Power up Learning With Mobile Games

The evolution of mobile games and the subsequent evolution of designing mobile gaming experiences to support learning is captured in this chapter. The authors will address the affordances and limitations of mobile gaming as well as the learning theories and frameworks that lay the foundation for learning through mobile games. Current perceptions of mobile gaming in the classroom and the implementation of mobile games in schools are discussed. In addition, this chapter explores mobile games for social change, their prevalence, and their role in facilitating learning. The chapter also discusses differing perceptions on the issue of mobile games in and out of the classroom as well as the potential for marketability.

Pembangunan Permainan Mudah Alih Matematik 'Sifir Run' untuk Pembelajaran Topik Darab bagi Murid Sekolah Rendah

Bidang permainan mudah alih pada era ini telah melonjakkan evolusi pendidikan dan juga membangunkan kemahiran kognitif, spatial dan kemahiran motor (skill) serta meningkatkan kemahiran ICT. Pembangunan ICT dan teknologi telah memberi banyak peluang dan ruang untuk diterokai dalam bidang permainan mudah alih. Sifir Run merupakan sebuah aplikasi permainan mudah alih yang bertemakan pembelajaran sifir. Pembangunan aplikasi ini bertujuan untuk meningkatkan kemahiran menghafal sifir dalam kalangan murid sekolah rendah. Objektif projek ini adalah untuk mengenalpasti permasalahan murid dalam operasi darab, mereka bentuk dan membangunkan permainan mudah alih yang bertemakan sifir dan mengkaji kebolehgunaan aplikasi permainan mudah alih tersebut. Pembangunan aplikasi ini dijalankan dengan menggunakan model ADDIE. Terdapat seramai 20 orang responden dipilih oleh pengkaji bagI menjalani fasa penilaian untuk menguji kebolehgunaan aplikasi permainan mudah alih Sifir Run. Development of 'Sifir Run' Mathematical Mobile Game for Learning Multiplication Topics in Primary School Students Abstract: The field of mobile games in this era has accelerated the evolution of education and also developed cognitive, spatial and motor skills (skills) as well as improve ICT skills. The development of ICT and technology has provided many opportunities and spaces to be explored in the field of mobile gaming. Sifir Run is a mobile game application themed on learning ciphers. The development of this application aims to improve the skills of memorizing ciphers among primary school students. The objective of this project is to identify students' problems in multiplication operations, design and develop cipher -themed mobile games and study the usability of such mobile game applications. The development of this application was carried out using the ADDIE model. A total of 20 respondents were selected by the researcher to undergo the evaluation phase to test the usability of the Sifir Run mobile game application. Keywords: Educational Games, Mobile Computer Games, Multiplication.

Understanding Ant Forest continuance: effects of user experience, personal attributes and motivational factors

PurposeTechnology has emerged as a leading tool to address concerns regarding climate change in the recent era. As a result, the green mobile application – Ant Forest – was developed, and it has considerable potential to reduce negative environmental impacts by encouraging its users to become involved in eco-friendly activities. Ant Forest is a novel unexplored green mobile gaming phenomenon. To address this gap, this study explores the influence of user experience (cognitive experience and affective experience), personal attributes (affection and altruism) and motivational factors in game play (reward for activities and self-promotion) on the continuation intention toward Ant Forest.Design/methodology/approachThe authors assessed the data using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) for understanding users' continuation intention toward Ant Forest.FindingsThrough a survey of 337 Ant Forest users, the results reveal that cognitive and affective experiences substantially affect Ant Forest continuation intention. Personal attributes and motivational factors also stimulate users to continue using Ant Forest.Originality/valueThe authors build and confirm a conceptual framework to understand users' continuation intention toward a novel unexplored Ant Forest phenomenon.

