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opencert / workshop-2023

Working repository of the 9th International Workshop on Open Community approaches to Education, Research and Technology (OpenCERT 2023) *** towards "Open community approaches" CERTification processes *** 6 November 2023, Eindhoven, The Netherlands, Co-located with SEFM 202e3
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Submission 1942 #5

Open AntonioCerone opened 3 months ago

AntonioCerone commented 3 months ago

Facets of Openness in a serious game: opening format, content, software and hardware

Abstract This paper advocates the claim that Open Licences and Open Source Software are not enough to overcome the barriers to adoption to technologically innovative Open Educational Resources for educational institutions like schools. The paper analyses the case of the 4Ts game, a game to support the training of learning de-sign skills of teachers, to exemplify how four additional facets of Openness could be dealt with. These are the Format, Content, Software and Hardware facets. In fact, OERs for schools need to be flexible in terms of Format and easy to amend in terms Content. Software should incorporate built-in features for personaliza-tion and localization that do not require coding skills. Hardware should be cheap and/or commonly found in schools.

OpenCERT_2023_paper_1942.pdf

MayaDim commented 2 months ago

The paper presents an approach for analysis of serious games, performed during education of teachers, from four aspects of open educational resources - techniques, tasks, teams and technologies. Three types of games are presented - paper-based, digital and hybrid, representing a single approach, implemented in different technologies so, that these are being adopted by schools with diverse economic means. The provided recommendations are useful for different countries, schools and teachers.

The paper is interesting, valuable and appropriate for publication in the current volume. It is well written with only some misspellings - e.g. 2 prepositions in the abstract to be fixed.

A technical mistake is possibly being made when describing the cards for the paper-based game on p. 3 - blue, red, yellow and red (should be green, I guess).

AntonioCerone commented 1 month ago

This is an interesting paper on the use of a serious game for designing teaching activities in primary and secondary schools. The game is based on the 4T framework (Task, Team, Time and Technology) and the paper proposes a reflection on the openness of the product, which involves Format, Content, Software and Hardware, well beyond the concept of open source. Thus the paper greatly addresses the scope of the workshop. The paper is well-written and well-structured, progressing from an introduction on Open Educational Resources and an illustration of the game and a comparison of its three versions (paper, digital and hybrid) to the Section 3 core part, which provides the reflection on openness that is the focus of the paper. Although, some examples are provided in Section 3.2 to illustrate the content aspects (individual versus group work and cultural adaptability), it would have been useful to have a running example giving a more concrete view of the game. This is especially important for the multidisciplinary OpenCERT community. In fact, the example could be introduced in Section 2 and provide a specific board configuration which could show concrete instances of legal and illegal moves, as well as the feedback provided to illegal moves in the digital and hybrid versions. The example could also be used in Section 3.2 to illustrate the aspects of individual versus group work and cultural adaptability in a more concrete way. Thus more images, as Fig. 4, could be used, but making sure that they are fully readable, even in the printed version of the paper. In fact, Fig. 4 should be enlarged or the image should be converted into a textual version in order to increase readability.

Here are some typos (on which I invite native English PC member to confirm or object):

ak-petrenko commented 1 month ago

I am not an expert in the field of computer tools to support educational processes and have a skeptical attitude towards the use of games as the main form of education both in secondary schools and universities. For this reason, I apologize in advance for possibly too conservative and inappropriate comments. This work needs to be evaluated from two perspectives. First, how effective is the approach itself based on the concept of 4T games and how to measure the effectiveness of the approach. Secondly, how effective (flexible, portable, extensible, etc.) are the available hardware and software support tools, how to measure this efficiency and what needs to be done to increase this efficiency. Unfortunately, the authors did not provide a detailed analysis both in the context of the first and in the context of the second perspective. Some points of view that may have influenced the idea of some authors about the benefits FOR humans, references to the fact that the "4Ts game" is being used, used and developed. After that, they moved on to arguments about what should be taken into account when widely implementing this technology - these arguments are important and significant for specialists who are engaged in this, but, unfortunately, the authors did not provide a methodological basis on which to assess the current level of software implementation and prospective versions of this system.

Since the paper, of course, will have interested readers, it will have to be published. But if the authors take advantage of my considerations and expand the paper somewhat, it may become better.

