Serious Game Classification

“Think Better Care - The Virtual Tutor” and “CLinIC - The Virtual Tutor” are two 3D serious games dealing with difficult dialogues and challenging situations developed for the health and the care sector within the “MIRROR* – reflective Learning at Work” project (www.mirror-project.eu).

The games are set in a 3D virtual care home or hospital developed with the Unity software. Here learners have the possibility to navigate the environment, deal with some difficult situations with patients/residents and increase some specific competences through different mini games. During the whole game play, users’ behaviours are evaluated according to their ability to manage different competencies simultaneously and at their best: time management and patient/resident satisfaction.

A central role is reserved to “Maria”: a valuable and trustable colleague that is actually the Virtual Tutor of the user inside the game. Based on the “peer-to-peer” learning model, Maria supports learners throughout the virtual experience to augment their confidence and extend their competence. In particular the intervention of the Virtual Tutor occurs at different levels:
• Pull: learners can ask for the help of Maria whenever they feel it is relevant.
• Push: in some precise situation Maria appears inside the game through a pop-up window to help users deal with difficult situations.
At the end of the game Maria gives learners a feedback about their performance during the game with respect to the two afore mentioned parameters: time management and patient/resident satisfaction. Furthermore, in order to help the user to develop reflective learning, users can take notes at any time during the game; these are collected into a learning diary. After the game experience, learners are able to access the learning diary and thus reflect about their experience.

The 3D games described above are designed to encourage human resources to reflect on previous experiences at the workplace and learn from them. The MIRROR project's focus (within the 3D games have been developed) is the creation of a set of applications that enable employees to learn lessons from their own experiences (as well as from the experiences of others) and thereby improve their future performance. Serious games represent one of these technologies able to increase users’ ability to learn by reflection.

Distribution : Internet - Free
Platform(s) : Browser (Unity)

Links

• http://www.mirror-project.eu/