Search results

The purpose of this study is twofold. Firstly, this research aims at helping countries implement an equitable, innovative and context-appropriate stay-home game plan for the millions of disadvantaged and under-privileged students severely affected by the forfeiture of school closures; and secondly, this study proclaims that the burgeoning popularity of gamification has the potential to lay the bedrock foundation for ‘Literacy in the New Norm’.

The temporal closure of schools around the world to limit the spread of the COVID-19 has resulted in massive educational disruptions triggering adverse effects and bringing much of education under grave threat. Through a review of the current empirical and conceptual literature, this study proposes a new gamification concept in a non-technology environment.

Well underway are global dialogues that hold conversations on implementing mitigation strategies to counter the looming global health crisis. This has generated the impetus for a more concerted effort by concerned governments and international organizations to identify appropriate solutions for the continuity of learning so that the learning never stops. While educators and learners plunge further into the core of reconstructing education, the authors recognize that the fundamentals of technology and virtual connectivity have all along contributed to the multi-faceted e-learning stage set. However, concerns regarding the paradigm shift to remote online learning would certainly exacerbate inequalities cardinally felt across disadvantaged communities around the globe.

As the world is currently bound by strict isolation measures, learners of all ages have been relegated to the confines of their homes. For the most part, the stark realities of technological mishaps that have befallen underprivileged school children, serve as a reminder to help target children all over the world who are in most peril of losing ground in terms of continued education. It is on these grounds that the criterion set out in this article elucidates the nature and scope of a supplementary stay-home game plan detailing the use of game affordances that bear intelligently in the creation of home-based activities for parents to give it their best effort in fostering a collaborative and meaningful parent-child relationship that spawns the new language of literacy in the new norm.

This study aims to present research evidence on the relevance of online gamification flip learning as a pedagogical instruction in promoting learning engagement when college students are impacted by the coronavirus pandemic. In this study, a gamified formative assessment was used to examine learner engagement and to evaluate the effectiveness of gamification within a synchronous online flipped instruction.

A multiphase mixed methods research design was used for this study. The evaluation relied on triangulated evidence gathered through questionnaire surveys and semi-structured interviews administered at an Indonesian college setting.

Based on the findings, gamified learning and formative assessments that adopt online flipped approaches have shown a positive bearing on learner engagement, despite the challenges learners face while harrowing through times of calamity. The results of this study provide prima facie support for the claim that the use of interactive gamified e-quizzes proves to be an innovative means of stimulating student engagement during the online class.

The results further suggest that a learning framework that incorporates both online flipped and gamification techniques provide the stimulus that is likely to forge an emotional connection that can inspire learner engagement, much needed when learners rally through calamitous events. This study has established evidential links between gamification and flipped classroom instructional delivery, particularly for online class settings. It is well-anticipated that gamification flip learning can continue to be implemented either in online, blended or face-to-face class instruction and particularly after the time of the pandemic.

This paper aims to evaluate the students’ perception of their learning experiences concerning serious gaming and gamification instructions and determines whether they were motivated enough and engaged during the educative process in a resource-poor context. Moreover, the study evaluated the impact of interactive instructional environment outcomes in terms of students’ perceptions of the learning catalysed by gamified systems, particularly in enhancing attitude change coupled with knowledge acquisition.

This study used a qualitative research design technique to collect the data. A total of 108 first year secondary school students participated in a sexual health literacy course that lasted for a five-week learning period. Using a cluster-sampling technique, three classes were randomly assigned to serious gaming, gamification and teacher-centred instructions. Individual face-to-face interviews were used to assess students’ perceives required satisfaction with three instructions. Data were audio-recorded, and coding analysis was used using NVivo software facilitated qualitative data analysis.

The results show that serious gaming and gamification instructions trumped the traditional teacher-centred instruction method. While intervention students were all positive about the serious gaming and gamification instructions, non-intervention students were negative about conservative teacher-centered learning whose limited interactivity also undermined learning relative to the two innovative interventions.

