Background and Motivation:

Over the past decade there has been an increasing interest in electronic games as educational tools.  Educational  games are known to be very motivating and they can naturally embody important learning design principles like exploration, immersion, feedback, increasingly difficult challenges to master.  However, there are mixed results on their actual pedagogical effectiveness, indicating that this effectiveness strongly depends upon preexisting students’ traits such as meta cognitive skills and learning attitudes.  These results are consistent with the mixed results on the effectiveness of exploratory learning environments, not surprisingly since most educational games are exploratory learning environments with a stronger focus of entertainment. 

Artificial Intelligence is already playing an increasingly integral part in both non-educational game design, and the design of more effective exploratory learning environments. This workshop aims to explore if and how AI techniques can also help improve the scope and value of educational games.