Gamification in education: Serious Game Prototype for Children with Special Needs

Abstract

Gamification or integrating game elements within the non-game environment is widely used to improve systems, services, and the overall user experience. It is mainly intended for education purposes, not for mere entertainment. Gamification can provide many benefits like creating a stimulating environment for learning and engagement with content in an unconventional way. These benefits are vital for the education of children with special needs because they suffer from constant distraction and loss of motivation. Therefore, we introduce a serious game prototype for children with special needs. The main purpose of this serious game is to assess total reading and understanding the impact of augmented reality as a learning methodology. This game is a complementary approach to motivate students after using an AR learning environment. This assessment game was designed according to the systemic gamification principles and contains the elements of game formula like points, time, and player profile. It will be used to assess children after learning sessions using AR and flashcards. The card assessment game is an unconventional way to evaluate children. Each child is different from her/his peers in the academic level, so the number of words is chosen at the beginning of the game based on what the child has learned in the training sessions. The child profile result confirmed that the game can be used in assessment. Moreover, parents and specialists confirmed that children enjoyed the assessment session, and the game is not limited to test only, as some children play it for language development. Keywords—Gamification, Mobile Based game, Serious games, children with special needs, Education, Augmented Reality.