Games for Education, Learning and Orientation (GELO)

Sandra Elsom; Marguerite Westacott

This interactive session will introduce you to an innovative alternate reality game developed to help orientate and support the success of University of the Sunshine Coast (USC) enabling students,through fostering autonomy, relatedness and competence (Deci & Ryan 2000; Ryan & Deci 2000). This project is collaborative across the university and involves students from the USC Bachelor programs in Film and Media, Drama, Digital Media, Serious Games Design Information Communication Technology and Event Management students. In this session, we invite you to take part in the game and contribute to its further development. The Games for Education, Learning and Orientation (GELO) Project is supported by a 2017 Exploratory Grant from USC. Informed by Kahu's (2013) framework of student engagement, that recognises and encompasses three dimensions: affect (which includes sense of belonging); cognition (relating to learning) and behaviour (engagement based on what a student does), the game has been designed to support enabling program students to flourish in their new environment. It also draws on research from positive psychology (Seligman 2011; Csikszentmihalyi 2011), motivation (Deci & Ryan 2000; Ryan & Deci 2000), first year transition (Nelson & Kift 2005; Nelson et al. 2006) and serious game development (Whitton et al. 2014). It aims to help students develop self-efficacy, and foster a sense of belonging and well-being, whilst providing them with practical information about the facilities, resources and services available on the university campus. The benefits of using games to engage students in learning are well documented, anecdotally and in education and game design literature. Arguably, the most attractive feature of digital games is their ability to keep players engaged and motivated whilst building high levels of understanding of the game-world and their actions within it (Gee 2008, Klopfer et al. 2009, Beavis et al. 2014). Moreover, games can elicit social interactions between players in the virtual game environment, in online communities associated with the game and in real life (Gee 2008). Educators and researchers alike, see the appeal in harnessing these features to engender better learning and with that in mind, the GELO alternate reality game includes both digital and social elements of play. UK researcher and game developer Nicola Whitton (Whitton et al. 2014) recommends alternate reality games for learning because they are uncomplicated to produce, they are accessible, and they allow people to participate in various ways. The GELO Project team contend that if we want our students to learn where (for example) Student Central is, and that they can ask for help there, then the best way to do that is to put them in a low-stakes situation where they physically visit the location and actually ask for help

Games for Education, Learning and Orientation (GELO)

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