Aimed at better understanding and supporting learning in these environments, the bilingual, Pan-Canadian SAGE for Learning initiative addressed the interplay among the exploding popularity of technology-based simulations and games for entertainment; new technologies for appealing, immersive, engaging simulations and games; and growing evidence that learning works best when people collaborate, practice and reflect on their learning.
Simulations and Advanced Gaming Environments (SAGE) for Learning
Principal Investigator: Dr. David Kaufman
Network co-leader: Louise Sauvé, Télé-université
Funding Agency: SSHRC (2003-2013)
See Additional Team Members below.
What's Proposed
How This Project Is Carried Out
How This Project is Put into Action
The ‘SAGE’ project addressed a diverse number of areas and many of these are relevant to practice. Here are several examples.
In the area of healthcare, our work in creating handheld games for children to use in managing their diseases is extremely important and has shown positive results. This promises to be a tremendously useful tool for children in hospitals as well as in their own settings.
Our work done on narrative and fantasy in videogames is key to designing engaging and compelling videogames. In the simulation area, our implementation of a problem-based learning (PBL) online case-based simulation is on the leading edge of PBL practice as the Internet is becoming an important environment for communication, collaboration, information retrieval, and knowledge creation. This project provides one model for implementing PBL online.
Finally, the research and development work that our team has been doing around handheld games, biofeedback games, virtual reality, gender and videogames, and ethical decision-making all are contributing to both theory and practice.