Abstract
Nowadays, due to the proliferation of the Internet and the increasing deployment of the plethora of internet connected devices, security and privacy issues are considered fundamental topics in students' education. For instance, semantic attacks (also known as social engineering) such as phishing, aim to deceive or lure people into visiting a seemingly legitimate hyperlink in hopes to disclose their personal information. Similar attacks intend to violate computing devices and usurp users' personal information via the use of malware. All these kinds of attacks, exploit human's lack of knowledge rather than the system vulnerabilities. This is quite expected since attacks of this kind are typically unknown to the non-security-savvy individual, while for some others, the knowledge on security protection measures and privacy awareness is mostly classified as a secondary taskOver the last decades, the concept of integrating learning and entertainment appeared in the Information Technology (IT ...
Nowadays, due to the proliferation of the Internet and the increasing deployment of the plethora of internet connected devices, security and privacy issues are considered fundamental topics in students' education. For instance, semantic attacks (also known as social engineering) such as phishing, aim to deceive or lure people into visiting a seemingly legitimate hyperlink in hopes to disclose their personal information. Similar attacks intend to violate computing devices and usurp users' personal information via the use of malware. All these kinds of attacks, exploit human's lack of knowledge rather than the system vulnerabilities. This is quite expected since attacks of this kind are typically unknown to the non-security-savvy individual, while for some others, the knowledge on security protection measures and privacy awareness is mostly classified as a secondary taskOver the last decades, the concept of integrating learning and entertainment appeared in the Information Technology (IT) field and shaped new terms including learning by playing, Educational entertainment (Edutainment) and Game-Based Learning (GBL). Today, within the context of e-Learning, DGBL generally refers to the deployment of various forms of digital games to support teaching and learning. Such games can be played over the Internet, on personal computers, smartphones, or on specific mobile or traditional game consoles. GBL also pertains to digital board games, card games, and many others that are strategy-intensive. In the literature, DGBL is often referred to as Digital Game-Based Learning (DGBL). On the other hand, smart mobile devices are considered as context-sensitive and one of the most challenging technological fields in formal or lifelong learning due to their intrinsic characteristics such as portability, connectivity, built-in sensors, etc. Taking advantage of this technological trend, several researchers consider that e-Learning has given birth to an independent type of learning, which is known as mobile-Learning (m-Learning). This transformation supports just-in-time and just-in-place learning capabilities, by allowing learners (and instructors) to have instant access to the learning content and collaborative activities anytime, and from arbitrary device types and platforms. Further, several mobile hardware advancements, such as the plethora of sensors and wireless interfaces that these devices offer, have also contributed to a new transformation of m-Learning which is known as ubiquitous learning (u-Learning). So, the plethora of contextual information that can be detected from a u-Learning environment, led to context-aware learning apps. In this context, in this PhD thesis, a literature review is conducted in order to identify several aspects of (m)DGBL for improving students' learning experience, spanning a period from 2004 to 2016. This review also contributes to pinpointing the different mobile characteristics and the main trends in mDGBL environments so far. We also paid special attention to whether the existing mobile games substantially utilize the technological affordances of mobile technologies for supporting innovative and pedagogically efficient context-aware learning environments. In this respect, we used a six-dimensional framework for scrutinizing the inherent constituents of the learning games and bring to the foreground important issues pertaining to mobile and context-aware ubiquitous DGBL. Moreover, this doctoral thesis focuses on the design and development of a novel learning platform that consists of a Learning Content Management System (LCMS) and a mobile DGBL (mDGBL) app for educating and raise users' awareness on basic cybersecurity and privacy issues. More specifically, the implemented mDGBL app, namely CybeAware, comprises a suit of quick games, that can be played either in a standalone or in a client/server mode, and it is designed to support elementary and early secondary students in formal and informal learning to basic Internet security and privacy issues. Further, the mobile version of CyberAware app can be experienced as a classroom or an outdoor learning activity. Contrary to analogous studies found in the literature so far, during the design phase of the app, our focus was not solely on its technological aspects, but we uniformly paid special attention to the educational factor by applying a specific model of motivation.Our findings from both the literature review and the evaluation of CyberAware suggest that, in information security and privacy domains, DGBL is rather the most efficient method to be used toward educating young learners. However, additional evaluation efforts are needed to better assess and estimate the positive impacts of this kind of learning for this particular domain.
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