Fun with GraphoGame

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PRESS RELEASE January 23, 2015

The Agora Center from the University of Jyväskylä exhibits its research results in educational games at the BETT 2015 exhibition in Excel, London on January 21-24. BETT is the world’s leading international event on learning technology, hosting about 25 000 expert visitors each year.

At BETT, the Agora Center specifically focuses on the newly published English demo of the GraphoGame, a literacy learning game that has been utilized nationally in Finland for years with remarkable results. The free-of-charge demo game is now available in Google Play. In addition to GraphoGame, the Agora Center is presenting results from FUN, a collaborative project between Finnish and American partners focusing on game-based learning of science and mathematics. The FUN project result video was launched during the BETT show in YouTube.

– Hundreds of thousands of children have learned how to read with the Finnish GraphoGame. We want to offer this efficient and fun learning possibility to all the children in the world, envisions Professor Heikki Lyytinen, developer of the game.

– Naturally, literacy instruction is language-based, and therefore we have a network of world-leading researchers to support us in developing new language versions.

In the UK, our collaborator professor Usha Goswami, Director of the Centre for Neuroscience in Education at the University of Cambridge, leads a project that looks at how developing phonological awareness through rime analogy using the GraphoGame can affect how children learn to read.

– We have received support from the Finnish Funding Agency for Innovation for development of the international GraphoGame and its distribution, tells Mikko Pitkänen, head of project management. At BETT, we have had plenty of interested visitors from various countries. We have found not only customers but also new collaborators.

We are now looking forward to people downloading and trying out the free GraphoGame demo, and please give us feedback!

Mikko Pitkänen, mikko.h.pitkanen@jyu.fi, phone +358 400 247 409

Heikki Lyytinen, heikki.j.lyytinen@jyu.fi, phone +358 50 5524892

Fun Project – Mikko Vesisenaho,  mikko.vesisenaho@jyu.fi, phone +358400247686

Meet GraphoGame Team at BETT show in London 21-24 January 2015

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GraphoGame US English DemoGraphoGame Team is represented in BETT show 21 -24 January 2015 in Excel, London.

Download the GraphoGame Demo or come and visit our  stand E55. We have had the pleasure of meeting hundreds of interested teachers and collaborators.

The demo is just a starter for what we will be providing for primary learners of reading and literacy. We have 20+ language versions in R&D and are preparing a product launch this year.

Stay tuned for news and releases by signing up for the GraphoGame newsletter via email! You can also follow our social media in Facebook and Twitter  for online updates from #BETT2015.

 

Invitation to Global Literacy Working Group, November 12-13, 2014, Helsinki, Finland

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UNESCO promotes mobilizing scientific knowledge for sustainable development. Global illiteracy and the urgent need to improve quality of education are topics that effect on cross-cutting development themes ranging from supporting democracy to creating sustainable energy sources.

Improvement of literacy levels and quality in education cannot happen without collaborative, interdisciplinary academic research on interconnectedness of language, literacy and learning. Interaction of language and reading acquisition is still poorly understood and scientific knowledge of this theme is urgently needed in multilingual African countries.

We believe improvement of education quality and learning outcomes depends on not just collaboration with wide range of academic fields but also with artists in literature, audiovisual art and game programming. Scientific solutions and evidence-based practices need to be created but we also need to seek new ways to distribute the knowledge and learning opportunities globally to all learners.

We wish to invite to Global Literacy Working Group presentations from students and researchers from all fields of academic research who seek answers to following questions:

  • How to promote use of mother tongue in literacy instruction?
  • How to ensure that children gain sufficient literacy skills for life in a modern multilingual African society?
  • How to help teachers, teacher training institutions, teaching material designers and education policy makers to benefit from scientific research and evidence-based solutions for learning?
  • How to create cost-effective mobile internet-based services for the education sector development?

Global Literacy Working Group is part of FinCEAL CCI seminar 2014

Deadline for submission is 15.09.2014.  For more information, please see the call for papers.

 

Special Issue of Human Technology on Supporting Urgent Basic Reading Skills in Children

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We are pleased to announce that the new issue of the on-line journal Human Technology: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Humans in ICT Environments has been published.

This Special Issue on Supporting Urgent Basic Reading Skills in Children, edited by Prof. Heikki Lyytinen and Prof. Ulla Richardson of the Agora Center, University of Jyväskylä, Finland, comprises original papers addressing the technological, academic, and environmental support needed to help young struggling readers. You can access the issue at http://www.humantechnology.jyu.fi/current/

GraphoGame will help children with dyslexia in Emirati

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On Sunday, May 18 2014, the Ta’leem Training and Skill Development Centre in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, signed an agreement with the Niilo Mäki Foundation, the Agora Centre and the University of Jyvaskyla, to provide the GraphoGame.

Ms Shereen Al Nowais, the Ta’leem founder, said she wanted to start using the GraphoGame as soon as possible. She also planned on opening a branch of the Agora Centre for Human Technology, which assisted in creating the GraphoGame, in Abu Dhabi. “The programme will be exclusively used by the Ta’leem Centre to help teach students with learning disabilities, but will also help in preventing learning disabilities developing.”

Read the whole article in The National.

ReadAll – all read?

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We are proudly announcing the beginning of a new GraphoGame related research project: ReadAll.

Technology-enhanced environment for supporting reading development in all learners (ReadAll) is a new four-year project funded by the Future of Learning, Knowledge and Skills (TULOS) Research Programme of the Academy of Finland.

