Virtual reality in education

Abstract

The term ‘Serious Games’ was coined to reflect the dual nature of games that exceeds entertainment purposes to provide some kind of educational value. Alternative terms have been used such as ‘Game-based Learning’ and ‘Gamification’. Educational children game apps in the Arab world are abundant, most of which are language learning apps. There seems to be an almost non-existent presence to the game apps that provide cultural context to the children beyond learning languages. In this thesis, we present a conceptual framework to gamifying Lebanese culture. We describe the process of gamification, design principles and practices and how culture can be incorporated and represented on various levels in the system. We investigate the needs of children and parents through an online survey. The results of the survey along with the findings of the literature review provides a clearer approach to the final game concept and serious game ‘Saving Gwal’. We conclude with the design process of ‘Saving Gwal’ and a discussion of the final findings of this thesis.