Panagiotis Apostolellis

... Ritterfeld U., Weber R., Fernandes S., Vorderer P. (2004), Think science!: entertainment education in interactive theaters, Computers in Entertainment (CIE), vol.2, no.1, pp. 1-58. Russel M, Thomas C., Seeger A., Weber H., Juliano J., Helser A. (2001). ...

Museums are rich and complex learning experiences, using a variety of interactive approaches to engage their audiences. However, the largely unstructured nature of free-choice learning calls for alternative approaches that can effectively engage groups of school age students with diverse cultural backgrounds. In this paper, we present our findings from a recent study in a museum in Greece, where triads of students had to learn about olive oil production using a game enabling different levels of interactivity and collaboration. We found that facilitation by an expert guide led to greater learning gains as compared to students playing alone, with one or three simultaneous game controllers. We also compared these results with a previous controlled experiment conducted in the US with middle school students, using the same game but without the ecologically valid facilitation. Drawing ideas from sociocultural and cognitive theories we interpret the contradictory findings, identifying the impact of culture on their (social) interactions, their subjective game experience, and eventually learning, in these spaces.

In informal learning spaces employing digital content, such as museums, visitors often do not get adequate exposure to content, or they passively receive instruction offered by a museum docent to the whole group. This research aims to identify which elements of co-located group collaboration, virtual environments, and serious games can be leveraged for an enhanced museum learning and entertaining experi-ence. We developed C-OLiVE, an interactive virtual envi-ronment supporting tripartite group collaboration, which we used to explore our hypothesis that synchronous, co-located, group collaboration will afford greater learning compared to conventional approaches. In an empirical study, we found some evidence supporting this hypothesis, taking into consideration other factors such as game experi-ence and social presence. Students participating in the three-player condition demonstrated a better understanding of the collaborative tasks compared to their single-player counterparts. We discuss these results and outline future studies using the same virtual environment.

In informal learning spaces employing digital content, such as museums, visitors either do not get adequate exposure to content or get information through passive instruction offered by a museum docent to the whole group. This research aims to identify which elements of co-located group collaboration, virtual environments, and serious games can be leveraged for an enhanced learning experience. Our hypothesis is that synchronous, co-located, group collaboration will afford greater learning compared to conventional approaches. We developed C-OLiVE, an interactive virtual learning environment supporting tripartite group collaboration, which we will use as a testbed to respond to our research questions. In this paper, we discuss our proposed research, which involves exploring some benefits of the involved technologies and proposing a list of design guidelines for anyone interested to exploit them in developing virtual environments for informal learning spaces.

In this paper, we evaluate a new generation 5DOF tracker, the Leap Motion Controller, and the mouse for performing integral and separable 3D manipulation tasks in a stage lighting application. Based on the hypothesis that the Leap would outperform the mouse for the integral tasks of position and rotation while the mouse will prove better for the separable tasks of position and light intensity, as shown in a similar study by Jacob et al. [3], we designed an experiment to test this claim. Our findings did not support our hypothesis with the mouse performing significantly better both in terms of completion time and angular and position errors.

Computational thinking (CT) is increasingly seen as a core literacy skill for the modern world on par with the longestablished skills of reading, writing, and arithmetic. To promote the learning of CT at a young age we capitalized on children's interest in play. We designed RabBit EscApe, a board game that challenges children, ages 610, to orient tangible, magnetized manipulatives to complete or create paths. We also ran an informal study to investigate the effectiveness of the game in fostering children's problemsolving capacity during collaborative game play. We used the results to inform our instructional interaction design that we think will better support the learning activities and help children hone the involved CT skills. Overall, we believe in the power of such games to challenge children to grow their understanding of CT in a focused and engaging activity.