In this joint project between the Niilo Mäki Institute and Agora Center in he University of Jyväskylä a new dynamic version of GraphoGame will be developed to train both reading accuracy and speed (fluent reading skills). The bottlenecks struggling readers have will be investigated from the early experience of the game. This information will be directly utilized into developing individually adaptive training environment for 7-11 years old children.

The aim is to develop evidence-based and cost-effective environment for efficiently developing reading skills with automatic evaluation suited for individual learners with varying skill levels.

 

Promotion of literacy in China, The Netherlands and Finland

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Until recently, specific developmental reading difficulty, dyslexia, has been recognized and investigated mainly in the English speaking countries and  in other western languages. However, in the past years it has been reported that between 5% and 10% of school-aged Chinese children have dyslexia. Reading difficulties in Chinese are found mainly in word reading and spelling.

Since there is no standardized reading assessment in Mandarin, these children cannot be diagnosed until their friends have learned to read in the fifth or sixth years of primary school.

New versions of GraphoGame in Chinese Pinyin and Mandarin

Children with dyslexia are often mistakenly regarded as  lazy or lacking motivation to learning. The parents and teachers need to realize this specific reading disability. There are 270 000 000 Children in China below 14 years old, thus the number of children with dyslexia could be more than 13 000 000 according to the 5% low estimation. No specific treatment program or institution is available in mainland of China. These children get frustrated and their school performance as well as self-esteem suffers significantly.

The cooperation between Finnish and Chinese researchers aims to develop a Chinese GraphoGame on Pinyin and Mandarin as well as investigate effectiveness of those games to help Chinese children to learn to read in Chinese.

A Dutch version GraphoGame

The aim is to develop a GraphoGame version so that Dutch children can take the first steps in learning to read. The game content will also provide appropriate training in reading fluency for those who already have learned the basic skill. Those children can read accurately but reading still needs a strong effort and may be very slow.

Empirical studies of both Chinese and Dutch GraphoGames

Based on the new language versions the project will then take on the challenge of studying the effectiveness of these games in empirical settings.

All partners from Finland, China and the Netherlands have since long been involved and successful in longitudinal studies from children at risk of dyslexia. The project will concentrate on investigation of these unique data-sets and potentially produces significant scientific breakthroughs as a joint effort.

The LITERATE project is funded by the EU Commission under the Seventh Framework Programme LITERATE-project PIRSES-GA-2013-612663

Namibian Education System Undergoing Much Needed Change

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The Minister of Education in Namibia, Dr David Namwandi made an announcement late last week regarding the long awaited changes to the education system. Of special interest is the extension to the number of years in which mother-tongue instruction will be offered.

According to The Namibian, a local newspaper:

“Mother-tongue instruction will be introduced from pre-primary to Grade 4 level, with a transition to English in Grades 5 to 6 to allow children to cope with English as the medium of instruction further along.”

This means that there will be five years of mother-tongue instruction and two years of transition to English as medium of instruction. The current education system has three years of mother-tongue instruction and one year of transition to English.

Amongst changes to the Namibian education system is the change to the structure of the school phases, making pre-primary compulsory and moving grade 7 to the secondary phase; free secondary school education will commence in 2016 (free primary education was introduced in 2013); and vocational subjects will get a stronger emphasis to provide learners with more career options.

This is a step in the right direction and hopefully the learners will bear the fruit thereof, especially learners in the lower primary phase, who will have a longer period to learn in their mother-tongue. A positive impact on the quality of their reading is expected.

For more information, please read the full story in The Namibian

Blog post written by Ms. Pamela February from University of Namibia

 

A new study about game features and children’s engagement in using GraphoGame

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An article recently published in Computers & Education highlights the importance of game features in supporting children’s engagement in digital game -based learning. Earlier studies have shown that GraphoGame helps children to acquire the basics of reading, but less is known about its effect on children’s motivation. Children with a risk for reading disability often need several hours of training before they learn to master the connections between letters and sounds, and therefore it is important that GraphoGame does not lose its appeal too soon.

The article reports the findings of a study in which the effects of two game features, a reward system and the level of challenge, were investigated in an experimental setting. The participants were Finnish first and second graders (N = 138), each of whom were given one of four versions of GraphoGame to use at their homes for eight weeks. Each version had a different combination of the game features: the reward system was either present or absent, and the level of challenge was either high or typical.

If the reward system was present, the player earned tokens and gained access to new game levels after a certain number of completed tasks. The level of challenge was determined by Bayesian adaptation logic, and was set either as high (around 60% success rate), or as typical (80% success rate).

It was found that the children playing with the reward system versions initially played longer sessions than the children playing without the reward system. However, after the first sessions the playing times started to decline, and eventually there were no differences in the total playing time among different player groups. This suggests that the reward system was able to increase children’s engagement only temporarily. However, according to the parents, the children using the reward system versions concentrated better during gaming than the other children. Generally, playing was less frequent than expected in all player groups. The level of challenge did not have significant effect on children’s engagement.

The results suggest that it is important to investigate the long-term effects of game features further and keep developing features that not only trigger, but also sustain children’s engagement until the goals set for learning are achieved.

Source: Ronimus, M., Kujala, J., Tolvanen, A. & Lyytinen, H. (2014). Children’s engagement during digital game-based learning or reading: The effects of time, rewards, and challenge. Computers & Education, 71, 237– 246. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2013.10.008