T29: Shifting to Digital: Gamification in Course Design

Thursday, 29 July 2021, 08:00 – 12:00 EDT (Eastern Daylight Time - Washington DC)
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Andri Ioannou (short bio)

Cyprus University of Technology, Cyprus

 

Andreas Kitsi (short bio)

Cyprus Interaction Lab / RISE - EdMedia group, Cyprus

 

Raluca Maxim (short bio)

Cyprus Interaction Lab / RISE - EdMedia group, Cyprus

 

Objectives:

Nowadays, teaching and training faces new challenges as the audience is less self-disciplined, living in overwhelming environments and loosing attention and/or interest very quickly. Our job, as educators and trainers and technologists is to address these challenges. Applying fun and engaging elements found in games to non-leisure contexts, known as gamification, aims to motivate the learners to complete specific tasks, and thus, increase user retention with content, products or services. Education and training can also gain from this approach. Gamification makes the learning experience more enjoyable and engaging. It’s a powerful tool for engaging learners with the content and is relatively cheap to implement, feeds into the user’s sense of accomplishment while it allows the teacher/trainer to gather performance data for the learner. Through this workshop, the participants will be able to see how teaching material is built for gamification, by exploiting the possibilities provided by the Moodle e-learning platform but also other tools.

 

Content and benefits:

Introduction to Gamification and Moodle Gamification Tools

  • Gamification (game) thinking
  • The Moodle Open-source learning platform
  • Game Components (general tools that can be added on the learning platform)
  • Using Moodle tools as game elements (certificates, badges, progress indicator, simple games e.g., hidden picture, hangman)
  • Other tools for gamification

Course Design with Gamification Elements

  • Teaching and learning goals
  • Overall course design
  • Experiencing the development of teaching materials using gamification

 

Target audience:

Instructors and learners in any domain and level (K-20+)

Bio Sketches of Presenters:

Andri Ioannou is an Associate Professor in the Department of Multimedia and Graphic Arts of the Cyprus University of Technology, Director of the Cyprus Interaction Research Lab and a Team Leader at Research Centre on Interactive media, Smart systems and Emerging technologies (RISE). Andri has a Ph.D. in Educational Technology and an MA in Education both from the University of Connecticut (USA), and a BSc in Computer Science from the University of Cyprus. Her research contributes to key areas of educational technology, including the (i) design and evaluation of technology-enhanced learning environments, (ii) use of technology to support skills within a 21st century framework including problem-solving, collaboration, metacognition, and “living in the world” skills, (iii) design of embodied, playful and gameful learning using technology, and (iv) technology integration in all levels of education. Andri has more than 80 peer-reviewed scientific publications in highly cited international journals and conferences. She has been involved as a principal investigator (PI) and co-ordinator in 18 research projects funded by the European Union and national grants.

Andreas Kitsi is a Multimedia/UX Designer and Researcher at the Cyprus Interaction Lab and RISE - EdMedia group. He holds a BA from the Department of Multimedia and Graphic Arts of the Cyprus University of Technology. He is interested in emerging technologies, user experience design, and gamification.

Raluca Maxim is a UX Designer and Researcher affiliated with the Cyprus Interaction Lab and RISE - EdMedia group. She holds a BA/MA in Cognitive Psychology/Human factors in aviation. She is interested in gamification, human-computer interaction, virtual reality and artificial intelligence.