Paper a dumitrache_18-11

Games and Creativity in Education and Training 2011 (GACET’11), Rome, Italy, 17-18 November

2011

GBL TO SUPPORT PROFESSIONAL DISTANCE EDUCATION

Anisoara Dumitrache, Bogdan Logofătu, Beatrice AlmășanUniversity of Bucharest

OVERWIEV

PROFESSIONAL TRAINING THROUGH

DISTANCE EDUCATION

PILOT SITES

GBL SCENARIOS

IMPLEMENTATION IN REAL SETTINGS -

RESULTS


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PROFESSIONAL TRAINING THROUGH DISTANCE EDUCATION

Characterized by flexibility, individuality, focused on student’s needs;

Can insure a faster adaptation to labor market’s requests;

Communication between students and students – tutors;

Study materials (structure, content, quantity and quality);

Way of delivering materials;

Tutorial meetings;

Students’ particularities.


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RISKS IN DISTANCE LEARNING

Students may feel isolated and they cannot integrate in a specific learning group;

Are not able to take advantage of the flexibility offered; Self study and self evaluation; Social obligations, job and educational requirements; Increased drop-out rate compared with traditional

learning; Trainers role - to maintain students’ interest and to

keep them motivated during the training programme.


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UNIBUC PILOT SITES

1. ECDL Credis a certified testing centre for ICT competencies. The courses are addressed to a large number of persons regardless the age, profession and social status;

2. “CISCO CREDIS Academy” - offers IT courses (computer networks, hardware) being among first CISCO Academies in Romania;

3. Centre of excellence - Entrepreneur CEEX” provides courses focused on Entrepreneurial Education (EE) and Outdoor Education (OE). 80% of the courses are focused on business knowledge and practical skills and 20% on the outdoor education.


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GAME BASED LEARNING SCENARIOS Nine educational games were created, embeded in Learning

Scenarios, using both game editors; For technical skills and also for soft skills; Using <e-Adventure> how to:

To recognize hardware components and to assemble PCs; Install a computer; Work with Photoshop application; Solve conectivity problems ;

Using EUTOPIA: Negotiate, Adapt to different situation, Surviving,

Decisions, Team work, Management, use opportunities, solve conflicts.


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Games and Creativity in Education and Training 2011 (GACET’11), Rome, Italy, 17-18 November 2011

IMPLEMENTATION STATUS

Target group: professional training; 7 GBL scenarios already implemented in real settings; More than 500 students accessed the games; The games are available online (Moodle platform); Medium and small groups of students; Face to face & online sessions.

GBL SCENARIO- BUYING A COMPUTER Integrated in a course for students enrolled in ECDL

certification (Module 1 - Concepts of ICT); This module enables students to gain an understanding of

the different parts of a computer, as well as some of the key concepts of ICT;

The course consist in transmitting theoretical information to the students which are in a position of passive receivers;

86 participants; Duration of course: 2 hours; At the end students were asked to fill in an online

questionnaire, containing 10 questions.


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The player is a costumer in a IT shop and he has to buy all the necessary hardware components for a functional PC

Depending on the choices, the game can be successful finished or the computer may be in fire.


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Participants’ distribution by age group


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LEARNING EXPERIENCEQ2. How would you characterize this

learning experience?Q3: Please describe this

experience using three words.


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COURSE EXPERIENCE Q4. Is this game appropriate for this lesson?

91% Yes 54% consider the games appropriate responding to the learning objectives. 37% appreciated the game is appropriate and offers them the opportunity to

apply the theoretical information gained during the course and 5% appreciated that the game was not appropriate. 4% of the students did not answer on this question.

Q5. In your opinion, why is this lesson different? “Because of introducing the game” “The lesson was more animated, and the environment friendlier”, “For the self evaluation”, “I learned and I had fun”, “I was much focused on the lesson”.


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GAMES ASPECTS Q6. Has this game a friendly and easy to use interface?

89% of students have a positive appreciation on the game

(11%) negative appreciation The improvement suggestions (Q7.)

Game complexity The character The game environment.


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OVERALL APPRECIATION

Q8. Did you enjoy the experience? YES 99% NO 1%

Q9. Would you like to attend to similar experiences? YES 89% NO 11 %

Q10. Do you feel the need to repeat the game for practicing even in your free time (home)? YES 97% NO 3%


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PARTICULAR ASPECTS OF PROFESSIONAL TRAINING

Students tend to analyze in detail each element of the game, practical aspects, level of interactivity, time for accomplishing objectives and disapprove any malfunction of the system;

For a high and positive impact the game should work perfect; The students must be encouraged to replay the game at home,

for achieving better results (no mistakes, best time, best score); Specific peculiarities of the groups:

age (from 16 – 18 to 53 years old); background (previous experience in the field); expectation about the course (demanding, focused on

objectives); number of learners (usually a group of 20 – 25 students).


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CONCLUSIONS The feedbacks received from students were positive; These games are not replacing theoretical concepts but are

a solid base for applying them in a virtual environment; Can be successfully used in self study&evaluation, which is

very important in distance education; Games offer flexible environment to test and re-test

hypothesis, increasing motivation for learning, opportunity to explore new environments using the experiences in real life;

The word “game” is replaced by trainers with the term “application”, “exercise” or “simulation”.


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UNIBUC TEAMTHANK YOU!


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