Lasse Hakulinen

About

I work as a doctoral student in the Learning+Technology research group. I am also the founder of a little Android game sweatshop called Turska Games.

Research

Short version

My research interests involve using serious games in computer science education.

Longer version

Serious games are games that have also other objectives than pure entertainment. They are being used in education but there are still much more we could do to harness the potential of games. When used right, games can be a great motivator for students to learn and practice the educational objectives.

Games can be used in many different ways in computer science education. Programming courses offer a natural environment where games can be put to use. Implementing games or game-agents can be a motivating assignment for CS students. Games can also be used as a motivating way to teach and deepen the players' understanding when students play a game designed especially for certain learning objectives.

Collaboration with other students can be very beneficial when playing games. Other students might offer different points of view and reasoning methods than the teacher of the course. On the other hand, educational games and puzzle-games can offer students engaging challenges that require a deep understanding of the subject.

Basically I am interested in using any kind of gameful methods to enrich computer science education, including card games, boardgames, ARGs and applying gamification methods to non-game learning environments.

My thesis research is carried out under the supervision of Professor Lauri Malmi. Ari Korhonen D.Sc. (Tech) will also instruct this work.

Publications

Lasse Hakulinen, Tapio Auvinen and Ari Korhonen (To Appear). Empirical Study on the Effect of Achievement Badges in TRAKLA2 Online Learning Environment. In: Proceedings of the Conference on Learning and Teaching in Computing and Engineering (LaTiCE), Macau, 2013.

Lasse Hakulinen (2012). DSAsketch: Data Structures and Algorithms Drawing Game. In: Proceedings of the 12th Koli Calling International Conference on Computing Education Research, Tahko, Finland, 2012. (Poster as pdf)

Ville Karavirta and Lasse Hakulinen (2012). Educational Accelerometer Games for Computer Science. In: Proceedings of the 11th World Conference on Mobile and Contextual Learning, Helsinki, Finland, 2012.

Lasse Hakulinen (2012). Alternate Reality Game for University-Level Computer Science Education. In: Proceedings of the 6th European Conference on Games Based Learning, Cork, Ireland, 2012.

Lasse Hakulinen and Ari Korhonen (2011). PeerWise - Yhteisöllistä oppimista verkossa. Tietojenkäsittelytiede, 33, pp. 15-26, 2011. (in Finnish)

Lasse Hakulinen (2011). Using Serious Games in Computer Science Education. In: Proceedings of the 11th Koli Calling International Conference on Computing Education Research, Koli, Finland, 2011.

Lasse Hakulinen (2011). Card Games for Teaching Data Structures and Algorithms. In: Proceedings of the 11th Koli Calling International Conference on Computing Education Research, Koli, Finland, 2011. (Poster as pdf)

Lasse Hakulinen (2011). Survey on Informatics Competitions: Developing Tasks. Olympiads in Informatics, 5, pp. 12-25.

Lasse Hakulinen and Ari Korhonen (2010). Making the most of using PeerWise in education. In: ReflekTori 2010 - Symposium of Engineering Education, December 9-10, 2010. Aalto University, Lifelong Learning Institute Dipoli, pp 57-67.

Lasse Hakulinen (2010) Using Computer Supported Cooperative Work systems in Computer Science education - Case: PeerWise at TKK. Master's Thesis. Faculty of Information and Natural Sciences, School of Science and Technology, Aalto University.

Tapio Auvinen, Lasse Hakulinen, and Ari Korhonen (2010) Tackling the challenges of a large course with blended learning. In: Taina Joutsenvirta and Liisa Myyry eds. Blended Learning in Finland. Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Helsinki, pp. 126-137.

Other

Lasse Hakulinen (2011) PeerWise - kysymyksiä oppilailta oppilaille. A column in OuLUMA portal (in Finnish).

Contact

You can contact me by...

• ...e-mail: firstname.lastname@aalto.fi
• ...or Twitter: Follow @lhakulin
• ...or
• ...or challenging me for a game of chess, go or triathlon (or any other good game).
• ...or mail: PO Box 15400, Konemiehentie 2, FI-00076 AALTO, FINLAND