Javier Torrente

University College London | UCL · Department of Computer Science

Background: First experiences in the operating theatre with real patients are always stressful and intimidating for students. We hypothesized that a game-like simulation could improve perceptions and performance of novices. Methods: A videogame was developed, combining pictures and short videos, by which students are interactively instructed on...

—This study examines the influence of players’ age, gender, and gaming preferences and habits (from now on, “gaming preferences”) on the effectiveness of a specific videogame that has been designed to increase the interest towards classical theater among teenagers. Using a validated instrument, participants were divided into four groups based on th...

Every day, more people are interested in learning computer science (CS), either to improve their skill set to apply for new jobs or just for personal growth. The sector of the population looking for instruction on these subjects has increased and diversified. We need new tools that appeal to this wider audience, and game-based learning is one of th...

The value of educational video games in education is undeniable and the benefits of using video games in classroom instruction have been proved by many researchers. Nevertheless, these benefits have not been proved sufficiently for some domains, such as artistic disciplines. In this paper we explore the effects of an educational video game on high...

We propose the organization of a Mokap hackathon. In this activity participants will have the opportunity to develop interactive content using the Mokap Android app, either individually or in groups. Mokap is a new authoring tool for creating interactive content, developed by the e-UCM research group. It allows composing scenes by combining text, h...

In this paper we introduce Mokap, a novel authoring and development toolset for serious games. Mokap aims to address two specific challenges: provide support for early development stage design and facilitate involvement of domain experts. More specifically, on the one hand, it aims to make serious game authoring possible for people with no technica...

The increasing body of evidence supporting the use of videogames in educational settings (usually referred to as serious games) is pushing their deployment across different areas of the educational system. However, this increased adoption also raises serious ethical issues: videogames are one of the least accessible forms of multimedia, and if educ...

There is an increasing interest in providing Computer Science (CS) instruction to a wider sector of the population. On the one hand, it would be convenient to include CS instruction in higher education beyond engineering disciplines, since CS has become a powerful catalyzer for development of society, and therefore the need for a workforce with sol...

It is our great pleasure to serve as guest editors for this special issue of the IEEE RITA journal, which holds a fine selection of the most relevant papers presented at symposium on information and communication technologies in education 2013, the fifteenth international symposium in educational technology held in Madrid in September 2013. The two...

This paper reviews “The foolish lady” experiment: a serious game aimed to increment youngsters’ interest towards the classical theater play. The article overviews all the phases of the project, from game design to the evaluation in schools, the results obtained and how these have helped us shape our current research in new and innovative ways, such...

Assessment of learning contents, learning progress and learning gain is essential in all learning experiences. New technologies promote the use of new types of contents like educational videogames. They are highly interactive compared to more traditional activities and they can be a powerful source of data for all forms of assessment. In this paper...

The Web is rapidly shifting towards more dynamic and interactive content. One clear example is the increasing use of web-based digital games. However, the more interactive a piece of content is, the more difficult it is to make it universally accessible. Besides, users are increasingly demanding ubiquitous access to the content and applications the...

There is an increasing interest in providing Computer Science (CS) instruction to a wider sector of the population. On the one hand, it would be convenient to include CS instruction in higher education beyond engineering disciplines, since CS has become a powerful catalyzer for development of society, and therefore the need for a workforce with sol...

The Spanish National Transplant Organization (ONT) in collaboration with the e-UCM research group of the Complutense University of Madrid has developed three screen-based simulations representing the ONT supra-hospital deceased donation management processes. As the ONT is using these game-like simulations as a support tool for its instructional app...

The exceptional success achieved by the Spanish National Transplant Organization (ONT) in recent years has made other countries highly interested in following this organization’s methodologies. A good training program is one of the key elements of the ONT. Until 2012, the ONT training program was a paper-based case teaching method, and the small nu...

We present EGDA, an educational game development approach focused on the teaching of procedural knowledge using a cost-effective approach. EGDA proposes four tasks: analysis, design, implementation, and quality assurance that are subdivided in a total of 12 subtasks. One of the benefits of EGDA is that anyone can apply it to develop a game since it...

Twenty years ago, the Spanish National Transplant Organization (NTO) started a management and organizational system, known as the Spanish Model, that has allowed the NTO to occupy a privileged world position regarding deceased donation rates, which have been 33-35 donors per million population in recent years. One of the key elements of this model...

The integration of educational video games in Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) is a challenging task in need of standardization to improve interoperability and to safeguard investment. The generalized use of VLEs has fostered the emergence of rich contents, and different standards exist to improve their interoperability and reusability. This wo...

