Abstract:

The meaning of knowing has shifted from basic skills and content knowledge to higher order skills, like problem solving and using information at the right time and in the right context. Educational games, with compelling complex problem spaces, are considered to be a suitable method to support the learning of these higher order skills. During the last decades the video and online games have been the main areas of interest in serious or educational game development. However, the use of learning games is not limited only to the virtual environments but they can be used also in more traditional contexts like in classrooms.

In this paper the students’ attitudes and reactions to multimodal educational game setting is reported. The starting point of the study is an online business game in which students were managers of the companies which competed against each other in a virtual market. A new classroom based gaming element was added to this setting. The new element was called a merger and acquisition session and during the session students had a possibility to make offers to buy their competitors. Session was implemented as a face-to-face auction taking placed on a fixed time in a normal classroom.

The data on students’ perception of the merger and acquisition session was collected with a questionnaire. The questionnaire was based on Elemental Tetrad model (Schnell, 2008) to define and understand what constitutes a game. The four elements of the model are mechanics, story, aesthetics, and technology.

The results of the study suggests that multimodal game environment which combines online and offline gaming environments motivate students and t leads to better leaning results. The selection of the right methods depends on a large number of factors related to learners, topic, and type of knowledge.

Keywords:

Game based learning, classroom games, online games.