A Social Gamification Framework for a K-6 Learning Platform: Citations

My paper (see this post) A Social Gamification Framework for a K-6 Learning Platform published at Computers in Human Behavior, in March 2013, (co-authored with Rebeca Díaz Redondo e Ana Fernández Vilas), has been cited in other publications. The paper presents the "main features of a social gamification framework to be applied in an existent K-6 social learning environment". This social learning environment is schoooools.com (see also this post on schoooools' blog - in portuguese).

Last year, it was referenced in Gamifying Learning Experiences: Pratical Implications and Outcomes, published at Computers & Education (vol. 63, April 2013): “Recently Simões, Díaz & Fernández (2013) presented a social gamification framework for http://schoooools.com, a social learning environment, which “aims to assist educators and schools with a set of powerful and engaging educational tools to improve students’ motivation and learning outcomes”. 

Another reference in 2013 was in Reimagining Leaderboards: Towards Gamifying Competency Models through Social Game Mechanics, publicado nos proceedings da Gamification 2013 – First International Conference on Gameful Design, Research, and Applications: “Simões, Redondo and Vilas developed a social gamification framework for educational systems that was implemented for a series of elementary schools in Portugal [15]. Game elements were drawn directly from social games; for example, peer appraisal, including the use of a “like” button, giving and sharing rewards, and teamwork-based goals.”

Today, in Zac Fitz-Walter's Gamification Weekly (Issue 33 - 31st January, 2014), I found two other references. One was in Gamification - supported Exploration and Practicing for Automotive User Interfaces and Vehicle Functions: "When analyzing current examples of gamified learning environ-ments(Muntean 2011; Simões et al. 2013), the use of game elements does not directly optimize the learning efficacy, but has mainly an impact on the learners’ motivation (Domínguez et al. 2013)". The other was in Memoirs of a Teacher-Gamer: Educational Games (in Reading Matters, Volume 14, Spring 2014, pp 8 - 13): "Unlike the game based learning I have focused on so far, gamification is a recent term introduced to the educational gaming community. Recent studies suggest educators begin looking at the experience of school as a game by integrating general features of popular games to enhance motivation (Apostol, Zaharescu, & Alexe, 2013; Simões, Redondo, & Vilas, 2013)".

Well, someone is reading the paper which is gratifying ...

EDEN Annual Conference 2014

The EDEN Annual Conference 2014 will be held in Zagreb in June, 10-13, 2014, with several Conference Themes.

The year 2014 is important as the start of the new European programme period until 2020. This coincides with intensive developments in ICT-supported learning, educational innovations and, in particular, open educational resources. With present economic trends, the key question being growth and employability, it is highly important how employers accept job candidates with the certifications and competences from the new world of learning, characterised by many innovative approaches and open educational settings.

Important Dates:

• Paper Submission: 31 January 2014
• Conference Dates: 10-13 June 2014

Nordic DiGRA 2014: Call for Papers

Nordic DiGRA will be held in Sweden, in May 29 and 30:

Games are becoming more and more pervasive in our everyday life. Gamification and game-based learning are research topics that are blooming. Games are also used in electioneering. We invite submission for full papers and for workshops. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

• gamification
• games in society
• games and learning
• games as propaganda
• persuasive games
• games in teaching
• critical stances to gamification and game-based learning

Important dates:

• Full paper submission and workshop proposals: March 30, 2014

Founded in 2003, DiGRA is the premiere international association for academics and professionals who research digital games and associated phenomena. It encourages high-quality research on games, and promotes collaboration and dissemination of work by its members.

Open Education Europa: Best of 2013

Open Education Europa: top content of 2013 based on the number of pageviews. 

In the  category "Top articles from the eLearningPapers", my paper A gamification framework to improve participation in social learning environments, co-authored with Rebeca Díaz Redondo, Ana Fernandez Vlas (University of Vigo) and Ademar Aguiar (University of Porto) is #3. In second, another paper from University of Porto.

This paper presents a gamification framework applied to the integration of game elements in Social Learning Environments. The framework is being applied to a K6 Social Learning Environment leading to a gamified system. With this gamified system it is expected to achieve a rise in the motivation to use the platform with students becoming more loyal users. It is also expected that they will be more deeply involved and engaged in educational activities supported by the environment. The proposed gamification framework includes architecture for a gamified system and a guide to help the development of gamified activities.

The K6 Social Learning Environment is Schoooools.com.

Gamification for Information Retrieval (GamifIR’14) Workshop

(received by email from gamification-research@googlegroups.com)

Gamification for Information Retrieval (GamifIR’14) Workshop, held in conjunction with ECIR 2014
, Amsterdam, Netherlands
13 April 2014

Gamification is the application of game mechanics, such as leader boards, badges or achievement points, in non-gaming environments with the aim to increase user engagement, data quality or cost effectiveness.  A core aspect of gamification solutions is to infuse intrinsic motivations to participate by leveraging people’s natural desires for achievement and competition. While gamification, on the one hand, is emerging as the next big thing in industry, e.g., an effective way to generate business, on the other hand, it is also becoming a major research area. However, its adoption in Information Retrieval (IR) is still in its infancy,  despite the wide ranging IR tasks that may benefit from gamification techniques. These include the manual annotation of documents for IR evaluation, the participation in user studies to study interactive IR challenges, or the shift from single-user search to social search, just to mention a few.

This workshop focuses on the challenges and opportunities that gamification can present for the IR community. The workshop aims to bring together researchers and practitioners from a wide range of areas including game design, information retrieval, human-computer interaction, computer games, and natural language processing.

Call for papers: deadline 5 February 2014

Keynote by Prof. Richard Bartle, known for his 1996 Player Types model (see this post)

Topics include but are not limited to:

• Gamification approaches in a variety of information-seeking contexts
• User engagement and motivational factors of gamification
• Player types, contests, cooperative games
• Challenges and opportunities of applying gamification in IR
• Gamification design and game mechanics
• Game based work and crowdsourcing
• Applications and prototypes
• Evaluation of gamification techniques