ICCE 2018 Sub-Conference on Educational Gamification and Game-based Learning (EGG)

The idea and concept of learning with instructional and communicational technologies reach a new milestone in recent years with the rapid development of digital and non-digital games and toys. These immersive and interactive technologies are reshaping what we know about learning and teaching, bringing opportunities unimaginable two decades ago.

In 2003, James Paul Gee published his seminal book “What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy.” Today, game-based learning, joyful learning, and gamification have become popular terms for practitioners and well-known research areas around the world. Learning fostered by games and toys is one of the most exciting and fascinating research areas in the 21st century education.

Educational Gamification and Game-based Learning (EGG) has been a popular and highly competitive research theme for the ICCE conference. As a research community, EGG attracts well-known researchers around the world to join the annual conversation organized by the Asia-Pacific Society for Computers in Education. Each year, researchers explore cutting-edge technologies, novel pedagogical concepts, and groundbreaking design with a single purpose—to reform and transform education. Cloud computing, big data, flipped classroom, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), gamification, makerspace, embodied cognition are some of the ideas zealously discussed in recent years. Without question, we will continue this endeavor in innovating learning with games, the concept of games, and toys.

Enhancing learners’ motivation for learning has driven research on games and toys in the past decade. It remains crucial today. However, there is a greater challenge for education today. The world has grown into a “flat” new world while constant changes have become the new normal. Reengineering and redesigning education for the new normal, such as inquiry, knowledge production, innovation, collaboration and creativity—is not a lofty goal, but a must. Games and toys are not just for fun; they embody learning processes that foster collaborative problem-solving, deep thinking, team work, decision-making and inquiry. They are fun and they can play a pivotal role in transforming learning mechanisms—from a drill and practice model to one that encourages inquiry, knowledge production, global citizenship, collaboration, and creativity.

As a research community, we are driven by questions pertinent to how games can be designed to foster intrinsic motivation, to restructure thinking, to alter discourse patterns, to transform classroom-learning practices and to reform a teacher-centric learning culture. We are looking for the marriage of learning theories, technologies, humanistic design, and practices. We seek for research that reveals the results and processes of the above. In the era of the big data, we are looking for research that shed lights on how students’ activity and performance can be documented for the purpose of learning and teaching. We are eager to unpack the learning processes involving the use of toys, games, and game-like activities with or without digital technologies. Any other topics about games, toys and education are also welcome.

This sub-conference invites people from all fields who are interested in learning with games and toys to submit your manuscripts. Business communities are welcome, too, as the dialogue among researchers, educators, and industry partners is a must for fostering the use of games and toys in education.

Topics of interest to the EGG conference will include but not be limited to the following:

• Advanced learning technologies (e.g., artificial intelligence, personalization, adaptive system, cross-platform gaming mechanism, augmented reality, etc.)
• Applying learning analytics in game-based learning
• Big data applied to learning with games or gamification
• Case studies and exemplars
• Collaboration and community-based learning
• Comparison of learning with games vs traditional schooling
• Design of learning activities pertinent to the concept of games
• Effectiveness and processes of learning with games and toys
• Empirical and formal evaluations
• Enactment of game-based learning in informal and formal settings
• Engagement, emotion, and affect
• Entertainment robots and digital toys for education
• Game and toy use in classrooms
• Game attitude and perception
• Game narrative
• Games that foster high-order skills (problem-solving skills, creativity, etc.)
• Gamification
• Identity and role-play
• Interaction techniques for learning with games and toys
• Interface design
• Learning foundations and design theory around games and toys
• Location-based games and ubiquitous technologies
• Mobile, casual, and online games
• Multiplayer and social games
• Multi-sensory interfaces
• Natural user interface
• Naturalistic studies
• Pedagogy informed by games and learning
• Play and enactment
• Physical interactions and embodiment through games and toys
• Simulation and animation
• Social and cultural dimensions of learning
• STEM education
• Sustainable and scalable cases of learning with games
• Theories on learning with games in general
• Use of social media
• Virtual world (characters, avatar representations, etc.)
• Virtual storytelling
• Wii-like somatic forms of learning, including in sports and training contexts

We welcome contributions that report on accomplished research as well as work in progress.

