Volume 5, No. 2 July - September 2008
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Journal of Educational Technology Editor-in-Chief Joe Winston
EDITORIAL COMMITTEE Dr. Gulsun Kurubacak
Asst. Professor in Distance Education, Anadolu University, Eskisehir TURKEY.
Dr. Lee Allen
Dr. Dinesh Katre Dr. Mohammad Ali Salmani Nodoushan Dr. Tom Page
English Department, College of Humanities, University of Zanjan, Zanjan, UK. Lecturer, Dept.of Design & Technology, Loughborough University, UK.
Dr. Cheri Toledo
Asst. Professor, IIIinois State University, Iiinois, USA.
Dr. Mary Mcnabb
Director, Learning Gauge, Inc., Chicago, USA.
Dr. Myint Khine
Shony Padmanabhan
Group Co-ordinator, National Multimedia Resource Centre, Pune, India. Associate Professor, Emirates College for Advanced Education, Abu Dhabi, UAE.
Dr. Nektaria Palaiologou Dept. Of Technology & Digital Systems, University of Piraeus, Greece.
Dr. Freda Turner Dr. Brian Mathews,
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CONTENTS
EDITORIAL Myint Swe Khine Special Issue Editor, Associate Professor, Emirates College for Advanced Education, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
Computer games as new media culture have become increasingly popular among young people. Today most children play different genre of games at different times depending on their age, maturity and opportunity. They seem to spend considerable amount of time not only in playing games, but also in socializing about games outside their school hours. Educators believe that game playing involves complex cognitive skills, real-time decision making, managing resources in critical situations and problem-solving. This special issue of i-manager's Journal of Educational Technology on Educational Games for Engaged Learning brings together a set of articles each addressing the use of computer games for learning in different contexts. Cheryl Seals, Jacqueline Hundley and Lacey Montgomery reported a game design and development course offered in a university in the United States. The authors noted that students today have grown up exposed to gaming, interactive and 3D environments. Creating a set of game design classes utilizing gaming as a teaching tool can attract and instruct students with familiar methods and environments. The paper details the development of an introductory game design class, its structure, artefacts created, and student and instructor's reflections. In Oncology of serious games, Lakshmi Prayaga and Karen Rasmussen describe that computer games are not only used for entertainment and they have also become a useful instructional tool for acquiring knowledge. In their paper they reported how serious games can enable the player to learn a task, master a strategy or develop a skill. They argued that serious games can be used for education and training in any organization and suggest that application of serious games requires an ontology for designing high-quality materials. Kowit Rapeepisarn, Kok Wai Wong, Chun Che Fung and Myint Swe Khine present a conceptual model to create effective educational computer games for undergraduate classroom learning. The paper investigates the appropriate computer game genre by integrating the learning conceptions from the previous researchers. They analyse the data collected from undergraduate classes and proposed a guideline for game designers to consider appropriate game genres for education purpose. Scott Warren and Greg Jones from University of North Texas, USA put forward Yokoi's theory of lateral innovation and its applications for learning game design. In their paper they discuss how a theory of design from famed game system designer Gunpei Yokoi can be used in learning game design to deliver low-cost, engaging play for learning. In Play, games and attitudes: student and teacher perspectives of educational games, Gerri Mongillo presented a quantitative study carried out in a North Eastern middle school to determine the influence of participation in educational games on cognition and attitudes towards learning scientific language and concepts during the game play. They have concluded that students who are not interested or reluctant to participate in the class may be encouraged to express their opinions and ideas in a more relax environment provided by the game structures in fostering cooperative learning. Michael Evans and Feihong Wang in their paper, The overlapping worlds view: analysing identity transformation in real and virtual worlds and the effects on learning, explore the immersive virtual 3D environment of a game and determine the formation of world views by the players. Separate Worlds views and Identitical Worlds views were examined and they proposed a third option, Overlapping Worlds Views. Finally, Hakan Tuzun and his colleagues offer an evaluation of computer games for learning about mathematical functions. In their study they evaluated the usability of game environments for teaching and learning about mathematical functions. The paper provides information about game design process, implementation and evaluation as well as reflection of the entire process. We extend our gratitude and appreciation to all contributors for sharing their insight and understanding about the use of games in education and it is hoped that readers will benefit from these experiences.
ABOUT THE SPECIAL ISSUE EDITOR Dr. Myint Swe Khine is currently working as an Associate Professor of Instructional Science and Technology, Emirates College for Advanced Education, United Arab Emirates. He teaches pedagogy and technology courses in undergraduate and postgraduate teacher education programmes. He has published over 100 articles and research papers in international journals.
