serious games

Mobile learning, games and social learning: there is no mistaking the technological trends in the world of learning, and these developments are also reflected in the LEARNTEC 2013 motto: “Future Learning”. The convention is also dealing with topics from daily practice, including blended learning, the introduction of e-learning and virtual classrooms. Among the management themes covered, employer attractiveness, professional careers and performance management are areas of particular focus. A number of new fields will also be highlighted, including education for the “50+” generation, innovative interfaces and digital publishing.

LEARNTEC follows up on its success with highly relevant, up-to-date topics. LEARNTEC was rated as far and away the most important one among education fairs and conventions by MMB Learning Delphi 2012. A large majority of experts surveyed – 82 percent – considered LEARNTEC to be the go-to event for digital learning, while 89 percent of e-learning providers were of the same opinion.

According to PricewaterhouseCoopers’ “Global Entertainment and Media Outlook: 2012-2016” publication, digital learning media are set to grow by 12.1 percent annually over the next five years, whereas the non-digital media market is only expected to grow by 2.8 percent per year. This is why LEARNTEC will be featuring the debut of e-PUB@LEARNTEC, an interactive café that will serve as a meeting point for everyone dealing with digital learning media such as e-books and apps. All issues having to do with e-publishing will be up for discussion in a relaxed café atmosphere.

LEARNTEC 2013 once again has a wealth of highlights in store, with organisers being careful to ensure that there is a healthy mix. The event will kick off with two keynote addresses: Prof. Barbara Ischinger from the OECD will be talking about “Creating quality jobs by leveraging education, skills and migration”, while Prof. Dieter Kempf, CEO of Datev and President of BITKOM, for the first time serving as a conceptual partner to LEARNTEC, will be exploring learning scenarios for 2020. On the first day of the event, a high-calibre discussion group featuring Prof. Dr. Peter Vorderer and Prof. Dr. Gerhard de Haan will take a look at the topic of “digital relevance”, offering a counterweight to current theses about computers not benefitting the educational process. New York-based Colleen Macklin, an internationally renowned professor specialising in games, will be brought on board for the Wednesday programme, while the final day will once again be devoted to the issue of motivation, as successful trainer Dr. Frädrich will be showing ways to escape from demotivation. During LEARNTEC, Karlsruhe Trade Fair Center will also be playing host to the Baden-Württemberg media day, which is focusing on “The role of mobile media in children’s media”.

The 21^st LEARNTEC is to take place at Karlsruhe Trade Fair Center from 29 January to 31 January 2013.

At the University of Hamburg, integrating new media into educational settings is a central aspect of teacher education. The introduction of Serious Game programming to teacher education supports pre-service teachers in familiarizing themselves with creative ways of utilizing the educational potential of new media for themselves as well as their students.
Hamburg University, one of the largest universities in Germany, accepts several hundred pre-service teachers per year. During their course of studies, they can choose to focus on courses in educational science aimed at deepening their knowledge about integrating new media into educational settings.

Serious Games? Isn’t that an oxymoron?

If we use games in education, we can't forget the fun factor. But we also have to include, and this means working together with education experts, the pedagogical element as well. The word serious is used because the audience we’re talking about includes both children and adults—teaching business skills like teamwork management, for example.

Your current research focuses on automatic and semi-automatic tools, what exactly do you mean by that?

It’s what we’re putting into practice at our eAdventure platform: making games accessible for everyone, without a need for technical skills. The word automatic simply means that by selecting a few choice settings, creative games can be transformed for use by disabled people, for example.

Are we talking about a choose-your-own-adventure kind of website?

Well, it’s more about tackling certain program features in favor of universal access. For example, using a text speech engine means you can transform instructions into audio, so that the game becomes available to blind people. In the end, our aim is to bring universal educational content to a wider audience.

Is this being put into practice in actual classrooms?

We’ve been working on eAdventures for 6 years, and at first it’s true that teachers didn’t use games much. Our research led us to believe that, although they were keen, the games were not easily adaptable to their needs because they were diconnected from their real learning cenarios. Nowadays, however, there’s a growing interest, not only in schools, but at the university level as well, due to the increasing number of games. Also, in cases like eAdventure games, the possibility of adapting their content or creating them from scratch makes them more attractive and accessible. We've already started to hear from teachers who employ them in our community.

What does the future hold for Serious Games?

In a global sense, it’s hard to tell. Our near future involves connecting games with learning analytics so as to predict and understand the problems users encounter. Because right now there’s a lot of information and materials out there that could be used to examine students’ interaction with educational content, but it’s not being fully analyzed and interpreted.