Games as Mediating Platforms in an Open and Digital World

The complexity of social interactions has been pointed out as challenges in studies on social development, education, cultural diversity, behavior change, and innovation. The COVID-19 pandemics highlighted important issues of our modern society, especially regarding emotional and psychological issues: humans as artificial beings disconnected from the planet, anxious for socialization, mainly through virtual worlds. Stress, anxiety, hopelessness and depression are sources of concern, while pleasure - a fundamental aspect for human life - loses space. We argue that our society needs to recover the pleasure which relies on the learning aspects of life situations as well as to rebuild the way we interact for social or work purposes. In this chapter, we propose as a challenge for the games research community, to face the sophistication that encompasses how to conceptualize, model, design, evaluate, and play games which can turn our actions in the world more playful. We primarily approach games as enablers and agents for work relations, social change and innovation in organizations, with a special look to the Brazilian context. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Games as Mediating Platforms in an Open and Digital World

The complexity of social interactions has been pointed out as challenges in studies on social development, education, cultural diversity, behavior change, and innovation. The COVID-19 pandemics highlighted important issues of our modern society, especially regarding emotional and psychological issues: humans as artificial beings disconnected from the planet, anxious for socialization, mainly through virtual worlds. Stress, anxiety, hopelessness and depression are sources of concern, while pleasure - a fundamental aspect for human life - loses space. We argue that our society needs to recover the pleasure which relies on the learning aspects of life situations as well as to rebuild the way we interact for social or work purposes. In this chapter, we propose as a challenge for the games research community, to face the sophistication that encompasses how to conceptualize, model, design, evaluate, and play games which can turn our actions in the world more playful. We primarily approach games as enablers and agents for work relations, social change and innovation in organizations, with a special look to the Brazilian context. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Game-Based e-Tourism-e-Health Using SQL

AR games such as Pokemon Go, Jurassic World Alive and other games encourage us to venture out in the real open world to also see the beauty of it. However, tourism has come almost to a virtual stop during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic and recovery is slow. We present a tile-based experience-sharing PixoMap, which incorporates some aspects of smart tourism. For user requirements gathering, we first compare factors that make popular games such as Pokemon Go, Minecraft, and the Sims popular. Findings indicate that people enjoy collecting objects, such as monsters or cards, freedom and creativity, escape and sometimes nostalgia. Our PixoMap game allows players to virtually browse an area in the map, and choose a tile. Each tile contains memories (Memors)/experiences/stories. Users can read others’ experiences and share their own experiences, play a minigame to earn in-game currency, to change his/her 2D avatar or change the tile’s color or optionally, to own the tile. Alpha user feedback confirms and refines our design. Heuristic evaluation and user experience feedback at the end of the study, are positive and encouraging. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Digging our own grave: A Marxian consideration of formal education as a destructive enterprise.

The negative impact of human activity has been known throughout history. The epic tale of Gilgamesh, Koranic and biblical texts all make clear the potential that humans have to destroy the world in which they live. Climate breakdown, biodiversity collapse and zoonotic diseases such as COVID-19 have also been predicted well in advance. The "wicked problem" (dilemma) to address is: "Why do humans still persist in 'digging their own graves' by damaging the environments they inhabit?" The author of this article argues that the motive to engage in education can be understood as an ancient human response to ecological change. This has led to a range of behaviours, including teaching and learning that serve only to further disrupt the relationship between the human and the "more-than-human" world. When formal education structures are viewed through a Marxian lens, it soon becomes clear that the unsustainable impact of humans on the more-than-human is the result of capitalist entrapment. Karl Marx's proposition of a metabolic rift helps make sense of the nonsensical, while a discussion of use and exchange value shows how formal education has become ensnared in the mire of capitalist productivity, concealing from view the educationally-induced destruction of planetary systems that support human flourishing. Fortunately, a more sustainable and sustaining education is possible - this is an education for a "long-life" that is no longer influenced by the machinery of neoliberalism.

Nous creusons notre propre tombe : une réflexion marxiste sur l'éducation formelle considérée comme une entreprise destructrice ­ L'impact négatif de l'humanité a été constaté à travers l'histoire tout entière. L'épopée de Gilgamesh ou encore les textes du Coran et de la Bible révèlent la propension de l'homme à détruire le monde dans lequel il vit. Le dérèglement climatique, l'effondrement de la biodiversité et les zoonoses comme la COVID-19 avait été prédits depuis bien longtemps. Le dilemme qui se pose quand on aborde cette question : « Pourquoi les hommes persistent-ils à 'creuser leur propre tombe' en portant atteinte à leur propre environnement ? ¼ L'auteur de cet article affirme que l'on voit dans la raison qui pousse à s'instruire une réponse humaine historique au changement écologique, ce qui a entraîné l'apparition de tout un ensemble de comportements, y compris l'enseignement et l'apprentissage qui servent juste à perturber encore plus les rapports entre le monde humain et le monde « au-delà de l'humain ¼. En observant les structures de l'éducation formelle à travers le prisme marxiste, on s'aperçoit rapidement que l'impact préjudiciable des humains sur le monde au-delà de l'humain est le résultat d'un piégeage capitaliste. La notion de rupture métabolique proposée par Karl Marx aide à comprendre cette absurdité, tandis qu'un débat sur la valeur d'usage et d'échange illustre comment l'éducation a été pris au piège du bourbier de la productivité capitaliste, dissimulant la destruction, induite par l'éducation, des systèmes planétaires qui soutiennent l'épanouissement de l'être humain. Heureusement, une éducation plus durable et plus nourrissante est possible ­ une éducation pour une « longue vie ¼ qui ne serait plus influencée par les rouages du néolibéralisme.