ARTICLES GAME DESIGN & DEVELOPMENT: USING COMPUTER GAMES AS CREATIVE AND CHALLENGING ASSIGNMENTS By CHERYL SEALS*
JACQUELINE HUNDLEY**
LACEY STRANGE MONTGOMERY***
* Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering, Auburn University. ** Ph.D Student, Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering, Auburn University *** Ph.D student, Auburn University
ABSTRACT This paper describes a game design and development course. The rationale for forming this class was to use student excitement with video games as an intrinsic motivation over traditional courses. Today's students have grown up exposed to gaming, interactive environments, and vivid 3D. Computer gaming has the capacity to attract many new students to computer science and information technology majors. The rationale of creating a set of game design classes utilizes gaming as a teaching tool to attract and instruct students with familiar methods and environments. This work will introduce the development of an introductory game design class, its structure, artifacts created and student and instructor's reflections. INTRODUCTION
the nation have seen a drastic decline in student
In recent years there has been a lot of excitement about
enrollment. This is evidence of a growing problem that we
computer gaming as evidenced by the increase in video
will not have enough students in our majors to fill the great
game sale by the computer gaming industry. In April
need for technology careers. The Monthly Labor Review
2007, there was a 15% increase in game sales
specifies that by 2012, the United States will have 500,000
(Brightman, 2006).
With this increase in interest, the
technology jobs that we will not have the personnel to fill in
authors wanted to leverage this enthusiasm and have a
this country. How to get students more excited about
carry over effect into the classroom. Computer gaming
technology in general and specifically computer
will also increase student motivation and attract students
technology and programming?
to the computer science major. The authors wanted to
This class was created with interdisciplinary student
take advantage of intrinsic motivation. “Intrinsic
population in mind. There was detailed introduction to
motivation, also known as self-motivation, refers to
computer gaming theory, design and development, with
influences that originate from within a person which cause
an introduction to the gaming industry.
Does this
a person to act or learn” (Bomia et al., 1997). Today's
interdisciplinary type of class fit into the traditional set of
students have grown up exposed to gaming, interactive
classes within the CS major? This would be very
environments, and vivid 3D. The rationale of creating a set
challenging because of accreditation, but would fit
of game design classes utilizes gaming as a teaching tool
nicely as a special topics class or as a class leading to a
to attract and instruct students with familiar methods and
game design certificate. With so many courses that are
environments. This work will introduce the development of
required (e.g. our department only allows 2 electives) it
an introductory game design class, its structure, artifacts
would be very challenging for students to take this course
created, and student and instructor's reflections
unless highly motivated by the subject matter.
(Brightman, 2006).
students take Game Design and Development, they must
Computer Science departments worldwide and across
currently take it as an independent study and not as a
i-manager’s Journal of Educational Technology, Vol. 5 l No. 2 l July - September 2008
So if
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ARTICLES component of the standard curriculum.
“We found that it might be more effective to teach the art
Background
design students how to program, rather than to teach the
Teaching Software Engineering and programming through a game design course can be highly beneficial to students in that it integrates a wide array of topics which is more realistic and in pragmatic fashion. In order to create a computer game, a student would need a toolkit of methods. They would learn these methods from prior
CS student how to draw” (Tsai, Huang, & Zeng, 2006). This might prove difficult, but many of game programming activities are scaffold by the use of game programming t o o l s w i t h g r a p h i c a l u s e r i n t e r f a c e s ( e. g. 3DGameStudioTM, VirtoolsTM, Quest3DTM, HalfLife2, etc.)” In addition, by learning to program the art/design
experience and new information presented in a gaming
students improve their technical communication skills,
course. This type of development effort would combine
which allow them to better interface with the
the artificial intelligence, software engineering, graphics,
programmers in the future. “This is a skill which is necessary
networking, and human computer interaction (Claypool
in the game industry, where programmers and art
& Claypool, 2005). The application of skills that are highly
designers must work very closely together to get their work
transferable is always to the student's advantage. This will
done” (Tsai, Huang, & Zeng, 2006).
provide a practical, yet fun alternative to homework
One of the biggest determining factors of student
reinforcing breadth and depth of knowledge (e.g.
success is motivation, proper foundation, and
computer programming and application of music and
determination. The hope in designing this course is to take
art knowledge).
advantage of the powerful lure of gaming. Many students
Game Design and Programming will utilize fundamental
are motivated by the desire to be a part of shaping the
computer science subjects in practical ways and will
future games industry. The rationale was to engage
incorporate concepts from physics, mathematical
student interest, and to develop a course to attract
modeling, and game specific principles that are not
students to computer science and computer
generally covered with rigor in traditional computer
technology.
science curricula. In an attempt to provide enrichment
Why include gaming courses in computer science
and classes for the non traditional student many game
curricula?
trade schools have worked to capitalize on the
There are various reasons to provide gaming courses in
burgeoning interest in computer gaming.