Providing acceleration for mobile gaming as a service

<p>In recent years, the mobile gaming industry has made rapid progress. Developers are now producing numerous mobile games with increasingly immersive graphics. However, these resource-hungry applications inevitably keep pushing well beyond the hardware limits of mobile devices. The limitations causes two main challenging issues for mobile game players. First, limited computational capabilities of smart devices are preventing rich multimedia applications from running smoothly. Second, the minuscule touchscreens impede the players from smoothly interacting with devices as they can do with PCs. This thesis aims to address the two issues. Specifically, we implement two systems, one for the application accelerations via offloading and the other for alternative interaction approach for mobile gaming. We identify and describe the the challenging issues when developing the systems and describe our corresponding solutions. Regarding the first system, it is well recognized the performance of GPUs on mobile devices is the bottleneck of rich multimedia mobile applications such as 3D games and virtual reality. Previous attempts to tackle the issue mainly mirgate GPU computation to servers residing in remote datacenters. However, the costly network delay is especially undesirable for highly-interactive multimedia applications since a crisp response time is critical for user experience. In this thesis, we propose GBooster, a system that accelerates GPU-intensive mobile applications by transparently offloading GPU tasks onto neighboring multimedia devices such as SmartTV and Gaming Consoles. Specifically, GBooster intercepts and redirects system graphics calls by utilizing the Dynamic Linker Hooking technique, which requires no modification of the apps and mobile systems. Besides, GBooster intelligently switches between the low-power Bluetooth and the high-bandwidth WiFi interface to reduce energy consumption of network transmissions. We implemented the GBooster on the Android system and evauluate its performance. The results demonstrate that GBooster can boost applications' frame rates by up to {85\%}. In terms of power consumption, GBooster can achieve {70\%} energy saving compared with local execution. Second, we investigate the potential of built-in mobile device sensors to provide an alternative interaction approach for mobile gaming. We propose UbiTouch, a novel system that extends smartphones with virtual touchpads on desktops using built-in smartphone sensors. It senses a user's finger movement with a proximity and ambient light sensor whose raw sensory data from underlying hardware are strongly dependent on the finger's locations. UbiTouch maps the raw data into the finger's positions by utilizing Curvilinear Component Analysis and improve tracking accuracy via a particle filter. We have evaluate our system in three scenarios with different lighting conditions by five users. The results show that UbiTouch achieves centimetre-level localization accuracy and poses no significant impact on the battery life. We envisage that UbiTouch could support applications such as text-writing and drawing.</p>

Providing acceleration for mobile gaming as a service

<p>In recent years, the mobile gaming industry has made rapid progress. Developers are now producing numerous mobile games with increasingly immersive graphics. However, these resource-hungry applications inevitably keep pushing well beyond the hardware limits of mobile devices. The limitations causes two main challenging issues for mobile game players. First, limited computational capabilities of smart devices are preventing rich multimedia applications from running smoothly. Second, the minuscule touchscreens impede the players from smoothly interacting with devices as they can do with PCs. This thesis aims to address the two issues. Specifically, we implement two systems, one for the application accelerations via offloading and the other for alternative interaction approach for mobile gaming. We identify and describe the the challenging issues when developing the systems and describe our corresponding solutions. Regarding the first system, it is well recognized the performance of GPUs on mobile devices is the bottleneck of rich multimedia mobile applications such as 3D games and virtual reality. Previous attempts to tackle the issue mainly mirgate GPU computation to servers residing in remote datacenters. However, the costly network delay is especially undesirable for highly-interactive multimedia applications since a crisp response time is critical for user experience. In this thesis, we propose GBooster, a system that accelerates GPU-intensive mobile applications by transparently offloading GPU tasks onto neighboring multimedia devices such as SmartTV and Gaming Consoles. Specifically, GBooster intercepts and redirects system graphics calls by utilizing the Dynamic Linker Hooking technique, which requires no modification of the apps and mobile systems. Besides, GBooster intelligently switches between the low-power Bluetooth and the high-bandwidth WiFi interface to reduce energy consumption of network transmissions. We implemented the GBooster on the Android system and evauluate its performance. The results demonstrate that GBooster can boost applications' frame rates by up to {85\%}. In terms of power consumption, GBooster can achieve {70\%} energy saving compared with local execution. Second, we investigate the potential of built-in mobile device sensors to provide an alternative interaction approach for mobile gaming. We propose UbiTouch, a novel system that extends smartphones with virtual touchpads on desktops using built-in smartphone sensors. It senses a user's finger movement with a proximity and ambient light sensor whose raw sensory data from underlying hardware are strongly dependent on the finger's locations. UbiTouch maps the raw data into the finger's positions by utilizing Curvilinear Component Analysis and improve tracking accuracy via a particle filter. We have evaluate our system in three scenarios with different lighting conditions by five users. The results show that UbiTouch achieves centimetre-level localization accuracy and poses no significant impact on the battery life. We envisage that UbiTouch could support applications such as text-writing and drawing.</p>