Writings from the breakthrough…

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I mentioned in the last post that there will be publishable papers based on the new breakthrough…. The first one is now out of the door…

Below is the abstract. In this experiment, we (my coauthor/students and I) once again made full use of Information Trails to capture data in the game. Once you have a system to do this, capturing data and analyzing them simply become a workflow of research.

As traditional face-to-face assessment techniques do not transfer well into the virtual environments, researchers are required to devise new tools and methodologies to better assess game-based learning (GBL). Tracing learners’ in-game actions using in situ data collection is an innovative and unobtrusive way to measure learners’ performance for GBL assessment. In this study, we introduce the use of string similarity to compare GBL players’ actions with that of the expert, in order to predict and differentiate experts from novices based on the similarity of their in-game actions. Our findings indicate this approach to be viable not only as an empirical assessment method, but also for the differentiation of experts from novices and performance ranking of players in GBL assessment.

 

Breakthrough!

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“One doesn’t discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.” – Andre Gide

How about I tell you I actually lost sight of land for four long years?

In 2007, I published my concept for Information Trails,knowing that this is a viable method. Can’t tell you how, its one of my ‘gut feeling’ things which has proven to be accurate many times over. My doctoral students and I started building various model to ‘prove’ this actually work.

By about 2009, we have made several games (1 text: Zoink, 2 interactive: NWN mods). Seeing how people play them, we knew we were right with the Information Trails concept.

Then I received the DURIP grant, which provided the funding to purchase a number of interesting equipment and gadgets for a lab. We move from NWN to NWN2, finally biting the bullet and crossing the border into no man’s land. The modeling tool was hard for some of us, though not my Electrical Engineering doctoral student. With the help of my EE doc student, we build the first iteration of a data visualization tool, the Performance Tracing Report Assistant (PeTRA). That’s when I started thinking about a performance ‘index’ for expert and novices.

This performance index should be like a signature, or a fingerprint to identify an expert’s behavior. Meaning, if I take 100 volunteers to run around in a game-based learning environment, I should be able to easily identify who are the ‘experts’ from the crowd because the index would inform me so (they’d have the highest PI, or PI=100). Moreover, the other 99 persons would all have a performance index and by comparing their PI, I would know who are the next best choice to an expert, and who are the novices (low PI, or if 50 is the pass/fail level, the PI<50).

For 4 long years, I have spoken to countless colleagues (from other fields), read various papers (from other disciplines) and find no answer. I had almost resigned to the fact that no such solution exist…. and today, I finally have my breakthrough! Eureka!!

(P.S. I will tell you more through my future publications. I promise: there will be many publications!)

 

New Journal Paper

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I have just learned that one of my journal article submission has been accepted by the International Journal of Virtual and Personal Learning Environment (or IJVPLE for short). The editor has indicated that it will likely be printed in the next (3rd) quarter (I am guessing: Vol 3/2012) be printed for IJVPLE 4(1) for 2013.

The content is based, in part, on materials from my presentation at ICEM-SIIE 2011 in Aveiro, Portugal. The article is entitled: Improving the impact and return of investment of game-based learning.

New Book Chapter on Assessment in GBL

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Dirk Ifenthaler’s co-edited book (with Deniz Eseryel and Ge Xun) is finally here. Congratulation! This edited book is entitled Assessment in game-based learning: Foundations, innovations, and perspectives, and is published by the fairly prestigious Springer. It is available on Amazon also.

In case you are interested in knowing what I am doing recently, you will find a chapter by yours truly in there (Chapter 8). The full citation is as follows:

Loh, C. S. (2012). Information Trails: In-process assessment for game-based learning. In D. Ifenthaler, D. Eseryel, & X. Ge (Eds). Assessment in game-based learning: Foundations, innovations, and perspectives. (pp.) New York, NY: Springer.

6 New Emerging Technologies

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2012 New Horizon ReportThe 2012 Horizon Report will be released soon, at the Educause Learning Initiative conference sometime this month. Like last year, the report points to 6 emerging technologies to watch with the best potentials for teaching, learning and training.

  • Short term: Mobile Apps & Tablet devices
  • Mid-term: Game-Based Learning & Learning Analytics
  • Long term: Gesture-Based Computing and “Internet of Things.”

Contrast this with last year’s report and you will see how technology have ‘move around’ or which technology underwent a lot of changes.

  • Short term: e-Book & Mobile Devices
  • Mid-term: Augmented Reality & Game-Based Learning
  • Long term: Learning Analytics & Gesture-Based Computing

Get more information here and here.