They have
the computer science curriculum. Intrinsic Motivation is
offered many game classes, but the game industry
good reason to create game courses. “Motivation is
decries this approach. They need students who have a full
student's willingness, need, desire and compulsion to
foundation in computer science with exposure to
participate in, and be successful in the learning process”
networking, programming proficiency, algorithms, and
(Bomia et al., 1997). With the help of intrinsic motivation,
artificial intelligence. The gaming industry require
instructors have enthusiastic harder working classes, while
students trained not only in the areas that support
extrinsic motivation like grades in many cases is not as
programming, but well rounded students who are also
compelling for many students. Gaming courses will take
trained in liberal arts (e.g. history, art, music, creative
advantage of intrinsic motivation to support recruitment
writing). This gives the students a firm foundation and
and retention efforts, because many students are
develops accomplished scholars and game designers
interested in games and can leverage the enthusiasm for
(Coleman, Krembs, Labouseur & Weir, 2005). Basic
gaming in the classroom. Many freshmen are interested
programming can be taught, but creativity is not
in computer science because of their love of video
something that one just mass produce on an assembly
gaming and the opportunity to create the things they love
line. It is required to develop non linear thinkers to create
and spend enormous amounts of time with. Gaming
something truly innovative. 2
i-manager’s Journal of Educational Technology, Vol. 5 l No. 2 l July - September 2008
ARTICLES courses can provide real world experience in research
and game development at near the same levels they are
based learning and game programming.
enamored with video games.
The rationale for the course design was to attract students
Background research also continued by talking to
who were interested in game playing. In many cases with
colleagues at the first game design conference to find
future instantiations of the class a true interdisciplinary mix
out the current state of the art in game design and in
would be appropriate. In most gaming companies there
game course material. From that meeting, a myriad of
are groups that would work with story & plot, graphics,
useful things to investigate (game industry leaders,
animation, music, networking, etc. To have a truly
instructors, their websites, links to course pages, books and
industrial strength game experience, the game
other materials) were found. With this ammunition, two
development team members need to become
courses “Introduction and Game Design” and “Game
mini-experts in areas that support game development.
Design and Development” were designed. The book
The idea of Game Development team throws an extra
chosen for the course is a unique book in that it combines
caveat into the class. The projects are software
the wisdom and expertise of over 25 game industry
engineering projects where team members must
professionals to give an unprecedented view of game
collaborate and share ideas to have successful projects
development from game design to programming, to
(e.g. pair programming). The hope with pair
production and business issues (Rabin, 2005). A
programming exercises is that members don't get stuck
secondary text “Game Design Workshop” was used to
as often and that they can feed off one another's
direct more application oriented section of the class
enthusiasm and knowledge. This is more practical and
(Fullerton, Swain & Hoffman, 2004).
realistic, because in many real world projects
The game design text was the framework for the game
programming is not done in isolation for all of your work.
theory section of the class and was based on the
Members are accountable and their work must be
curriculum framework proposed by the International
integrated into the whole. Also with just one semester
Game Developers Association (IGDA). The Game class
there was not enough time to be exposed to the richness
structure had three major components which are theory,
of gaming design and development. There are just not
application and presentation.
enough curriculum hours and many problems and
Component one is game theor y with lecture,
frustrations were caused by not having a dedicated
assignments and illustration, Component two is
gaming lab.
application of game theory by creating a game during
Game Class Structure
the class that can be played and is fun., Component
The question which came to mind, “How do we improve
three is the presentation of special game topics to give
computer science & software engineering enrollments?”
students more ownership of the content material and the
The investigation began by jumping on the information
intermediate and final game presentation included a
superhighway to search for the Holy Grail to hold the
show and tell of their final creations.
attention of teen and young students. In conversing with
Component One: Game Class Theory
other instructors, colleagues, friends and family, one thing
The
that kept staying in the fore front of the conversations, was
curriculum models to focus course structure:
Rabin
t e x t,
presented
three
sample
video games and the gaming industry and that “you
programming-oriented, inter-disciplinary and game
can't get students to their homework, but you can't get
design. The inter-disciplinary with the rationale of the
them to put down their video games”. This fueled the idea
broadest coverage of topics was chosen to support
that a game development class should be started as an
students who may be interested in gaming, but who may
elective to gauge student interest to study game theory
not have an extensive background in programming and
i-manager’s Journal of Educational Technology, Vol. 5 l No. 2 l July - September 2008
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ARTICLES may be more interested in game design.
