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                       THE UNIVERSITY OF ULSTER
                            FACULTY OF ARTS 
             SCHOOL OF CREATIVE ARTS & TECHNOLOGIES (SCARTE)
 
               IS PLEASED TO ANNOUNCE A SEMINAR ENTITLED:

               `Serious games for Constructivist Learning'

                                  by

                        Dr. Minhua (Eunice) Ma

                                 from
  
                          Digital Design Studio
                          Glasgow School of Art
                     University of Glasgow, Scotland

                       MONDAY, 8th October, 2012
                                1.00 P.M.
                   Foyle Arts Building, Magee Campus 
                        Room MQ-226, 1st Floor 


                                Abstract


A taxonomy  of serious games  is briefly introduced together  with our
research  on serious  games applications  in healthcare  (e.g.  stroke
rehabilitation,  cystic  fibrosis,  autism  spectrum  disorder  (ASD),
medical visualisation (`NHS Education for Scotland [NES]' project) and
digital  cultural  heritage (`The  Scottish  Ten'  project).  We  then
describe the use of 3D  games technology in medical education based on
our  `M.Sc.   in  Medical  Visualisation  &  Human  Anatomy'  teaching
practice, i.e.  students design  and develop serious games for anatomy
education with the Unity 3D game engine.  Students are engaged in this
process not  only as  consumers of serious  games, but as  authors and
creators. The  benefits of this constructionist  learning approach are
discussed. Five domains  of learning are identified, in  terms of what
anatomy students,  tutors and final users (players)  can learn through
serious  games  and  their   development  process.   We  also  justify
selection of the Unity 3D game engine for serious game development and
discuss the main obstacles to, and challenges for, this constructivist
approach  in teaching non-computing  students.  Finally,  we recommend
that the serious game constructivist  approach can be adopted in other
academic disciplines in higher education.

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Biography

Dr. Minhua (Eunice)  Ma is Reader in Visualisation  & Games Technology
and Head of Academic Programmes  at the Digital Design Studio, Glasgow
School  of  Art,  University  of Glasgow,  Scotland.   Before  joining
Glasgow School  of Art,  she was a  Reader in Visualisation  & Virtual
Reality  and  Programme  Leader  for  the `M.Sc.   in  Computer  Games
Production' at  the School of  Computing & Mathematics,  University of
Derby, England.   She obtained her  Ph.D.  in Computer Science  at the
University of  Ulster, Magee (2005), M.Sc.  in  Computing Science from
the University  of Newcastle upon  Tyne, England (2001) and  M.A.  and
B.A.  in  Linguistics at  Shanghai Normal University,  Shanghai, China
(1998 and 1995 respectively).  Her Ph.D. at Ulster entailed developing
the  world's  first  Digital  StoryTelling  computer  software  system
(CONFUCIUS) for  automatic conversion of  natural language text  to 3D
animation.    Her  research  interests   include  serious   games  for
education, medicine and  healthcare, 3D visualisation, Virtual Reality
and Natural Language Processing with impact in intelligent multimedia,
serious  games  and forensic  visualisation.   Her  research has  been
published in  over 50 journals, peer-reviewed  books and international
conference proceedings.  She has secured research funding from the EU,
UK  NHS, local  government  research development  fund (East  Midlands
Development  Agency) and  charities (Northern  Ireland Chest,  Heart &
Stroke Association)  for her research  in Virtual Reality  and serious
games for  stroke rehabilitation, cystic fibrosis  and autism spectrum
disorder (ASD).

Dr.   Ma   is  Editor-in-Chief  for  the  Serious   Games  section  of
`Entertainment Computing'  journal (Elsevier).  She  has published two
books on  serious games  (`Serious Games &  Edutainment Applications',
`Serious  Games Development  & Applications',  Springer) and  has been
Guest Editor for special issues of  a series of journals. She has also
organised  a  number of  international  conferences  and workshops  in
serious games and 3D visualisation. Dr. Ma is serving on the Editorial
Boards  of  the  Journal  of Intelligent  Decision  Technologies,  the
International  Journal  on   Intelligent  Games  and  Simulation,  ACM
Computing  Reviews  and  numerous international  conference  Programme
Committees.

http://www.gsa.ac.uk/research/supervisors-plus-students/
primary-supervisors/m/ma-minhua-eunice/
http://www.linkedin.com/in/minhuaeunicema
http://www.facebook.com/minhua.eunice.ma
http://twitter.com/ma_minhua
http://www.creativeclyde.com/
http://www.scottishten.org/
http://www.nes.scot.nhs.uk/
http://news.ulster.ac.uk/releases/2005/1877.html

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All Welcome !

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