A Platform Supporting the Implementation of Collaborative Learning through Participatory Simulations

Student motivation is a key aspect in achieving successful collaborative learning. In the past, some techniques which help to engage the students in a motivating learning activity have been proposed. Among them, Participatory Simulation is one of the newest. In Participatory Simulations, social interaction and motivational effects are the main facilitators. In this work, we present an easy-to-use framework that facilitates the development of mobile computing applications implementing this technique. The use of this framework leads to the development of lightweight peer-to-peer applications for handheld computers with interfaces fully based on pen interaction, and designed to work with handhelds over an ad-hoc wireless network. This paper also shows the development of an application oriented toward the last-year business school undergraduate students for support in learning the concepts of reputation and trust based on the customer’s experience and knowledge generated by a company’s performance during a good or bad experience.