The class
began with an introduction, overview of video games and some of the other topics are as follows:
development driven class. Component Two: Game Design Projects The rationale for the game design course was to create a
Readings in critical game studies: Ludology for game
class to motivate students to explore other types of
Developers
software not traditionally used in Computer Science
The Games Industry
Readings in Understanding Fun
classrooms.
The projects were all designed to be
educational software that would be supportive to middle and high school lesson plans. An initial engine was
Finding Flow
Game production & teams
Intro to gaming Application (3Dgame studio)
Game Design Documentation
Introduction to Level Design
iterative development, which where levels behind
Modeling
recently released software. This inconsistency caused half
Modeling Application
of the groups to choose other software for their
Human-computer interaction (HCI)
Game Development Project Work
Interface design Computer
Computer Graphics
interesting way to approach the topic and yielded many
Game scripting and programming
different types of products. But not mandating one
Collision Detection Extras
environment was problematic because the instructor
Game data structures and algorithms
only had experience with one environment, which meant
Artificial intelligence
Network Extras
How to Prototype a Game in Under 7 Day
Play testing (Game Usability Testing)
suggested for the first game programming effort, but many found frustration in this environment, in that it was on the bleeding edge of development with frequent updates and documentation (e.g. tutorial support) of
development work. All student teams were encouraged to explore and find software that would best support their project goals of developing creative educational software. This was an
that in-depth level support would not be available beyond the precursory level of mechanics. This introduces diverse software usage issues, which encourage exploration to find support materials. Also each team needed to investigate the appropriate
Facilities
means in the chosen environment to complete the game
With this being an experimental class, there were
programming project in successful and effective ways.
problems based on obtaining adequate facilities and
The application component of the class was an
software support for the class. With space at a premium
opportunity for students to practice their software
we were able to place some equipment and software in
engineering skills and go through the entire software
an educational lab, but this was problematic in that
engineering lifecycle. They had to create requirements,
everything is recycled each semester which caused the
create initial design, prototype games and play test
loss of some software and other tools. For the Game
games to receive feedback about their designs. In all
Design and Development class, students relied on
there were six games created in the Game Design and
individual downloads from free game design engines
Development class. In the 3D game category there were
which caused consistency problems. For future
three games (engine): Xtreme Rally, Mindcept and
iteractions of the class, there is necessity of having
PsychGame. Xtreme Rally is a car racing game created
dedicated lab facilities for an application and
with 3D game studio (Figure 1). Mindcept was created
4
i-manager’s Journal of Educational Technology, Vol. 5 l No. 2 l July - September 2008
ARTICLES with Half-Life 2 source engine as an adventure game and
needed to create a functional game, an example of one
players solve puzzles to advance (Figure 2). PsychGame
of the games created during the course is presented.
was created with 3D game studio engine and has a series
DITTO: An educational game
of exercises based upon Pavlovian conditioning
Ditto was one of the games created for the game design
(Figure 3).
and development class. Ditto is an educational puzzle
Also in the 2D category there were three games:
game with mechanics similar to games like
Destination Travelers, Ditto, and Street Legal Customs.
Concentration and Memory where the player tries to find
Destination Travelers was created in Flash and the game
matching pairs. Each pair consists of related information,
depicts a family on vacation and the choices they are
like two with the same color or one with a term and the
presented with. Ditto was created with the jMonkey engine
other with information about the term.
as a series of puzzles for youth to teach recognition
Figure 4 shows an example where two matching pairs
through matching drills (e.g. mathematics facts). “Street
have been found. These four blocks have been removed
Legal Customs” was created in Flash as a game for youth
revealing four squares of the background picture. The
financial management and the players buy parts for cars
user, then, selects two more blocks, the word “Duck” and
based on their credit. All of the games created during the
the elephant picture. These blocks do not match and will
class were very interesting, playable and well liked by their
be turned back around to the side containing the letter.
classmates. As an illustration of the breadth of experience
Figure 5 also demonstrates Ditto as a multi-player game. At the bottom of the screen, the scores of two players are visible. Ditto fits the educational and puzzle genres. Education games teach as they entertain. Puzzles are categorized as casual games which combine pattern matching,
Figure 1. Extreme Rally Car Race.
Figure 4. Animal names Figure 2. Mindcept: Dreams are your prison.
Figure 3. PsychGame.