One more small remark. In the Introduction, the phrase "In particular, the meta-analysis of Tlili and his colleagues [5] showed that their use has a positive, significant (but insignificant) effect ..." has an ambiguous meaning. It makes sense to rephrase this sentence.

pbreuer commented 1 month ago

Antonio, re: "invite native English PC member to comment", yes, the text is full of stoppers like that. I can't read it :-(. What on earth is a "serious game", for example? Surely just "game"! Facets? Surely "aspects"? Or "perspectives on"? Your comments on particular errors/typos are correct. It's just that in the penultimate one, "reflection around the content of the cards" doesn't improve it because "reflection around" doesn't exist, it should be "reflection on". I'd just say "rewrite everything, writing less". No adverbs, no adjectives. The sentence in question is "The collaboration, in turn, triggered reflection around the cards content, that is, the way Tasks, Teams, Technology can be combined among each other and laid on the board, to form a coherent collaborative technique." and it is pretty much unreadable to me. It seems that is saying "we got together and talked about the game". Yes, we know. And? If they do actually mean some physical miracle involving mirrors and light beams, that would be interesting ...

marte-git commented 1 month ago

The paper illustrates an experience with a game intended to help teachers develop their skills in the design of learning activities, under a protocol that enhance collaboration and clarity of the design. The game is initially a fully analogical activity (with cards and persons around the table). It was then implemented as a software application, to be played in full digital or hybrid way. The implementation was then exposed as an OER. The aim is to analyse the use experience of the open source implementation, and uncover the elements of attention, in view of a generalized use of the game in any interested school. The lessons learned bring to some conclusions about needs to be cvered in relation to four "facets".

The gae is based on 4T model, where the T's are initially listed as TASK, TEAMs, TIME, and TECHNOLOGY. Later, I think in two instances, Technique, Task, Team, Technology are used (is it a typo?)

Along th paper some clarifications would help. See Misc. below. For instance, a description of what is the wrong position for a card would help. Also, some examples of feedback given by the system would help appreciating the gameplay. Also, the "degrees of freedom" mentioned in regard to the difficulty levels could be hinted for the reader.

The description in sections 3.* are useful for the reader. As an observation, about Software, I saw that the only need for software customization seems to be with the jolly cards. I assume that the cards content is rather a "data" part of the system, used by the software yet not hard coded in software modules. So in principle, such activity of customization is not requiring tinkering with software. Is it so? Maybe not (for instance the system should be further programmed to provide for feedback related to the jolly cards). Some clarification (if not a description of use case) would help here.

If the experimental activity unveiled caveats and difficulties the schools might incur, when trying to use this OER, the conclusions could be a nice place to explicitly point them out. Did you uncover any limits, or "impossible achievements", or were let to imagine them by the experiment?

Misc.

pbreuer commented 1 month ago

PS. I almost might believe this has come via automated translation. Maybe that is why some others are not particularly bothered by it!

Donatella-Persico commented 1 month ago

Dear reviewers, thank you so much for your detailed feedback. Unfortunately, I only saw it yesterday, because I did not receive any notice from GitHub (perhaps they got trapped in the spamfilter). So, apologies for the delay of my reply. We will try to follow your suggestions while revising the paper, even if I am not sure we'll be able to follow them all. I will also try to get it revised by a native speaker. I'll post the new version here as soon as I am done. All the best and thank you for this opportunity to improve the paper Donatella and Francesca

Donatella-Persico commented 1 month ago

Dear reviewers, dear editors, I think I have made all the requested changes, except for the thorough linguistic revision. I have corrected all the mistakes and typos you pointed out, but for a final check I have asked a professional reviewer, who is going to do it next week. As far as the the evaluation of the game effectiveness and acceptance by users, I added info about the methodology adopted and references to papers providing the results. I attach the current version here (and will do the same next week with the one professionally revised). Thanks again for your valuble feedback. Donatella Persico Pozzi revised.pdf

Donatella-Persico commented 1 month ago

Dear reviewers, as promiised, I am uploading the final version of the paper that includes both changes made in accordance with your feedback and those suggested by a professional linguistic reviewer. I think the paper has greatly improved. Thanks a lot! Donatella Persico Persico Pozzi revised after peer review.pdf