Art history concepts at play with ThIATRO

Abstract

Games have become an integral part of today's culture, most obviously among younger people. At the same time, learning games have proved that they can be a source of enjoyment and are, if well-made, powerful tools for communicating knowledge. For cultural heritage projects targeted to raising the awareness of the general public, the integration of interactivity and innovative storytelling techniques can be supporting elements to capture their target audiences' enthusiasm. In particular, games that deal with art history have particular flaws in integrating motivating elements. This observation led us to the development of the 3D online learning game, ThIATRO, that immerses the player an exhibition and, as a side-effect communicates knowledge of art history concepts to the player. Its playful approach not only increases motivation to learn but also raises interest in art history and cultural heritage in general. We provide an overview of the design ideas behind ThIATRO and summarize the results of evaluations conducted with a group of 14-year-old pupils in a classroom environment. The results indicate that ThIATRO changes the player's aesthetic response and allows him or her to perceive art on a deeper level.

Unveiling California History Through Serious Games: Fort Ross Virtual Warehouse

“…Our findings verify the importance of realism in digital simulation as many historical SGs have been developed as 3D realistic environments [9][10][11][12][13]. Some games demonstrate that 3D sceneries are able to support situated cognition in a realistic/meaningful environment whether players can interact with cultural objects in their actual context [14][15][16]. Virtual museum and virtual tourism SGs also tend to be as realistic and accurate as possible.…”

“…Virtual museum and virtual tourism SGs also tend to be as realistic and accurate as possible. These last types of SGs allow players to explore accurate reconstructions of historical buildings or manipulate precious artifacts without risk of damage [15][16][17][18][19]. Realism per se does not make a SG validated by historians.…”

“…[30]. Previous works specifically underline that a constructivist approach and situated learning are best practices in the implementation of educational SGs related to history and cultural heritage [13, 16,31]. Although some critics exist to the minimal guidance associated to this learning style [32], we decided to design our SGH using a task-based, constructivist approach to pedagogy.…”

Developing and Exploiting 3D Textured Models for a Serious Game Application

“…Others include a treasure hunt for medieval objects in the Priory Undercrofts game [4], the Battle of Thermopylae [5], the THIATRO [6], the Via Appia application [7], the ICURA for intangible cultural heritage [8], the PLAYHIST experiment [9], the Fort Ross Virtual Warehouse Serious Game [10]. Finally the i-Treasures includes four novel game-like educational applications for traditional singing, for the popular Greek Tsamiko dance, for the art of making pottery and for the contemporary music composition [11].…”

A simulated learning environment of history games for enhancing players’ cultural awareness

“…Papastergiou, 2009), and find that games can have better learning effects than traditional teaching, especially for subjects that are complicated. Other than that, we also found studies using 3D games in learning about cultural heritages and geographical history tour guides (Bellotti, Berta, Gloria, D'Ursi, & Fiore, 2012;Froschauer, Merkl, Arends, & Goldfarb, 2013;Mortara et al, 2014). Therefore, this research tried to use digital games to allow students to experience the histories and geographies that they cannot experience in person.…”