Figure 5. Sample Matching Pairs of Blocks.
i-manager’s Journal of Educational Technology, Vol. 5 l No. 2 l July - September 2008
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ARTICLES logic, strategy, luck, and often time elements. They do not
based graphics API. It was built to provide a full-featured
have a story as common adventure game, but are an
graphics engine written in Java. It allows any rendering
end themselves. The goal in designing a puzzle game is
system to be plugged in by using an abstractor layer. jME
not to make the player feel stupid, but to allow him to
supplies the user with easy to use, but powerful classes for
challenge himself and to help him win. Most puzzles are
building the application.
un-timed and allow trial and error without penalty. These
At a fundamental level, it uses scene graph architecture.
characteristics make puzzles a good educational
Each game state constructs a tree to be rendered by the
medium. Educational game developers must work
engine. This allows for a hierarchical scene design to be
closely with experts in the field of knowledge presented in
translated directly into code. The texturing capabilities of
the game. There should be a clear goal of what the player
the engine were used and found to be fairly intuitive. No
will learn through the game. The game should present
attempt was made to load any externally built models or
age appropriate information in an age appropriate
animations. As for other libraries, FengGUI was used to
manner. The interface should be designed in such a way
create the 2D menu interface. FengGUI is an openGL GUI
not to clutter the screen with confusing objects. Every time
toolkit. JME allows for the use of both Swing and AWT, and it
a player does something, he wants to see something
is likely that other toolkits could be integrated. For xml
happen. Educational games should encourage the
parsing, a library called dom4J was used which is a
player to continue. This can be accomplished by earning
wrapper around javax.xml. It is quite convenient for most
points or receiving encouraging responses to the play
XML processing purposes.
action. It is important to address inactivity in educational games (Bates, 2004).
Game Development Teams In Game Design & Development class, students were
Game Development Strategy
instructed that interdisciplinary team can be highly
The goal for the development of the game Ditto was to
productive and have great outcomes. A key to success in
implement multiple categories (Figure 5) and levels of
game development is a development team of diversified
difficulty from which the user can choose. The categories
skills. There are many team components when
included Chinese Symbols, Math Facts (addition,
developing a game such as storyboarding, graphics
subtraction, multiplication, and division), sign language,
design, Artificial Intelligence, Audio, Dialog, Technical
shapes, colors, etc. The levels of difficulty (easy, medium,
Writers, etc. Although many of the computer science
and hard) determined the numbers of blocks in the game
students developed games, which revolved around
puzzle.
computer programming at the end of their development
The first layer simply implemented one category, animal
process they began to see the benefits of having other
names, at the lowest level of difficulty. After this scenario
components like formally trained technical writers to work
was playable, subsequent layers were developed
on dialog or story, artists to work with animation, musicians
allowing the selection of a category and level of difficulty
to work with audio design, etc. There are many other
using a menu. The information about each game
aspects that are highly important to a good compelling
category was stored in a set of XML files. The game engine
game.
had a game state manager to allow for intuitive
The first task was to designate workable team structures
management of game states.
and all groups were allowed to form based on a group
Game Engine
synergy. Two groups were single member teams (e.g.
The Java Monkey Engine (jME) was chosen as the basis for
PsychGame and MindCept). One group consisted of
the game. The jMonkey Engine (jME) is an open source
three team members (i.e. Ditto) with one developer, one
from (jMonkey, 2007) with high performance scene graph
graphic designer, and a technical writer. This group had
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i-manager’s Journal of Educational Technology, Vol. 5 l No. 2 l July - September 2008
ARTICLES good synergy and their game was successful and was
how to compromise, be flexible, work within a team and
well received by the class during playtesting. Two groups
realized that all members of a team will have unique
h a d f o u r m e m b e r s ( i . e. X t r e m e R a l l y a n d
contributions. The teams, in many cases, had varying
StreetLegalCustoms). In both groups, majority of the
levels of ability and skills in each area, which in many
members were assigned to program different
cases proved challenging and frustrating. Even with
components of the games and one technical writer to
introductory materials to train the students in the benefits
organize writing, internal group testing, external
of pair programming and working in teams, the semester
playtesting and presentations. This team organizational
was concluded with two one creator games. Each of
structure worked very well for these two teams. The whole
these designers wanted to render their artistic vision
team worked together to define the vision for their game,
without compromise and in the end developed a solo
create a name for their project group, and started
effort. These individuals were very skilled programmers
thinking about marketing, in case their game develops a
and were able to create working games during the
liking/following. The first class milestone was complete
project period of the class time utilizing game engines.
when groups presented their game vision and the
Each game was designed, developed, unit tested and
tentative schedule for management of people and time
playtested in a 4-8 weeks period based upon the size of
resources.
team and size of the final game.