The rising acceptance of Virtual Learning Environments (VLE) in the e-Learning field poses new challenges such as producing student-centered courses which can be automatically tailored to each student's needs. For this purpose digital games can be used, taking advantage of their flexibility (good video games always try to adapt to different players...

Assessment is essential to establish the failure or success of any educational activity. To measure the acquisition of the knowledge covered by the activity and also to determine the effectiveness of the activity itself. The increasing adoption of new technologies is promoting the use of new types of activities in schools, like educational video ga...

Usability testing is a key step in the successful design of new technologies and tools, ensuring that heterogeneous populations will be able to interact easily with innovative applications. While usability testing methods of productivity tools (e.g., text editors, spreadsheets, or management tools) are varied, widely available, and valuable, analyz...

Digital games have a great potential to improve education of people with cognitive disabilities. However, this target audience has attracted little attention from industry and academia, compared to other segments of the population. As a consequence, there is little knowledge available about how to design games that are usable and enjoyable by peopl...

This paper presents a preliminary evaluation of the perceived entertainment value and ease of use of three eyes-free interfaces for point-and-click games. Interface 1 (I1) uses a web-like cyclical navigation system to change the focused interactive element. Interface 2 (I2) uses a sonar to help the user locate interactive elements with the mouse. I...

Computer games are a very popular media today, spanning across multiple aspects of life, not only leisure but also health or education. But despite their importance their current level of accessibility is still low. One of the causes is that accessibility has an additional cost and effort for developers that is in many cases unaffordable. As a way...

Serious games are increasingly being used in education to support the development of skills that future professionals and citizens require. However, the inclusion of games in the curricula can threaten the universal right to education for students with disabilities if they are not designed to be accessible. In this paper we discuss the need for too...

The evaluation process is key for educator's acceptance of any educational action. The evaluation is challenging in most cases but especially when educational games are used. In educational games if in-game evaluation exist it is usually based on a series of simple goals and whether these goals are achieved (i.e. assessment). But we consider that e...

Development, packaging and deployment of educational games following e-Learning standards has benefits, such as improved reusability and interoperability of contents. Moreover, standards can facilitate that games exchange data with other software agents (e.g. Learning Management Systems - LMS) in a standardized manner, which opens up a wide range o...

In this paper we present WEEV (Writing Environment for Educational Video games), a methodology for educational point-and-click adventure game authoring. Our approach aims to allow educators to actively collaborate in the educational game development process, using a narrative-based representation. WEEV is based on a pragmatic reinterpretation of pr...

Any new technology introduced in the classroom has a potential risk of increasing the divide for students with disabilities. This impact becomes greater as the new complexity of new technologies increases. In this sense, one of the most complex technologies currently being considered are educational video games. And while the potential benefits of...

The integration of educational video games in educational settings in general, and e-learning systems in particular, can be challenging for educators. We propose a framework that aims to facilitate educators' participation in the creation and modification of courses that use educational games. Our approach addresses problems identified by previous...

The use of Multi-User Virtual Environments (MUVEs) is a trend topic in virtual education and e-learning. A number of research papers and literature reviews addresses how digital natives learn in a different way than the previous generation and how these kinds of highly interactive environments may positively affect their motivation. But actual effi...

The rising acceptance of Virtual Learning Environments (VLE) in the e-Learning field poses new challenges such as producing student-centered courses that can be automatically tailored to each student's needs. For this purpose digital games can be used, taking advantage of their flexibility (good video games always try to adapt to different players)...

This paper presents an extensible multi-platform educational game framework. This new framework enhances the point-and-click adventure game model used in a preexisting educational game framework (eAdventure) by extending it with new game metaphors and interactions. These include mini-games (e.g. puzzles, stories, word-games) suited for a greater va...

This paper presents a DSVL that simplifies educational video game development for educators, who do not have programming backgrounds. Other solutions that reduce the cost and complexity of educational video game development have been proposed, but simple to use approaches tailored to the specific needs of educators are still needed. We use a multid...

Game·Tel is an open source software system that supports personalized learning, focusing on serious games and simulations, making these and traditional content accessible and adaptive to the student and educational context. In this paper we discuss about its design and functionalities, its modular architecture and the multi-environment approach.

The use of digital games in educational settings starts to be accepted and nowadays the discussion is shifting to other issues. An active topic is how to achieve an effective integration of games in education in general and in Virtual Learning Environments (VLE) in particular, taking full advantage of characteristics such as adaptation or in-game a...

The introduction of new technologies in education raises accessibility issues, which can endanger the universal right to education for students with disabilities. Moreover, in education there is a shift to provide more dynamic and interactive content to the students and video games have been proposed to promote the development of new skills. In thi...

