Evaluation activities in Greece
In total, 358 users have participated in siLang evaluation activities in Greece. More precisely, a total of 200 higher education students at the University of Thessaly were engaged in evaluation activities in academic years 2012-2013 (80 students) and 2013-2014 (123 students). This number significantly exceeds the 30 students that are foreseen in the project proposal for this evaluation group. The students were engaged with the siLang learning game in the context of the “Technology in Education” course of the Department of Computer Engineering through obligatory projects that were executed collaboratively in groups and were credited in the course final grade. This activity was highly beneficial for learners, who were given the opportunity to become part of R&D activities directly related to their course. The students were asked to provide feedback on the user interac-tion with the game, the learning activities, the perceived benefits in terms of en-hancing language and communication skills in international contexts, and ways through which the game may be improved. The feedback was directly integrated into the game software implementation. The students pointed to the positive as-pects of gaming for immersing users in diverse uses of a vehicular language by non-native speakers.
The game was perceived to be highly relevant among this group of young engineers due to the high mobility of graduates for professional purposes. Technical improvements were also achieved through the testing of the software features. In addition, the software was used with a group of 24 adults / professionals who are parents to learners enrolled in the 11th primary school of Volos, with 15 higher education students enrolled in different departments of the University of Thessaly, with 19 adult learners enrolled in the BFS language school, with 23 Greek professionals, 28 vocational students and 10 high school students. Overall, it was opted that the participants recognised the need that the game ad-dresses. The authentic context of the game received also positive comments as it allowed the establishment of links to the reality. The feedback generated informed the implementation process leading to a stable version of the game.
In general the siLang proof-of-concept game was well accepted by the participants in the evaluation studies. Some technical issues were identified and a relevant bug list was delivered to the implementation team. The final version of the game re-flects the updates suggested by the participants. Some suggestions for future ex-tension of the game were also carefully considered (i.e. adaptability to additional professional roles, integration of more nationalities) as they set a basis for a trans-fer of innovation project.
