Playful Learning

Experience cultural and societal subjects within game environments.

(computer) games stimulate fantasy, curiosity, and are challenging at the same time. Also, we believe that the element of collaborative play greatly contributes to the social skills of the students. Additionally, games appear to be a useful tool to enhance students’ insight into difficult procedures that would otherwise be very difficult to understand. Therefore, Creative Learning Lab has chosen to make Playful Learning one of its domains of expertise. If you wish to read more about the specific activities that result from this domain, click here.

Playful Learning through a meaningful way

Within the field of education, there is an increasing demand for games and simulations, as creative and playful use of game technology prove to be a useful tool for classroom purposes.

Location based gaming

Learning through mobile applications, combined with GPS, on which both image and sound is screened (pda/smartphone) offers a unique possibility to experience different layers of information at the same time. The “raw” reality gains an extra dimension, which can be enhanced through connecting specific information to a specific site. Think for example of images, texts or sounds that have something extra to offer concerning a specific location (historical, societal, factual, cultural) or about somebody who has something to say about the location (a personal anecdote, fantasy, sphere or an idea).

This form of enriched reality can be of great value during the learning experience. Plain facts are mingled with personal experiences and present-day images combined with the past. Students thus experience information within an authentic context. Through using these game principles within educational contexts, students feel that they are more part of a story and the locations (as they themselves become personages within the game), and, therefore, they feel more involved with the learning process. Thus, through variations in collaboration and competition, the motivation of students is enhanced.

Research questions:

- What are the opportunities for location based games to enrich authentic game experiences?
- In what way can urban realities also function as social/geographical/economical/cultural learning environments?
- How do used media, stories, gameplay (rules of play) and teamplay (collaboration versus competition) affect motivation and knowledge transfer within “mixed-reality” environments?
- In what way can location-based and mobile technologies help students to express themselves?
- Which influence do location-based environments have on the societal involvement of students and their role as active, participating citizens?

Playful Experience: Connecting the virtual and the physical

Cultural (learning) experiences are more intense when virtual and physical (e.g. “real”) worlds are connected to each other through playful ways. It appears that subjects are much better to be remembered when offered through game formats. Within this section Creative Learning Lab researches and experiments with ways to successfully implement such formats in learning environments. Questions that arise, are, for example:

  • How do the physical and digital interact with each other?
  • In what way are simulations and serious gaming to be applied to stimulate authentic learning experiences?
  • How do virtual and physical game experiences influence each other?
  • How do the cognitive, affective, kinetic, strategic, and problem solving skills – which are all being addressed during the process of playing the game – cooperate within a learning environment?
  • How do narratives and theatrical experiences influence the learning process?
  • In what way can non-verbal communication (through intelligent technology, such as wearables) be used to personalize and intensify both human-computer communication and between players themselves?

 

Activities under the domain Playful Learning

Projects and trainings that belong to the domain Playful Learning are, for example: