Abstract
Nowadays, due to widespread participation of elementary school children in cyberspace activities, basic cybersecurity education and awareness is deemed necessary. Within this context, knowledge acquisition in this timely and important field has greater chances to be more fruitful when the learner is properly motivated. Also, it is anticipated to be more joyful when knowledge is acquired in the form of a digital game-based activity. The paper at hand discusses the development of a novel mobile app called CyberAware, destined to cybersecurity education and awareness. At present, the game is designed for K-6 children in order to support either or both formal or informal learning. Additionally, due to its mobile characteristics, the game can be experienced as an outdoor or classroom activity. Finally, opposite to similar studies found in the literature so far, our attention is not solely drawn to game’s technological aspects but equally to the educational factor. This is achieved through the consideration and use of the ARCS motivational model already from the game’s design phase.
Highlights
It is rather undisputed that Digital Game Based Learning (DGBL) makes learning more attractive, motivating and personalized from the learner's viewpoint
It has been applied to numerous science education fields and curricula, more lately to cybersecurity education and awareness, which is the topic of this paper
A Game Design Pattern (GDP) pattern that is primarily well-suited to mobile platforms is that of "Quick Games", which in literature is known as mini-games
Summary
It is rather undisputed that Digital Game Based Learning (DGBL) makes learning more attractive, motivating and personalized from the learner's viewpoint. With the advances in mobile computing, the positive outcomes of DGBL become even more reachable in the form of mobile DGBL (mDGBL) In this direction, when creating interactive learning contexts in a mDGBL app, there is a prominent need to identify the highly motivated aspects of a game. In literature, this can be promoted by specific "design patterns". A GDP pattern that is primarily well-suited to mobile platforms is that of "Quick Games", which in literature is known as mini-games These are considered as quick session games that can be played casually and on-the-go. The mobile app described in this paper follows the aforementioned strategy and embeds a number of minigames in order to provide burst-knowledge experience to the learners
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