The second step for each team was to develop a website
Component Three: Game Presentations
to help manage group resources and as a dissemination
The rationale for game presentations was twofold, to
point for project deliverables. This website contained
serve as milestones for deliverables and to reinforce
project abstract, description, presentation, and in some
student professional development. Also in many cases
cases the actual game or video. Team Ditto created a
students will have to give professional presentations in the
very personable website that was very reflective of the
future either in the academic world as teachers or in the
group's synergy for their game design project.
business world as training sessions they provide for their
The next step was to design and develop interesting, fun
colleagues and trainees. Each group gave three
and playable games. The Game Design & Development
presentations during the semester. The first group
group all conducted iterative development and rapid
presentation described their game ideas with the theme,
prototyping. They began with Designing their game,
intended game play with paper prototypes and sketches
creating specifications, coding and testing, which were
of proposed setting. The second presentation for each
fed back into iterative redesign of the game until alpha
group was a midterm status report to give all an indication
release of their games were ready for class playtesting.
of their progress and as a reminder that their time budget
The final step in the rapid design cycle was unit testing and
for rapid prototyping was half over. The final presentation
bug testing to get the applications working properly and
for each group was their final presentation with the final
preparing for playtesting of their created works by other
game status, results of playtesting, and demonstration of
students from their class. In all cases, players found that
the working game.
the appearance, user interface and game interaction
Results and Future Work
were very important. In team Ditto, all of their team
The results for the instructor were, that in the future they will
members were computer science majors, and relied on
continue with more offerings of the game design and
the coding strength of one member and the design skills
development class. Many students were frustrated by the
of the others.
theoretical portions of the class, but were highly
It was found that working in game development teams
motivated by the class game projects.
was highly instructive for all students in that they learned
motivated by wanting to have a great game that their
i-manager’s Journal of Educational Technology, Vol. 5 l No. 2 l July - September 2008
Many were
7
ARTICLES peers and they would enjoy. The results from the Ditto
expressed that working together was a rewarding activity
team were, that they were very proud of the cleanness of
during the class.
the code. The game action was simple but challenging.
References
Ditto can be marketed as a learning reinforcement tool. They were motivated by their experience and thought that given more time, they would expand the game by adding more categories. Other features that would enhance the game are: a high score list, keyboard block selection, two players, music and sound, and online play. Conclusion
[1]. Bates, B. (2004). Game Design (2nd ed.). Boston: Thompson Course Technology. [2]. Birdwell, K. (1999). The Cabal: Valve's Design Process For Creating Half-Life. Retrieved November 16, 2008 from http://www.gamasutra.com/features/19991210/birdwell _01.htm. [3]. Bomia, L., Beluzo, L., Demeester, D., Elander, K.,
From the instructor perspective, the class met its intended baseline of introducing students to the gaming industry, game design and development, and the creation of educational games. There were many varying levels of students' game attainment based upon overall effort and coordination of groups. Many suffered from not understanding pair programming and group projects, knowing that they have to work together from the beginning to make sure that the project meshes well during the end of a project. For the groups that understood that there is a division of labor and coordination that is necessar y for a successful programming project they received much better results in the end with much less trauma. Groups that waited until late in the game to coordinate their resources in many cases could not or had to do some recreation in order for
Johnson, M., & Sheldon, B. (1997). The impact of teaching strategies on intrinsic motivation. Champaign, IL: ERIC Clearinghouse on Elementary and Early Childhood Education. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 418 925). [4]. Brightman, J. (2006). U.S. Video Game Sales Up 15.5% in April. GameDaily Biz. (May 16, 2006). Retrieved October 8, 2007 from http://biz.gamedaily.com/industry/feature/? Id=12700&rp=49. [5]. Claypool, K. and Claypool, M. (2005). Teaching software engineering through game design. In Proceedings of the 10th Annual SIGCSE Conference on innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (Caparica, Portugal, June 27-29, 2005, ITiCSE '05) ACM Press, New York, NY, 123-127.
their games to work successfully. Our assumption is that
[6]. Coleman, R., Krembs, M., Labouseur, A., and Weir, J.
students performed higher based on being more
(2005). Game design & programming concentration
motivated to bring their own creations to life virtually and
within the computer science curriculum. In Proceedings
that a game enhanced course will motivate students
of the 36th SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer
better than traditional instruction.
