Serious games have proved to be an important tool in supporting the education and training at schools and universities as well as for vocational training in industry. Most games designed for educational or vocational use are designed for a very narrow purpose, mostly for mediating a small range of skills to a specific target group. In order to highlight the important role of serious games in manufacturing and engineering education a workshop will be held in 4th International Conference on Games and Virtual Worlds for Serious Applications (VS-GAMES’12).
In this half day workshop on the use of serious games for engineering education, the first session will start with an introduction to the topic, presenting the pedagogical requirements of the education of engineers followed by a presentation of different games used for educational purposes at the Universities of Nottingham and Bremen, as well as at the Politecnico di Milano. A main barrier for higher penetration rates of serious games in engineering education is the difficulty to deliver evidence of more effective learning than traditional teaching methods. Thus, after the introduction to the games, Igor Mayer will present approaches for learning assessment based on his experience. The second part of the workshop will be a hands-on session in which the participants can try out the games. The workshop will close with a discussion session on advantages and limitations of using games in engineering education.
http://www.vs-games2012.org/