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University of Bolton, why we are the right choice
Location - Bolton, Greater Manchester
31/05/2022
Ed Owl, a game-based learning app developed by staff and students at the University of Bolton, has been praised by international conference delegates.
The project team from Bolton presented at the prestigious European First Year Experience Conference (EFYE) 2022, in Graz, Austria and the JISC Change Agents Network (CAN) Conference 2022 at UCL, London.
Impressed delegates said they would now look at possibly implementing the application as an Open Educational Resource (OER) to support their own students.
The project is led by Nurun Nahar, an Assistant Teaching Professor based at the University of Bolton’s Institute of Management and funded under the Jenkinson Scheme.
Once logged in to Ed Owl, students can attempt the latest game activity assigned as a task on a module.
They can choose between a timed game of Quiz, Hangman or Match to test their understanding of a topic.
Ed Owl enables students to see their performance on each attempted task and track their learning progress by checking their profiles.
They can also access additional learning resources such as a vlog. or read a journal article relevant to a module topic by going to the ‘Extra’ section of the application which caters to contents co-curated by students and staff.
The development of Ed Owl began in September 2021 with the aim of developing a unique web-based application to support students to achieve specific learning goals in their module through digital games.
Thomas storey, a final year BSc Computing student and research assistant on the project spoke to delegates.
He said: “The general consensus seemed positive and there was interest in Ed Owl as an open-source resource, which gave me a confidence boost, considering the time and effort dedicated to this project.”
Thomas said that the project’s ultimate goal was to have a platform where students were eager to interact with and spend more time reinforcing curriculum knowledge through the application’s features and games.
He added: “I also hope to continue expanding my own skills and portfolio through this research project, which will inspire confidence in prospective future employers.”
For more information on Ed Owl, please contact: n.nahar@bolton.ac.uk.