Playware Studios

Playware Studios Asia Pte Ltd is a Singapore based technology company specialising in games for learning.^[2] The company creates both software and hardware products, integrating the two for some projects. With its partnerships with national departments such as Singapore's Ministry of Education and New South Wales Department of Education (Australia), the company has moved increasingly into the education technology space; gaining recognition by industry partners as a major player in bringing 'play into every classroom' on a global scale.^[3]

History

Playware Studios Asia Pte Ltd was founded in 2005.^[2] The company started as a serious games company creating games for the Ministry of Education in Singapore and has focused on using information communication technology to deliver education to students.^[4] From 2005 to 2008, the company developed over 50 serious games titles.^[2]

Since 2008, Playware has moved towards the education technology space, focusing on game based learning products,^[2] with some of the most notable being FutureSchools@Singapore^[5] and Classroom of the Future^[6] projects with the Singapore Ministry of Education, Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore and the National Institute of Education of Singapore.

The company introduced the concept of "Hiving", an emergent game play and user-generated media that can be used by teachers and students through the 3DHive platform to bring engaged learning into the classroom.^[7] Since Hiving was introduced through the FutureSchools@Singapore programme, the opportunity for the development of infocomm-enabled pedagogies has been possible.^[2] Schools are also able to re-design curriculum and assessment tools by incorporating them into the platform; changing their effective administration practices.^[2] Canberra Primary School was the first school to incorporate CanberraLIVE, an integrated virtual learning environment incorporating immersive virtual reality gaming, multi-modal digital media and mobile learning application.^[2]

To make the technology for game-based learning more available to schools, Playware Studios offers its 3DHive product to schools in a freemium model; allowing large parts of the tool to be used by institutions for free.^[2] Copyrights for all games and media content built by the schools on 3DHive belong to the schools themselves.^[3] For schools in Singapore, 3DHive is SSOE compliant and can be installed on all Ministry of Education devices. It is also part of an approved list of software for Singapore schools to be used in their Infocomm Clubs programme sponsored by the Infocomm Development Authority.^[8]

In 2012, Playware Studios' product 3DHive was approved for SSOE deployment for all MOE devices.

In 2013, Playware Studios was a finalist in Microsoft’s 2013 Partner of the Year awards under the category for Public Sector Partner of the Year – Education.^[9]

Products

3DHive

Launched at the end of 2012, 3DHive was originally built for the FutureSchools@Singapore project in a 4-year collaboration with the Ministry Of Education, National Research Foundation and Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore.^[2] Playware Studios collaborated with the team at Canberra Primary School to create 3DHive, an integrated, holistic, pervasive games for learning platform built from the ground up for use in the classroom.[8] Integrated into Microsoft’s Azure platform, the software is for Windows, Linux, Mac OS and Kinect-for-Windows.”^[2]

3DHive is used as an educational games platform to classrooms and more than 500 teachers from 100 K-12 schools and institutions of higher learning in Singapore have been trained to use the platform and students, ranging from primary to secondary school, have learnt and built their own games.^[2] The platform is now being used by schools for game-based and scenario-based learning, integrated project work and for co-curricular activities. It has been used for diverse subjects such as Mathematics, History, Chinese and Character Education.^[2]

Through the platform’s point-and-click game editor software, educators and students are able to input User-Generated-Content; allowing users to learn whilst playing a serious game.^[2] It is cloud-hosted without any setup or overhead costs and has built-in tools for collaboration, classroom management and assessment.^[3]

In 2012, the Supreme Court of Singapore used 3DHive to build ‘The Learning Court’, a game to showcase a virtual version of the Supreme Court.^[10]

The Workforce Development Agency of Singapore also used it to create a role-play game called ‘Explore CI WSQ Virtual World’ for an exhibition on creative industries.^[2] 3DHive was originally built for the FutureSchools@Singapore^[11] project in a 4 year collaboration with Ministry Of Education, National Research Foundation and Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore. Playware Studios collaborated with the team at Canberra Primary School to create 3DHive, an integrated, holistic, pervasive games for learning platform built from the ground up for use in the classroom.^[12]

4Di

4Di is an advanced multimedia technology platform meant for use by institutions and enterprises for communication with large groups of people.^[13][14] The platform has been demonstrated at various conferences including EXCELFest, Games Convention Asia 2009 and ICTLT 2008. The platform allows many people to interact with it (and through it with each other) in one location at the same time.^[15] A new concept was coined to describe 4DI's development, called PM3. It describes the platform experience as polyvalent, multimodal and multimedia.

Polyvalent: Each user has a unique experience with the content that is designed to accommodate the users’ particular needs or tastes. The User Interface is designed to be sensitive to the context of the touch, the temporal context of the object in the simulation, the relational context of the object to other nearby objects as well as the learning context prescribed to the object etc. Therefore, multiple independent messages and conclusions can be derived by interacting with the 4Di.

Multiuser: Users are able to influence the simulation in various different ways and can work independently, collaboratively or competitively amongst each other. The platform is able to support a social experience for up to 45 concurrent users.

Multimodal: The platform has a 42 square meter interactive touch screen, multiple tablets, allowing users to engage in multiple modes. It is capable of allowing wireless connection with personal learning devices from within the lab as well as remote virtual connections over the internet and LAN. It also interprets the overall crowd behaviour of the users which is used as a social indirect input and also effects the simulation. Beyond input, it also engages with multiple senses of the user and transmits information through visual, audio and environmental cues.

Multimedia: The platform is a virtual environment and objects within can be tagged to display a wide range of multimedia files including video, audio, text, pictures, quizzes, tests, and mini-games.

There are various points of interaction with the platform including touch screens, mobile gateways, and cameras.

The 4Di system has a panoramic projection that can be scaled to a very wide view of the virtual world and wrapped around a room, including its floor and roof. Its 3D audio effects allow positional sound to add to the immersion. The first version was built for Canberra Primary School for the purpose of supporting learning through play, one of the core thrusts of the school's FutureSchool@Singapore programme. Dubbed Canberra Live!, the programme lets pupils interact with various immersive learning environments such as 'Historical Singapore', 'Rainforest' and 'Shanghai Expo'.^[2]

A "lite" version of the 4Di system exists. More compact, it uses 3 projector screens connected to two PCs pre-loaded with 3DHive.

References

External links

• Official website
• 3DHive