Today’s learning environments are providing unique challenges and opportunities for learners to interact with different technologies in meaningful, relevant, and innovative ways. The advent of digital educational game-based technologies has precipitated a growing need for faculty to engage learners and keep them motivated and challenged. In digital game-based active learning, immersion and flow are two essential elements of the player experience that occur during game play. Both these concepts are theoretically distinct, but significantly related from an empirical perspective. Immersion focuses on sensory cues that engage the player’s mind via sensory stimulation, such as how involved the player is in the gaming experience and what response is expected on the part of the player. Flow centers on the cognitive aspects of the gaming experience, emphasizing the relationship between a challenging activity and the skills of a player, but also comprising of engagement, control, challenge, and feedback. A motivation for using digital games to support learning is that well designed game-based learning can provide experiences of immersion and flow, thereby simulating authentic problem-solving tasks that combine instruction, learning, and assessment. Players are immersed through interactive " game-like” activities in a competitive game play format and subsequently driven by optimally challenging tasks. Hence, digital game-based learning technologies have the means to immerse players by retaining motivation within the game by providing mastery feedback at multiple levels. Using Badaboom!, a game-based classroom response system developed by the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, this paper sets forth a conceptual framework for immersion and flow in digital game-based learning. Copyright © 2019 Common Ground Research Networks, Ronnie H. Shroff, Fridolin S. Z. Ting, Wai Hung Lam, Some Rights Reserved (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0).

A number of risk factors including obesity, insufficient consumption of fruits and vegetables, and lack of physical activities are responsible for the majority of chronic disease burden. Healthy behaviours should begin early in life with sustained actions, but in many countries there is no system addressing positive health. The opportunities offered by different settings for gaining entry into individuals and groups are of paramount importance for health promotion. Evidence has shown the effectiveness of the Healthy School model to improve healthy eating and physical activities. In this article we report key findings of studies in Hong Kong showing changes in school policies and environment in relationship to student health apart from improvement of health behaviours by adopting the Healthy School framework. A case study has illustrated how the framework created a supportive environment, policies changes, and personal health skills development to improve healthy eating. The Healthy School model can help to combat childhood obesity.
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