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A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Education and Approaches".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 September 2021.
Special Issue Editors
Interests: serious games; adaptive hypermedia systems; software evolution; games for old people
Interests: video games; narrative desing and storytelling; pervasive games; games for old people
Special Issues and Collections in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Motivation. From antiquity to the 21st century, games have been used to develop skills and learn concepts. In fact, play is the most natural way to learn, since, from the earliest age, children use this mechanism to learn new skills, relate to their environment, and explore the world around them. During the past few decades, digital games have become an integral part of people’s daily lives, as a recreational, cultural and social medium; but also as an educational instrument. Educational games are, together with health games, the most important field of application for serious games. Educators often use games to capture and maintain students’ attention and motivation. At the same time, educational games are one of the most widely used mechanisms for education throughout life. With this aim, a considerable number of research groups and companies have already developed educational games that have been successfully exploited in formal and informal educational contexts, demonstrating that this digital technology can enhance education. However, there is a plethora of issues related to designing these kinds of games that can be improved from a methodological perspective. For this reason, it is necessary to promote theoretical and practical knowledge which is pertinent to the design of educational games and game-based learning environments.
Purpose. The aim of this Special Issue is to address all issues concerning the interaction between learning outcomes and the design of educational video games, and to promote the use of design methodologies to specify the game in order to meet learning objectives, while the game retains its essential character of fun. If the desired result is an educational game that truly creates value and affects learners’ behaviors long-term, its design must obey a systematic and structured process. The design of a video game involves making multiple decisions and interconnecting a large number of pieces: dynamics, mechanics, characters, scenarios and scenes, narratives, challenges, etc. In addition, when the game is educational, the integration of the educational content/activities within the ludic challenges is a crucial task. Poorly designed educational games will generate boring games or games with low educational power. The use of proper design methodologies is essential to assure the educational positive impact of the game. These methodologies must guarantee the appropriate ludic-educational balance and facilitate the integration of the educational team during the design process.
Scope. This Special Issue will feature new insights, research and practice on how to design, develop and use methodologies to create educational serious games. We welcome submission empirical, theoretical and review articles that are focused on improving the design of games used for learning. This purpose can be approached from different levels of abstraction. Consequently, reflections, theories, guidelines, patterns, conceptual frameworks, models, processes, procedures, techniques, etc. will be admitted. The objective is to join efforts to understand, specify, systematize and formalize the design process of an educational game, in order to facilitate this task for new developers, as well as to support the collaboration of the multidisciplinary team and achieve effective games (games keep players engaged and generate persistent learning).
Dear Colleagues,
Educational games have shown their value in improving learning processes through the fun and motivation that they generate. Furthermore, since learning is integrated within a larger cognitive structure (the story of the game), the concepts/skills acquired are more persistent in the long term. The aim of this Special Issue is to promote the use of design methodologies to specify, formalize and enrich the design of these educational games. We welcome the submission of empirical, theoretical and review articles that are focused on improving the design of games used for learning. In this context, we are seeking contributions that advance the state of the art in design methodologies for educational games.
Topics of interest for this special issue include (but are not limited to):
- Learner/player-centered design considerations (engagement, motivation, learning styles, behaviors and personalities in educational games, personalization, etc.)
- Game-based learning theories and their design implications
- Design guidelines specific for educational games
- Conceptual frameworks to support the design and implementation of educational games
- Game design models in education
- Design patterns for educational games
- Systematic processes to create effective educational games
- Methodologies, techniques and technologies to improve the design of educational games
- Methodologies to design the gameplay of an educational game
- Methodologies to design the narrative/storytelling of an educational game
- Systematic proposals for the design/evaluation of the emotional component of an educational game
- Methodologies to design collaborative learning in games
- Methodologies to integrate and deploy video games in classes
- Methodologies to guarantee/evaluate the ludic-educational balance in the game
- Methodologies used to design research prototypes and commercial educational games
- Design of gamified intelligent tutoring systems
- Design of gamified applications of e-learning, b-learning, u-learning, t-learning, etc.
- Design of adaptive games for game-based learning
- Design of educational games for vulnerable groups
- Design of virtual worlds for game-based learning
- Learning by designing video games
- Evaluation studies for educational games (evaluation methodologies and evaluation design, models and metrics, evaluation tools, effectiveness, efficiency)
The open submission window for full papers is from July 15, 2020 to September 30, 2021.
Other important dates are:
Acceptance deadline: May 15, 2021
Final copy deadline: June 15, 2021
Notification of acceptance: July 15, 2021
Expected publication: September/October, 2021
We look forward to receiving your work. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Best regards,
Prof. Dr. Nuria Medina MedinaProf. Dr. Francisco Luis Gutiérrez Vela
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All papers will be peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- learning and technology
- game-based learning
- serious games
- educational video games
- designing of educational games
- designing methodologies
Planned Papers
The below list represents only planned manuscripts. Some of these manuscripts have not been received by the Editorial Office yet. Papers submitted to MDPI journals are subject to peer-review.
Title: Developing Educational Games for Preschool Children to Improve Dietary Choices and Exercise Capacity
Author: Veronica Piziak
Abstract: This article describes the processes used to develop two different types of games used to improve the consumption of healthful foods and increase exercise in preschool Hispanic populations. They were created to meet criteria for effectiveness: age and culturally appropriate, fun, and foster family participation. The first, a pictorial bilingual food bingo game, emphasized vegetable and water consumption and limitation of sugar sweetened beverages. A population was selected to study the effectiveness in changing dietary habits and we were able to show significantly improved consumption of vegetables at home after using the game during the school year. Next we developed bilingual video games used to teach nutrition and enhance exercise. The animal characters and narrative were created to allow immersion. The concept was that the animals needed the children’s help to obtain food, exercise tasks were assigned, and nutritional foods were discussed. Focus groups reviewed for effectiveness of the concept, ease of usability, and appropriateness for the target audience. Videos were tested in a summer session and teachers concluded that after 2 viewings the children enhanced their exercise, bonded to the animals, and were answering the nutrition questions correctly.
Key words: Designing educational games; Bilingual educational games;Games to teach nutrition and exercise