Science Education (St. Louis, Missouri, USA, February 23-
From a student's perspective, a gaming course offered
27, 2005). SIGCSE '05. ACM Press, New York, NY, 545-550.
the practical application of the software engineering and
[7]. Fullerton, T., Swain, C. & Hoffman, S. (2004). Game
human computer interaction skills they have learned in
Design Workshop: Designing, Prototyping and Playtesting
traditional Computer science courses. The projects
Games. San Francisco, CA: CMP Books.
allowed for the integration of many forms of creativity with
[8]. jMonkey Engine. n.d. Retrieved March 8, 2007 from
respect to computer science skills. Investigating types of
www.jmonkeyengine.com.
games and interface possibilities was interesting and the
[9]. Lewis, M. and Jacobson, J. (2002). Game engines in
designing of the interfaces and interactions was
scientific research. Communication of the ACM 45, 1
enjoyable. Most teams possessed a wide array of coding,
(Jan. 2002), 27-31.
graphic design and interface design skills that they drew
[10]. Rabin, S. (2005). Introduction to game
upon to complete their projects. The students also 8
i-manager’s Journal of Educational Technology, Vol. 5 l No. 2 l July - September 2008
ARTICLES development. Hingham, MA: Charles River Media, Inc.
[12]. Tsai, M., Huang, C., and Zeng, J. (2006). Game
[11]. Smith, M. (2008). V Game equips first responders to
programming courses for non programmers. In
save lives: New virtual world hones paramedics' triage
Proceedings of the 2006 International Conference on
skills. Retrieved July 5, 2008 from http://videogames.
Game Research and Development (Perth, Australia,
Yahoo.com/feature/game-equips-first-responders-to-
December 04-06, 2006). ACM International Conference
save-lives/ 1223748.
Proceeding Series, vol. 223. Murdoch University, Murdoch University, Australia, 219-223.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Cheryl D. Seals, Ph. D. is an Assistant Professor in the Computer Science and Software Engineering Department at Auburn University. She conducts research in Human Computer Interaction with an emphasis in visual programming of educational simulations with end user programming, intelligent agent, usability evaluation, computer supported collaborative work, minimalism and additionally she is also involved in software engineering projects. Jacqueline H. Hundley is a Ph.D student in the Computer Science and Software Engineering Department at Auburn University. She conducts research in Software Engineering with an emphasis in curriculum development and software engineering tools usage for CS1/CS2. Lacey S. Montgomery is a Ph.D student at Auburn University. She graduated Magna Cum Laude with a Bachelor of Software Engineering degree from Auburn University in Fall 2004. Lacey is president of the local Upsilon Pi Epsilon honor society. Her research is in the area of sensor networks and location sensing and visualization. Lacey currently teaches Java programming lab.
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ARTICLES
ONTOLOGY OF SERIOUS GAMES By LAKSHMI PRAYAGA*
KAREN L. RASMUSSEN**
* Assistant Professor, Computer Science/Engineering and Computer Technology, University of West Florida. ** Professor, Engineering and Computer Technology, University of West Florida.
ABSTRACT Computer games are no longer just for entertainment; they have also become a useful instructional strategy for acquiring knowledge. When games are used for purposes other than strict entertainment they become serious games. The goal of serious games is to enable the player to learn a task, master a strategy or develop a skill. Serious games can be used for education and training in any organization, including military, K-20 education, business and industry. The application of serious games in a wide arena requires an ontology for designing high-quality materials. Keywords: Games as instructional strategy, serious games, ontology, ontology of serious games.
INTRODUCTION
concepts within a career-related scenario or context. The
Games have entered the instructional strategy world as a
framework developed for the design of the games
valuable tool that can be used to engage learners.
culminated in the design of this ontology. A definition of
Games have been used for education and training in
games and serious games is provided to establish a
many ways for multiple content areas, using a variety of
context for such an ontology.
strategies. Effective, efficient and meaningful games that
Defining Games
are serious in nature, provide educators a valuable
Games are a fundamental aspect of human existence
resource that they can use it to promote performance
and are contextualized and defined by the player. Some
and motivation. From pure entertainment to the notion of
researchers define games through processes such as
a game with educational focus, games have emerged
play, rules, and competition (Salen & Zimmerman, 2003).
as a way to engage learners. Design of a serious game
Wittgenstein (1953) proposed that it is not possible to have
requires a comprehensive ontology to focus efforts and
a single definition for the concept “game.” He suggested
development of the end product. This paper presents
defining games as activities with rules, play, or
such ontology and is organized into four main sections:
competition all fail to adequately define the term game.
essential characteristics of a learning environment,
Others (Crawford, 1997, 2003; Kramer, 2000; Salen &
essential characteristics of games, games as an
Zimmerman) have tried to define games based on
instructional strategy and ontology for serious games.