As a justification to limit face-to-face classes, this study may be useful during an emergency phenomenon, including the current situation of amid COVID-19. The implementation of serious gaming and gamification as remotely instructional options could be among the measures to protect educational communities through reducing close-proximity, and eventually, control contamination and the spread of viruses.

The application of serious gaming and game elements should not be conceptualised as universal but context-specific. This study shows that particularism is essential to optimise the results in terms of coming up with a specific design based on the scope of evaluation for positive results and develop an intervention that will work, especially in the resource-poor context of the developing world.

This exploratory study aims to discover the different forms of challenges encountered by school stakeholders, including students, teachers, parents and management due to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.

Qualitative methodology was deployed for the study. A purposive sampling technique was used to select the respondents for a semi-structured interview. Data were examined using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA).

It was found that each stakeholder faced four different challenges: mental distress, physical immobility, financial crunches and technological concerns. Findings suggest that teachers are experiencing higher financial, technological and physical challenges as compared to other stakeholders followed by parents.

This paper discusses the major challenges faced by each stakeholder along with the opportunities. These findings will be useful for educationists, regulatory authorities, policymakers and management of educational institutions in developing countries to revisit their policy frameworks to develop new strategies and processes for the smooth implementation of remote learning during a period of uncertainty.

This paper aims to understand how the residents have utilized domestic spaces and furniture during three months' lockdown time for the Covid-19 virus spread measures and to explore how domestic living practices were adjusted which had been the daily urban activities previously.

The research method is a qualitative interpretivist philosophical approach with a quantitative data collection. Short questionnaires were conducted via e-mails with attached links via SurveyMonkey. The sample was the group of people who had been in active urban life before the pandemic and had been actively working at the office spaces.

Separate learning/working spaces were urged at home, at least for the set intervals in the daytime. Production in the kitchen also acted as an interactive production and entertainment. Balconies and terraces were re-discovered and acted as “urban-substitute open spaces”. The living room became the new venue for domestic interaction especially during working-learning breaks, for watching movies, personal care or reading sessions. Computers, tablets and smartphones became the urban activity base due to online meeting applications for social reasons, online shopping, working and learning. The separation of domains at home became essential.

The study only focuses domestic uses of white-collar workers; during the lock-down period, Covid-19 pandemic. Sampling constraints are the employees who were active urban life before the pandemic and working at the office space. Sharing the house at least with one other roommate, sibling or spouse with or without children. Individuals who had not been working outside the home before the pandemic, people aged over 65, retired, permanent home workers, housewives, freelancers and other such demographic structures are excluded from the study.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the first wave lockdown began between early March–June 2020, and millions of people were confined to the dwellings. “Staying home” stood for working-learning-shopping-interacting online, more production in the kitchen, using the living room as a domestic multi-functional venue, spending time on the terraces and balconies as domestic open spaces. The active living in the urban context dramatically shifted to “at-home living”.

The study only focuses on the three months' interval in which strict rules for staying home were enforced in Istanbul, Turkey. Schemas, charts and tables are generated concerning the input. The study challenges the making meaning via praxis of “to dwell” and urban living. Nevertheless, the main questions of housing such as production, social aspects, shared spaces, interaction are re-configured and the substitute urban space is created at home.

Since the appearance of COVID-19 social distancing and staying home have been recommended repeatedly by the governments for disease prevention. As the challenge continues to remain the current study seeks to examine the factors affecting social distancing through space planning and management. More specifically the current study aims to examine the appropriateness of the spatial organization and space configuration of a clubhouse with a linear plan layout in the mitigation of the spread of infections due to serious pandemic COVID-19.

For an enhanced understanding of the impact of spatial arrangements of public spaces plan on the effective implementation of social distancing this study has used the space syntax analysis method. The MPSP clubhouse building in Penang, Malaysia was selected as the case study. The level of permeability and wayfinding were determined in the building plan and were illustrated using photoshop software to depict the interrelation between the indoor spaces and building circulation. Graphs of the depth of space were used to analyze the level of permeability and wayfinding to illustrate the possibility of social distancing in the plan.

