Call for papers C5

ICCE 2021 Sub-Conference on Educational Gamification and Game-based Learning (EGG)

The sub-conference on educational gamification and game-based learning (EGG) focused on the topics related to joyful learning, in which learners are motivated and willing to learn more through fun design. Such fun design can be a full or partial system (e.g. game or gamification) in a virtual or physical form (e.g. software or toys). The sub-conference aims to explore various opportunities, in which immersive and interactive technologies are applied to all kinds of subject matters and learning environments.

In addition to increasing motivation, it’s also noticed that games and toys embody learning processes where 21st century skills may manifest, such as creative thinking, critical thinking, collaboration, and complex problem solving. When learners interact with games and toys, they explore worlds, encounter difficulties, and make decisions, which may result in different outcomes. Furthermore, even if the outcome does not go well, they could still learn from mistakes. In a sense, games and toys can be a good instructional tool to encourage inquiry, knowledge production, global citizenship, and creativity. In other words, games and toys are the combination of goals, methods and performance.

As a research community, we are driven by questions pertinent to how games can be designed to foster intrinsic motivation, to restructure thinking, to alter discourse patterns, to transform classroom-learning practices and to reform a teacher-centric learning culture. We are looking for the marriage of learning theories, technologies, humanistic design, and practices. We seek for research that reveals the results and processes of the above. In the era of the big data, we are looking for research that shed lights on how students’ activity and performance can be documented for the purpose of learning and teaching. We are eager to unpack the learning processes involving the use of toys, games, and game-like activities with or without digital technologies. Any other topics about games, toys and education are also welcome.

This sub-conference invites people from all fields who are interested in learning with games and toys to submit your manuscripts. Business communities are welcome, too, as the dialogue among researchers, educators, and industry partners is a must for fostering the use of games and toys in education.

The high-quality accepted papers will be invited to submit its extended or focused version to International Journal of Distance Education Technologies (https://igi-global.com/ijdet included in Web of Science’s ESCI, SCOPUS, EI and other indexes) and Bulletin of Technical Committee on Learning Technology (https://tc.computer.org/tclt/author-guidelines/, open access and included in ESCI).

Topics of interest to the EGG conference will include but not be limited to the following.

• Advanced learning technologies (e.g., artificial intelligence, personalization, adaptive system, cross-platform gaming mechanism, augmented reality, etc.)
• Applying learning analytics in game-based learning
• Big data applied to learning with games or gamification
• Case studies and exemplars
• Collaboration and community-based learning
• Comparison of learning with games vs traditional schooling
• Design of learning activities pertinent to the concept of games
• Effectiveness and processes of learning with games and toys
• Empirical and formal evaluations
• Enactment of game-based learning in informal and formal settings
• Engagement, emotion, and affect
• Entertainment robots and digital toys for education
• Game and toy use in classrooms
• Game attitude and perception
• Game narrative
• Games that foster high-order skills (problem-solving skills, creativity, etc.)
• Gamification
• Identity and role-play
• Interaction techniques for learning with games and toys
• Interface design
• Learning foundations and design theory around games and toys
• Location-based games and ubiquitous technologies
• Mobile, casual, and online games
• Multiplayer and social games
• Multi-sensory interfaces
• Natural user interface
• Naturalistic studies
• Pedagogy informed by games and learning
• Play and enactment
• Physical interactions and embodiment through games and toys
• Simulation and animation
• Social and cultural dimensions of learning
• STEM education
• Sustainable and scalable cases of learning with games
• Theories on learning with games in general
• Use of social media
• Virtual world (characters, avatar representations, etc.)
• Virtual storytelling
• Wii-like somatic forms of learning, including in sports and training contexts

We welcome contributions that report on accomplished research as well as work in progress.

Important Dates

PC executive chair
Hercy N. H.  CHENG, Central China Normal University, China

PC co-chair
Borja MANERO, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain
Mouna DENDEN, University of Tunis, Tunisia
Armando Maciel TODA, University of São Paulo