This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Games and Learning Alliance, GALA 2016, held in Utrecht, The Netherlands, in December 2016.The 27 revised regular papers presented together with 14 poster papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 55 submissions. The papers cover topics such as games and sustainability; games for math and programming; games and health; games and soft skills; games and management; games and learning; game de...

Design thinking as a user-centric innovation method has become more and more widespread during the past years. An increasing number of people and institutions have experienced its innovative power. While at the same time the demand has grown for a deep, evidence-based understanding of the way design thinking functions. This challenge is addressed by the Design Thinking Research Program between Stanford University, Palo Alto, USA and Hasso Plattner Institute, Potsdam, Germany. Summarizing t...

Three-dimensional (3D) immersive virtual worlds have been touted as being capable of facilitating highly interactive, engaging, multimodal learning experiences. Much of the evidence gathered to support these claims has been anecdotal but the potential that these environments hold to solve traditional problems in online and technology-mediated education—primarily learner isolation and student disengagement—has resulted in considerable investments in virtual world platforms like Second Life,...

This book summarizes the results of the second year in the Design Thinking Research Program, a joint venture of Stanford University in Palo Alto and Hasso Plattner Institute in Potsdam. The authors have taken a closer look at the issue of co-creation from different points-of-view. The concept of co-creation can also be applied to the phase in which new ideas and related thought start to influence companies, the economy, our culture, and society. The perpetual pursuit for invention...

This textbook provides an introduction to the fundamentals of serious games, which differ considerably from computer games that are meant for pure entertainment.Undergraduate and graduate students from various disciplines who want to learn about serious games are one target group of this book. Prospective developers of serious games are another, as they can use the book for self-study in order to learn about the distinctive features of serious game design and development. And ultim...

This book covers the latest advances in playful user interfaces – interfaces that invite social and physical interaction. These new developments include the use of audio, visual, tactile and physiological sensors to monitor, provide feedback and anticipate the behavior of human users. The decreasing cost of sensor and actuator technology makes it possible to integrate physical behavior information in human-computer interactions. This leads to many new entertainment and game applications th...

This book is dedicated to applied gamification in the areas of education and business, while also covering pitfalls to avoid and guidelines needed to successfully implement for a project. Using different theoretical backgrounds from various areas including behavioral economics, game theory, and complex adaptive systems, the contributors aim to help readers avoid common problems and difficulties that they could face with poor implementation. The book’s contributors are scholars and academic...

This book summarizes the results of Design Thinking Research carried out at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, USA and Hasso Plattner Institute in Potsdam, Germany. The authors offer readers a closer look at Design Thinking with its processes of innovations and methods. The contents of the articles range from how to design ideas, methods and technologies via creativity experiments and wicked problem solutions, to creative collaboration in the real world and the connectivity of d...

This book focuses on the design and architecture of ubiquitous learning environments, associated technologies, various learning scenarios supported by these environments, and different contexts that arise in environments where the seamless immersion of formal and informal activities and interactions has the potential to contribute to the learning process. With particular focus on adaptivity for individual learners, the book explores the diminishing boundaries of formal and informal learnin...

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Computer Assisted Assessment, CAA 2015, held in Zeist, The Netherlands, in June 2015.The 15 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions. The papers present current developments in technology-enhanced assessment. Topics covered include: automatic item generation, computer adapted testing, the use of multimedia in assessment, e-assessment policies.

This book introduces state-of-the-art research on simulation and serious games for education. The major part of this book is based on selected work presented at the 2014 Asia-Europe Symposium on Simulation and Serious Games held in Windesheim University of Applied Sciences, the Netherlands (Oct 1–2, 2014).It covers three major domains of education applications that use simulation and serious games: Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Education; Special Needs Edu...

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Games and Learning Alliance, GALA 2015, held in Rome, Italy, in December 2015.The 33 revised full papers and 15 short papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 102 submissions. The papers presented cover a variety of aspects and knowledge fields. They are grouped around the following topics: games for health, games for mobility, pervasive gaming and urban mobility.