Background:  The present study describes the development and formative evaluation of the Web‐based Dietary Assessment Software for Children (WebDASC). WebDASC is part of the OPUS project (‘Optimal well‐being, development and health for Danish children through a healthy New Nordic Diet’) and was intended to measure dietary change resulting from a school‐based intervention. Methods:  WebDASC was developed as a self‐administered tool that could be used by 8–11‐year‐old children with or without parent’s aid. The development of WebDASC followed a prototyping approach: focus groups, informal interviews, literature review, and usability tests preceded its release. Special consideration was given to age‐appropriate design issues. Results:  In WebDASC an animated armadillo guides respondents through six daily eating occasions and helps them report foods and beverages previously consumed. A database of 1300 food items is available either through category browse or free text search, aided by a spell check application. A type‐in format is available for foods not otherwise found through category browse or text search. Amount consumed is estimated by selecting the closest portion size among four different digital images. WebDASC includes internal checks for frequently forgotten foods, and the following features to create motivation: a food‐meter displaying cumulative weight of foods reported, a most popular food ranking, and a computer game with a high score list. Conclusions:  WebDASC was developed as an intuitive, cost‐effective, and engaging method to collect detailed dietary data from 8‐ to 11‐year‐old children. Preliminary testing demonstrated that it was well accepted among children.

If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractThis paper outlines the barriers for using computer games in an educational setting by drawing on a study of a two-month history course with the historical strategy game Europa Universalis II. The paper draws on the limited earlier literature on the subject to identify classic areas of difficulty. Some of these are time schedule, physical setting, class expectations, teacher background, genre knowledge, technical problems, experience with group work, teacher preparation, perception of games, class size, priority issue. It is concluded that these factors add up to a tremendous workload on teachers that wish to engage with educational computer games and demands that the teacher possesses a variety of skills.

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This paper overviews research on the educational use of video games by examining the viability of the different learning theories in the field, namely behaviorism, cognitivism, constructionism and the socio-cultural approach. In addition, five key tensions that emerge from the current research are examined: 1) Learning vs. playing, 2) freedom vs. control, 3) drill-and-practice games vs. microworlds, 4) transmission vs. construction, 5) teacher intervention vs. no teacher intervention.