EU funded project to develop skills and competences and areas of food, waste water and energy management in tourism and hospitality area. The next three papers focus on gamification. Basaiawmoit et al. demonstrate the value of gamification for allocating students to teams - a hard problem in collaborative learning. Simões et al. consider the impact of gamification on engagement in an online course. Lieberoth asks ‘what really works in gamification’ and comes up with some provocative answers. Crombie presents the Jam Today network (JamToday, 2015), an initiative of 25 European Universities, Innovation Centers, Learning Labs and Business Incubators financed by the EU ICT PSP programme. In 48 hour game jams Jam Today activates creative potential of different stakeholders to produce games for learning and resources for teachers on themes like eSkills, Health & Wellbeing and Maths. Libin presents examples of the therapeutic potential of playful interaction for the elderly. We conclude with Kayali et al., who offer design guidance for creating social impact games. More...