A platform for motivating collaborative learning using participatory simulation applications

Abstract

Several research efforts suggest that collaborative participatory simulations improve teaching and learning, increasing motivation inside the classroom. Currently, it has been mainly applied with students of primary and secondary educational levels, leaving higher level students aside. This paper presents a platform for implementing participatory simulations, where social interactions and motivational effects are the main facilitators. An instance of this platform was implemented for medicine school undergraduate students. Its implementation is simple, lightweight, fully based on pen-based interaction, and designed to work with handhelds and tablet-PC over an ad-hoc wireless network. The platform is able to support any kind of application implementing participatory simulation based on the exchange of artifacts among the learners. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007.