GATE | Game research for training and entertainment

GATE Innovative Pilot: Learning
Within GATE, a number of innovative pilot projects will be carried out. These pilot projects have as main goal raising awareness of the potential of the application of games and game technology in the domains of education, healthcare, and public safety. These topics were chosen, since we strongly believe that gaming can make a difference in these domains. In developing these prototypes we will establish collaboration between various disciplines: game-designers, creative artists, educational specialists, subject-matter experts in the specific domains etc.
Within the pilot learning, we address the use of games in an educational setting. The pilot focuses on the marriage of the latest insights in the field of game studies, games & learning and game design research with state of the art game design methods and development techniques.

New Learning
Learning is an ongoing process. People learn continuously, through formal education and courses, but a large part of learning is done informally through e.g. informal interaction with peers. Learning is all important for adaptation to changing needs, whether it be preparation for a new job, being popular with others, or simply for surviving in rough times and situations.
There seems to be a gap between the regular teaching methods in our schoolhouses and the informal learning from peers outside school. Outside school, our life becomes increasingly digitalized: we use our mobile phones for a lot more than simply calling someone, we chat with numerous people at the same time while doing our homework, and play highly demanding and highly involving games for hours at a time.

carkit player

People of this generation have become very efficient multi-taskers in the sense that they easily switch back and forth between various modes of input and communication, and carry out a multitude of tasks at the same time. In school, we ask our children to listen to one teacher, and mainly work the classical way. Therefore, it is very much understandable that the current generation of children experiences a gap between the school situation and outside, which results in a disinterest in school matters, low motivational scores, and worse, a lack of transfer from the learning in schoolhouses to the application thereof in the real world.

Focus: Car Kit - Serious Racing
The goal of the first project in this pilot is to design and develop a game that can support an educational method in the field of physics (‘bovenbouw havo/vwo') by improving players understanding of physical forces (gravity, friction, elasticity etc.) on the basis of experiences gathered in the CarKit game. Players work in teams to develop a virtual vehicle, with which they will race against other teams (several kinds of terrains, routes, trajectories etc.). By experimenting with and configuring their vehicles, players will get a better and faster understanding of physical forces (its relations, dynamics, etc.). The design will lead to a generic game environment that can be implemented for other subjects inside or outside the domain of physics. This pilot will answer questions in the domain of game design for game supported learning and will be imbedded in and connected to economic and social issues and trends in the field of game supported learning.

This pilot project will result in a number of overarching achievements:

Exploring and demonstrating new ways of learning, enabled by technology.
New ways of learning, powered by new methods amongst which learning through game-development.

Partners

This pilot involves the following partners: Utrecht School of the Arts, Waag Society.

Contact
For more information about the pilot learning, please contact Willempje Vrins, willempje.vrins(at)kmt.hku.nl,

+ 31.35.6836464, Utrecht School of the Arts.