Suchergebnisse

Serious games have been studied with the objective to provide ways of combining learning/knowledge with entertainment. In Brazil it is known that a small proportion of older people have access to computers, and that a larger part already has access to cell phones. Therefore, we performed a literature review to identify items that mobile serious games should have to captivate the public's interest and motivation of seniors in playing them. We studied the needs, preferences and interests of the elderly in relation to digital games on smart phones and motivational factors that influence the use of serious games on smart phones. After the study, it was concluded that usability is a key factor for the elderly using digital games and that due to age restrictions it should be considered during the development of software. However, considering only aspects of usability is not sufficient to ensure the use of games by the elderly. It is necessary to awaken the motivation of the user, or in other words the user must be able to realize the benefits that the game will provide him/her. From this literature review, it will be possible to develop mobile serious games more suitable for the elderly population.

Digital materials used in teaching and learning are called learning objects (LO). Traditionally, LOs were developed for use as support materials for teacher. However, they can be used by students or whoever is interested in learning something. LOs can be found in repositories and also on the Web, in teachers and institutions sites. In spite of that, they are not easily found. Repositories address few knowledge fields and few languages. Search engines return a large amount of information that makes it difficult for users to identify relevant LOs to meet their goals. In this context, this paper proposes a new mechanism for LOs retrieval, based on Web 2.0 principles. Among the options for Web 2.0 applications, the model of social bookmarking called our attention because it provides facilities to store links to LOs, and also to share and classify these links. Moreover, unlike what happens with the repositories, in these tools, any user can post new links, without restrictions. The prototype of this tool was called VITAE. VITAE provides links to LOs, in a way that people can store, organize and share them with others.