Martin Sillaots

Tallinn University | TLU · Institute of Informatics

EdTech companies can develop tools and services for educational institutions. The EdTech sector needs teachers as end-users to create services and tools that serve the users’ real needs. Co-creation in the EdTech sector is essential for bridging the gap between developers’ and educators’ needs. By collaboratively designing learning technologies, we...

In addition to passing legislation, many parliaments in Europe and around the world engage in educational activities aimed at promoting democracy and explaining the legislative process. Increasingly, these educational activities take the form of serious games. But just how many European parliaments use games, and what do these games involve? This s...

Gamification is usually defined as the use of game structure components in circumstances that are not commonly associated with games. In engineering studies, Gamification and its sub-concept of Serious Games are rather widespread pedagogical models. Just like in other application scopes, the approach to their utilisation or analysis is always conce...

Nowadays, developing competences in our students to face future learning and work is an educational necessity. This can be committed by training students for personalized, Self-Regulated Learning (SRL). In this sense, digital materials oriented through game mechanics, involving feedback and rewards associated with curricular contents, can help stud...

Making a digital game requires a sustained, coordinated effort of a team comprising many roles and a diverse range of skills: developers, artists, designers, producers, etc. This means that interpersonal skills such as communication, management, and leadership are also crucial. But can these skills be taught at the university? While traditional sub...

Flow is a positive state of mind where participants concentrate on the task in hand so deeply that they lose the sense of time and stop worrying about other things (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990). For generating this kind of state it is recommended to follow the model of flow and make sure that the flow conditions are achieved. The model of flow can be us...

Games can be structured by means of game elements. Any element that can be found in the game is a game element. Not all of these elements are necessary in order to generate engaging game experience, but they all serve a purpose. Therefore it is important to know what elements the games can have. Researchers and designers have different opinions abo...

Gamification is the use of game elements in non-game environment. One element among others is avatar. The use of avatar in the context of learning can make students to feel themselves more safe and relaxed. It can lead to the more active participation and to immersion. To find out what is the effect of using avatars in education, several courses we...

Use of game elements in course design is one example of gamification. The course of Computer Games was selected as a basis for gamification because game-like approach can support the understanding of the course content. A case study was conducted to find out how students perceive game-like course. The course of Computer Games was organized like a g...

Gamification is the use of game elements in non-game environment, for example in the educational contexts of courses and lessons. The safest candidate for implementing gamification in education is the course of computer games because game-like course format is supported by the course content. How the students accept this kind of approach? Can gamif...

Courses on research methods are usually part of every university curriculum. In most cases research methods are taught in the traditional way - through lectures and presentations. Even if the more active format of seminars is used, students still perceive the content of the course as dry and boring. Can gamification make studying research methods m...

The course of Research Methods is one of the most important sub-jects in the university curriculum. It provides essential guidelines for conduct-ing the surveys needed for finishing the school. Unfortunately the subject is perceived as dry and boring by most of the students. Can gamification of the course make it more engaging and enjoyable? To fin...

This paper describes design, concepts, and initial implementation considerations of a timeline-based mash-up service, which addresses the needs of researchers involved in collaborative writing. The process of collaborative writing was dramatically changed with appearance of new Web 2.0 tools and services. Being limited in time, researchers need too...

In today’s open business environment peer communication across borders is the norm. It is commonplace in face-to-face interaction as well as on-line communities that facilitate work related collaboration of cross-border teams. To effectively work in these international surroundings, individuals resort to commonly understood, vehicular languages. In...

When teachers try to implement game-based learning, they always have questions like: What kind of games should we use? How high is the educational value of the game? How much do the students like the game? One safe way to answer these questions is to let the students develop the educational games instead of playing the games - the focus can then...

When teachers try to implement game-based learning, they always have questions like: What kind of games should we use? How high is the educational value of the game? How much do the students like the game? One safe way to answer these questions is to let the students develop the educational games instead of playing the games - the focus can then be...

In this study, over a period of six months, we gathered empirical data from more than 200 users on a learning resource portal with a social bookmarking and tagging feature. Our aim was to study the interrelation of conventional metadata and social tags on the one hand, and their interaction with the environment, which can be understood as the repos...

Abstract. In this study, over a period of six months, we gathered empirical data from more than 200 users on a learning resource portal with a social bookmarking and tagging feature. Our aim was to study the interrelation of conventional metadata and social tags on the one hand, and their interaction with the environment, which can be understood as...

Microblogging is the latest variant of blogging which allows users to post very short messages. Due to its ease interface, the possibility of directly addressing other users, and several surrounding services microblogging becomes more and more used in scientific conferences as main back-channel. This paper discusses microblogging with Twitter as ma...