Problem-Based Learning (PBL) is an educational paradigm that promotes the development of highly valuable soft skills. PBL can be combined with other approaches, such as collaborative learning, to enhance students' team skills. Nucleo is a blended learning approach where students work in self-regulated teams. Nucleo combines Problem-Based Learning,...

Computer game accessibility for people with limited vision is a challenging problem because many games, such as point-and-click games, heavily rely on mouse interaction for game world exploration. But mouse interaction requires the sense of sight for orientation and navigating through the user interface. Solutions have been proposed to this problem...

This paper presents e-Training DS, an instructor-oriented toolkit for the integration of portable game consoles in modern e-learning environments (e.g. Moodle TM ). The tool is based on a general model in which the instructor maintains a library of mini-games that are easily produced by customizing generic game patterns (e.g. a simple jigsaw puzzl...

This paper describes a general model for the integration of portable game devices (e.g. Nintendo DS™) in preexisting e-Learning systems, also known as Learning Management Systems (e.g. Moodle™). This integration simplifies the deployment of educational games in the classroom and provides instructors with information about what students are actually...

The increasing adoption of e-Learning technology is facing new challenges, such as how to produce student-centered systems that can be adapted to each student's needs. In this context, educational video games are proposed as an ideal medium to facilitate adaptation and tracking of students' performance for assessment purposes, but integrating the g...

In e-Learning the interest on the use of new kinds of highly-interactive content is increasing. In this regard video games are one of the media that is gaining momentum because of their high potential for enhancing both students' motivation and learning outcomes. Nevertheless, the actual adoption of games in the educational system is scarce. In thi...

Educational game authoring tools allow for the creation of educational games for personal computers and web-browsers reducing costs and development cycles. However, gaming has changed in the last few years, with a significant increase of games developed for mobile devices. We propose an extension of existing educational game authoring tools that al...

Within the last years educational games have attracted some attention from the academic community. Multiple enhancements of the learning experience are usually attributed to educational games, although the most cited is their potential to improve students' motivation. In spite of these expected advantages, how to introduce video games in the learni...

Background: Practical sessions in undergraduate medical education are often costly and have to face constraints in terms of available laboratory time and practice materials (e.g. blood samples from animals). This makes it difficult to increase the time each student spends at the laboratory. We consider that it would be possible to improve the effe...

The increasing acceptance of video games as learning tools has promoted new studies on how to include them in the teaching-learning process. An interesting trend is the use of modern web-based Learning Management Systems (LMS) as a delivery platform for games and the integration of the information that can be extracted from the game-play sessions i...

Educational computer and video game are a digital medium that have been proved to be useful in improving both students’ motivation and learning outcomes enhancing the overall learning experience. On the one hand, games can introduce new appealing interfaces and highly interactive experiences. On the other hand, e-learning environments can help to a...

Educational video games and serious games are becoming more and more relevant as a complement to traditional instructional approaches. However, several barriers are in the way of the general adoption of this technology, such as the high cost or the integration of the games in the learning flow. At the group at the Complutense University of Madrid w...

The use of multi-user virtual environments (MUVEs) in education is increasing mainly due to motivational aspects. However, more practical research about the impact of MUVEs on students' motivation in real educational contexts is required. Here we present Mare Monstrum, a system which integrates a MUVE with a learning management system and uses a fa...

Mobile learning and educational gaming are two trends that are rapidly having an increasing impact in Technology-Enhanced Learning. However, both approaches present significant technological challenges. Mobile technologies are very diverse and the market pressure pushes the continuous development of new technologies and features. On the other hand,...

Game-based learning is becoming popular in the academic discussion of Learning Technologies. However, even though the educational potential of games has been thoroughly discussed in the literature, the integration of the games into educational processes and how to efficiently deliver the games to the students are still open questions. This paper ad...

The notion of using games in education is as old as games themselves. In addition, the massive market opened by the digital games industry has caused great interest regarding their specific potential in education. However, this interest is sometimes thwarted by the resistance of traditional educational settings toward technology-enhanced learning a...

The widely used e-learning technology is facing new challenges such as how to produce student-centered systems that can be adapted to the needs of each student. Those objectives should be met in a standard compliant way to simplify general adoption. In this context, educational videogames are proposed as an ideal medium to facilitate adaptation and...

Serious games are becoming a powerful tool in education. However, there are still open issues needing further research to generalize the use of videogames and game-like simulations in the educational system. On the one hand, how to take advantage of the videogames' inherent adaptation behaviour in order to maximize the effectiveness of the learning...

Although Virtual Learning Environments have become popular educational tools, they remain a very active research topic. Two important aspects being discussed for next-generation VLEs are how to track the performance of the students for assessment and how to provide personalized learning experiences (i.e. adaptive learning). In this line, educationa...