The result of the study shows the significant role of proper plan layout design on social distancing. While clear and direct wayfinding can positively be associated with more effective social distancing, the inefficient design of user access, inappropriate locations of multiple entry and exit and indefinite directions of users' inside buildings can impose slight limitations. The average level of permeability might suggest ineffective spatial arrangement, ignoring the needs of spatial segregation. The study further found that the linear plan layouts with proper zoning and effective management strategies can be considered a proper layout to facilitate social distancing and the spread of COVID-19.

The current study is unique in terms of examination of the spatial configuration of linear public spaces plan layout for possible temporary adaptability to curb disease spread during the unexpected advent of a pandemic. Based on researchers' best of knowledge it is the first time that the impact of recreational space design on social distancing has been examined. The study also originally sheds light on the fact that the commonly used guideline for the social distancing of 1–2 m between 2 persons, in reality, is practically inadequate given the nature of the sports activities.

The author argues that we must stop and take a look at what our insistence on human labour as the basis of our society is doing to us, and begin to search for possible alternatives. We need the vision and the courage to aim for the highest level of technology attainable for the widest possible use in both industry and services. We need financial arrangements that will encourage people to invent themselves out of work. Our goal, the article argues, must be the reduction of human labour to the greatest extent possible, to free people for more enjoyable, creative, human activities.

Man has been seeking an ideal existence for a very long time. In this existence, justice, love, and peace are no longer words, but actual experiences. How ever, with the American preemptive invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq and the subsequent prisoner abuse, such an existence seems to be farther and farther away from reality. The purpose of this work is to stop this dangerous trend by promoting justice, love, and peace through a change of the paradigm that is inconsistent with justice, love, and peace. The strong paradigm that created the strong nation like the U.S. and the strong man like George W. Bush have been the culprit, rather than the contributor, of the above three universal ideals. Thus, rather than justice, love, and peace, the strong paradigm resulted in in justice, hatred, and violence. In order to remove these three and related evils, what the world needs in the beginning of the third millenium is the weak paradigm. Through the acceptance of the latter paradigm, the golden mean or middle paradigm can be formulated, which is a synergy of the weak and the strong paradigm. In order to understand properly the meaning of these paradigms, however, some digression appears necessary.

The purpose of this study is to examine how the recent recession affected Iowa's gaming industry by analyzing gaming volumes before and through the recession.

This study used autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) with intervention analysis to examine Iowa statewide aggregated monthly slot coin-in, table drop, and admission from December 2001 through June 2012.

The results of analyses show that: slot coin-in was not affected by the recession; table drop was slightly affected, but started to recover in late 2010; and monthly admission was not affected by the recession, and showed a significant increase after the recession. The results also indicate that the decrease in table drop in Iowa casinos represented only a very small amount of state gaming revenue in 2008. Therefore, the findings of this study suggest that Iowa's gaming volume was not significantly affected by the recent recession. In other words, Iowa's gaming industry is still recession-proof.

Current economic conditions suggest that the threat of a double-dip recession is quite real. The findings of this study are expected to help casino managers in Iowa understand how non-destination casinos behaved differently through the recession and strategically plan for a possible future economic downturn. In fact, the significant increase of monthly admission during the last recession implies that the Iowa gaming industry has actually benefited from the recession by accommodating more patrons. Therefore, to capitalize on the next recession, Iowa's casino operators should consider reducing the number of table games and increasing the number of slot machines to accommodate more slot players and reduce operating costs.

Most existing gaming-related research focuses on gaming destinations such as Las Vegas and Atlantic City. No known study on gaming volume in non-destination gaming markets has been identified. By examining Iowa's gaming volume through the recession, this study provides initial empirical evidence of the impact of recession on non-destination gaming markets.