Serious Games Combining Mobile Learning & Virtual Worlds

by on 29 November, 2007 - 19:19

Serious Games challenging us to play a better future

Via: Virtual World News

The Serious Games Institute has partnered with Cisco and Giunti Labs to turn all of Coventry University into a meshed real-world/virtual-world learning environment.

To
help the Institute build a platform for modeling the real campus,
students at Coventry can activate educational content based on their
physical movement across the real campus or the digital movement across
the virtual campus.

The
system is based on Cisco wireless location services and Giunti's learn
eXact content management system. Any existing digital content can be
applied to either mobile or virtual learning devices based on location.
"Blending mobile and virtual worlds technologies has unmatched
potential for producing effective technology-based learning," said
Giunti Labs' CEO, Fabrizio Cardinali.

The learn eXact Suite - learn
eXact is a powerful Learning Content Management System (LCMS) that
allows you to speed up the processes of creating, indexing, storing,
revising and managing eLearning and Mobile Learning content.

The
next step in Coventry's plans to create a smart campus by 2010 is to
make the real world and virtual world interoperable with position
matching across the worlds. The SGI hopes to help students telecommute
with avatars positioning themselves next to real people.

"We
set ourselves the goal of transforming Coventry University into a
destination of choice for students and academics from around the
world," said John Latham, pro vice-chancellor for business development
at the university. "Supported by the technology and expertise provided
by Cisco and Giunti Labs, our SGI has a number of advanced virtual
learning capabilities, such as drag-and-drop positioning of digital
learning contents, three-dimensional hotspot positioning, and
triggering and tracking of learning content by an avatar. We also have
the tools and functionality for the creation, packaging and management
of Shareable Content Object Reference Model [SCORM]-compliant contents
which can be contextualized and delivered to Windows Mobile 5 personal
digital assistants within the SGI Cisco Wi-Fi network. And we can also
reuse location based content also in other virtual worlds platforms,
such as Forterra and Second Life."

About the Serious Games Institute (SGI)

The
Serious Games Institute is the first of three new Institutes being
opened at the Coventry University Technology Park. The SGI, the first
of its kind in the UK, aims to support regional development through
bringing together subject matter experts, applied research and
dedicated showcasing and demonstration facilities to support the
development and application of virtual world applications, game-based
learning and interactive digital media resources for a range of uses.

The
Serious Games Institute is a regional development project, founded by
Advantage West Midlands, which has grown out of a desire to identify
and encourage growth areas for West Midlands industry. With computer
games companies already being well established in the Leamington Spa
and Solihull areas, many of the skills in evidence in this sector can
be transferred to the serious games sector.

The SGI is a centre of excellence and a hub for serious games which aims to provide access to:

• Relevant applied research through Coventry University;

• Office space for serious games companies, and

• Facilities for demonstrating and showcasing serious games and immersive environments.

About Giunti Labs

Giunti is unique in the international publishing industry.

In
1497, Giunti publishers and typographers in Florence, together with
others in Venice, began modern book manufacturing. Over the years
Giunti has built a ‘historical catalogue’ of huge dimensions, through a
gradual process of ‘fusion’ of different publishers, but also through
the creation of new brands, including Giunti Labs. Giunti Editore now
includes 20 companies in the publishing sector.

Giunti
Labs, which has its EMEA headquarters in Italy and offices in Milton
Keynes (UK), Frankfurt (Germany) and in Boston (US), provides a wide
range of services, in response to any content, learning and knowledge
management need, covering:

• Content production

• Research and development

• Technological solutions for content, learning & knowledge management

• Architectural and technological solutions for mobile & wireless

• Training and consulting

Giunti
Labs provides the learn eXact® suite, Europe's leading e-learning and
mobile learning content management technology. This suite is
interoperable with all major vendor-driven and open source LMS and VLE
solutions in the market including Plateau, Oracle, SumTotal, Saba,
WebCT, Blackboard, Sakai, LRN and Moodle.

Moreover,
Giunti Labs does not just adhere to the international standards
relating to the LMS/LCMS world, it is one of the organisations that
helps to determine and drive these standards: co-writing and developing
them.

Giunti Labs plays a key
role in most of the international institutions for the definition of
eLearning specifications (IEEE LTSC, ISO/IEC JTC1/SC36, CEN/ISSS WSLT,
AICC, IMS, ADL-SCORM and OKI).

About Giunti Labs’ learn eXact® suite

Giunti
Labs’ learn eXact is an e-learning and mobile learning content
management system (LCMS) that enables users to create, manage and
deliver content based on learning objects, XML, standards and
international specifications. It delivers learning content to
location-based mobile devices, interactive TV and wearable computer
devices. Now the solution with its new eXact VLW plug in also delivers
standard learning contents into 3D Virtual Worlds.Original post: http://elianealhadeff.blogspot.com/2007/11/serious-games-combining-mobile-learning.html