Paper Categories

• Full paper (8-10 pages)
• Short paper (5-6 pages)
• Poster paper (2-3 pages)

Important Dates

• Paper Submission Due: May 7, 2018 May 21, 2018 May 28, 2018
• Notification of Acceptance: July 30, 2018
• Camera-ready paper due: August 13, 2018
• Author registration deadline: September 1, 2018 September 14, 2018

Program Co-chairs

Gwo-Jen HWANG, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taiwan (Executive Program Chair)
Morris S. Y. JONG, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Tassos Anastasios MIKROPOULOS, The University of Ioannina, Greece
Steven ZUIKER, Arizona State University, USA
Julin SHIH, National University of Tainan, Taiwan

Program Committee Members

T.S. ASHWIN, NITK Surathkal, India
Liz Alison BACON, University of Greenwich Old Royal Naval College, UK
Fernández-Manjón BALTASAR, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain
Tak-Wai CHAN, National Central University, Taiwan
Ben CHANG, National Central University, Taiwan
Chih-Kai CHANG, National University of Tainan, Taiwan
Chih-Tsan CHANG, Mingdao University, Taiwan
Chiung-Sui CHANG, Tamkang University, Taiwan
Maiga CHANG, Athabasca University, Canada
Ming-Puu CHEN, National Taiwan Normal University, Taiwan
Nian-Shing CHEN, National Sun Yat-Sen University, Taiwan
Zhi-Hong CHEN, National Taiwan Normal University, Taiwan
Hercy CHENG, Central China Normal University, China
Anurag DEEP, IIT Bombay, India
Muhammet DEMIRBILEK, Suleyman Demirel University, Turkey
Susan GWEE, The English Language Institute of Singapore, Singapore
Toshihiro HAYASHI, Kagawa University, Japan
Christopher HOLDEN, University of New Mexico, USA
Chung-Yuan HSU, National Pingtung University, Taiwan
Mingfong JAN, National Central University, Taiwan
Jiyou JIA, Peking University, China
Venkatesh KAMAT, Goa University, India
Siu Cheung KONG, The Education University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Paul KUO, National Palace Museum, Taiwan
Rita KUO, New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, USA
Chang-Yen LIAO, Central China Normal University, China
Hao-Chiang Koong LIN, National University of Tainan, Taiwan
Saurabh MEHTA, VIT, Mumbai, India
Hiroyuki MITSUHARA, The University of Tokushima, Japan
Wolfgang MUELLER, University of Education Weingarten, Germany
Arindam NATH, Next Education, India
Kuo-Liang OU, National HsinChu University of Education, Taiwan
Michal PTASZYNSKI, Kitami Institute of Technology, Japan
Ma. Mercedes RODRIGO, Ateneo de Manila University, Philippines
Demetrios G. SAMPSON, Curtin University, Australia
Chun-Yi SHEN, Tamkang University, Taiwan
Ru-Chu SHIH, National Pingtung University of Science & Technology, Taiwan
Masanori SUGIMOTO, Hokkaido University, Japan
Kaoru SUMI, Future University Hakodate, Japan
Chuen-Tsai SUN, National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan
Shu-Yuan TAO, Takming University of Science and Technology, Taiwan
Hiroyuki TARUMI, Kagawa University, Japan
Ming Hsin TSAI, Asia University, Taiwan
Hongxue Harris WANG, Athabasca University, Canada
Wing-Kwong WONG, National Yunlin University of Science and Technology, Taiwan
Jianhua WU, Central China Normal University, China
Po-Han WU, National Taipei University of Education, Taiwan
Hsi-Hsun YANG, National Yunlin University of Science and Technology, Taiwan
Sheng-Kai YIN, Mingdao University, Taiwan