GALA Deliverable D2.1 - Pedagogy Field Report

This field report documents the initial activities undertaken by members of the Technical Committee on Pedagogy in Serious Games (TC2.8). This committee's fundamental mission is to investigate the relationship between pedagogy and Serious Games (SGs) so as to gain a better understanding of how SGs can support educational processes. The report describes the initial steps undertaken in establishing the group's foundations, which serve as a basis for its subsequent activities throughout GaLA's lifetime. A key aspect in this regard has been definition of TC2.8's area of activity and organisation of its work. As part of these efforts a provisional roadmap has been outlined to clarify the steps to be followed in pursuit of the group's aims. After a brief introduction, Section 2 of this document reports the general considerations about the field of pedagogy and SGs that TC2.8's members have expressed during on-going discussions. These have regarded the main factors seen to be underpinning fragmentation in this research sector and identification of perceived gaps and hot topics to be verified and addressed in the scope of the Committee's further activities with the aid of input from a systematic literature search. Hence, Section 2 lists and briefly outlines each of the gaps and hot topics identified thus far. The implications of each of these items is discussed in greater detail in Section 4, which also provides a provisional roadmap outlining the steps that TC2.8 will take in addressing those implications. Section 5 reports identified links and interconnections with other TCs, together with collaborative undertakings and project activities that have already been initiated as a direct result of TC2.8 efforts. Finally, Section 6 presents some preliminary conclusions from this first field reporting period.