GOING BEYOND TECHNOLOGICAL AFFORDANCES - ASSESSING ORGANIZATIONAL AND SOCIO-INTERACTIONAL AFFORDANCES

The Role of Instructional Activities for Collaboration in Simulation-Based Games

Tiina Lamsa (Ph.D.) has a Ph.D. of education and she is a qualified early childhood education and care (ECEC) teacher. She has been focusing on the questions of arts based research, visual and digital methodologies in childhood studies and cultural research, pedagogy and curriculum development, sustainable learning and educational leadership in the past several years. She is currently working as a university teacher at the Open University of the University of Jyvaskyla. Since the year 2006, she has been involved in several research projects that produced and developed electronic diary methods for use in research focusing on family life and children’s wellbeing. Her ongoing post-doctoral res…

Technological, Organisational and Socio-Interactional Affordances in Simulation-Based Collaborative Learning

Analysis of the applicability of a learning technology requires an evaluation of how the affordances of the learning environment respond to users’ needs. We examine affordances in a simulation-based collaborative learning environment from the learners’ viewpoint. Our analysis focuses on three types of affordances: technological, organisational and socio-interactional. The findings show how teams of learners employ the different types of affordances in their collaborative tasks. In addition, our analysis illustrates the interdependent and interlinked nature of the affordances. We offer an analytical understanding of the dynamics among different kinds of affordances and show how they can be a…

Valmiuksia tulevaisuuden työelämään simulaatiopelioppimisen kautta

Tänä päivänä työtä tehdään yhä useammin hajautetuissa di-gitaalisissa ympäristöissä, joissa yhteisöllisten digitaalistenja 21. vuosisadan taitojen merkitys korostuu. Myös liike-toimintaosaamista tarvitaan tänä päivänä laajalti eri aloilla.Dynaamisten ja monitahoisten ilmiöiden oppiminen tapah-tuu parhaiten aidon kaltaisissa oppimisympäristöissä, kutensimulaatiopeliympäristöissä. Tutkimusaineistomme koostuusimulaatiopeliympäristössä toteutetun korkeakoulukurssinopiskelijoiden reflektiivisistä esseistä. Tutkimuksen tulostenperusteella voidaan esittää, että tapauksemme kaltaisen si-mulaatiopeleillä voidaan tukea monipuolisesti työelämäval-miuksien kehittymistä Work is increasingly being conduc…

Virtual Enterprise Simulation Game as an Environment for Collaborative Creativity and Learning

AbstractWhen employees become accustomed to everyday working habits it can prevent them from generating creative ideas. This familiarity takes the forms of mainly collaborating with familiar colleagues, playing roles that develop over years, and solving encountered problems with proven strategies. This chapter considers how a virtual enterprise simulation game (RealGame) can potentially foster digital creativity and collaborative learning. The game simulates a situation where team members take responsibility for managing a virtual manufacturing company and its supply chain. Theoretically, we consider RealGame a facilitating environment for people to collaborate by offering a safe environmen…

Learning from Social Collaboration

This chapter focuses on the challenge of evaluating game-based learning. It argues that linking game-based learning with the characteristics of a specific game or game-produced engagement is challenging. It further proposes a framework in which the game-based learning process is approached by considering (business) simulation games as Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) environments and presents an approach on how learning can be approached and evaluated from this perspective. In addition, it highlights how simulation game mechanics appears to be a potential way to promote learners' socio-emotional processes and give rise to social interaction and to structure collaboration amo…

How to Raise Different Game Collaboration Activities : The Association Between Game Mechanics, Players' Roles and Collaboration Processes

Background. Designing collaborative three-dimensional (3D) learning games is one way to enhance the quality of learning and respond to the needs of working life. However, there is little research on how to apply different game mechanics to support different educational aims.Aim. This study determines how game mechanics implemented within computer-supported collaboration roles (scripted vs. emergent) are associated with the emergence of collaboration.Method. The research at hand applies both qualitative and quantitative content analysis. The target group consisted of 15 vocational school students. The data were gathered by recording the groups’ discussions and saving the game logs. A total o…

Organizing for collaboration in simulation-based environments: An affordance perspective

Organizing for collaboration in simulation-based environments : an affordance perspective

Extant research has identified the significance of technological affordances in computer-supported learning environments. However, until recently, there is scarcely empirical research on affordances for organizing collaboration in these learning environments. To address this gap, this study empirically examines affordances for organizing collaboration in a simulation-based learning environment. We focus, in particular on understanding how the organizing affordances of the learning environment are perceived and employed by the learners during a simulation-based learning task. The study was executed among 177 undergraduate higher education (HE) business students from 10 universities in Belgiu…

Applying constructivist approach to educational business games: Case REALGAME

Business organizations and their employees face ever-increasing complexity and accelerating changes. This brings along the need for training models that can transmit knowledge and skills needed in this kind of environment. Business process understanding is especially required. This article evaluates business games in the light of constructivism, a view of learning emphasizing the need to anchor training to everyday activities and concrete contexts, and introduces a new computer-based business game. The purpose of this construction is to give the business game participants a realistic view of business processes and thus enhance participant business process perception. The primary aim of the…