semantics, emotions, and rules. Kramer documented
The ontology for serious games described in this paper is a
that in the German language a game is any activity which
result of research in formalizing a design for educational
is executed only for pleasure and without conscious
(serious) games to teach middle school mathematics in
purpose. In this definition every activity that brings
the context of career themes. The researchers involved in
pleasure is a game (Kramer). Crawford suggested that
this activity included faculty from the University of West
games are scenarios which have rules and provide
Florida and personnel from the Escambia County School
equity. However, the aspect of learning seems to be
District who were awarded a Math and Science
implicit in the definition of the term game. Every game
partnership grant by the Florida Department of Education
requires that the player learn and master rules to play the
in 2007 to develop serious games that integrated Algebra
game and win, which means that games are inherently
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ARTICLES educational, although the purpose and the intent of the
based on theoretical foundations of learning theories
player may not, in fact, be one targeted to learning
including behaviorism, cognitivism, and constructivism.
(Crawford, 1997). For the purpose of this paper, games will
Common elements applicable to the ontology of serious
be defined as enjoyable and entertaining educational
games in these theories include motivation, contextual
activities that involve rules, challenge and interactivity
relevance, challenge, scaffolding, student engagement
(Salen & Zimmerman).
and feedback. Context, through authentic learning
Serious Games
environments, provides a framework for serious game
Serious games are serious business, contributing to an economy of $2 trillion in the global market towards education and government sponsored training (Susi, Johannesson, & Backlund, 2008). Michael and Chen (2006) define serious games as games that “do not have
development. Instructional design models (e.g., Gagné's (1985) nine events of Instruction, Keller's ARCS model, Malone's Motivational model) provide ways to incorporate resulting instructional strategies to enhance instruction.
entertainment, enjoyment, or fun as their primary
Motivation promotes a desire and curiosity to participate
purpose, … [that] use the artistic medium of games to
and explore the educational content. Malone (1981)
deliver a message, teach a lesson, or provide an
suggested that “if students are intrinsically motivated to
experience” (p. 21). This definition does not mean to imply
learn something, they may spend more time and effort
that serious games do not have entertainment value; in
learning, feel better about what they learn, and use it
fact, the Serious Game Showcase and Challenge (cited
more in the future” (p. 335). Motivated students can then
in Susi et al.) specifically identifies challenge, along with
have an exciting learning experience (Smith, 2006)
reward systems and feedback, as critical elements of a
which, in turn, should be relevant to their own learning
serious game. However, there are other purposes to a serious game, specifically, education within an entertainment context. Serious games are designed with a purpose and a focus for a specific audience. Serious games are those games that help to develop a skill, learn a language, or acquire concept knowledge. Examples of serious games designed for a specific audience include (a) those designed for the military which contain training modules
needs. Relevance can be characterized by how material satisfies the needs of the user and is applicable to a particular situation. Keller's (1987) six strategies for relevance include (a) experience (b) present worth (c) future usefulness (d) needs matching (e) modeling and (f) choice. Challenge is a powerful intrinsic motivational factor. Malone and Lepper (1987) described challenge as a situation with clear goals that are relevant to the student that require a response.
focused on warfare strategy, (b) opportunities for
Gagné's (1985) events of instruction are framed around
surgeons to develop specific skills for specific surgeries, (c)
the notion that elements of instruction should include
those that provide educational content (Susi et al., 2008).
techniques to assist learners in acquiring attention, being
The applicability of serious games is wide and strategies
informed of objectives, recalling information. Then,
for designing and developing serious games (including
instructors or teachers design the environment where they
an analysis of a learning environment and the gaming
present content, provide guidance, elicit performance,
world) are needed to facilitate a successful experience
and assess performance. Throughout the learning
for designers, developers, and players.
process, feedback is provided to ensure that the learner
Essential Elements of a Learning Environment Theoretical Perspectives Several theories for the design of learning environment such as those found in games have been advocated
progresses appropriately through the instruction. At the end of the lesson, strategies are put into operation that enhance retention and help the learner to transfer the acquired knowledge to application. A learning environment that incorporates these nine events and is
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ARTICLES challenging will stimulate the learner's curiosity and
that plot or story line and associated narration can
motivational levels to aspire and reach higher goals
determine the success of a game. Players of computer
(Collins, Brown & Newman, 1990).
and video games such as Commandos 2: Warriors of
Another foundation, student engagement, is equally as
Courage and Arcannum reveal that they perceive
important to the learning environment. Levin (2005) found
themselves as participants in the ongoing story and can
that engagement in learning involves the abilities to be a
adequately describe the story of the game that they are
self learner, to explore, to set and assess goals, to transfer
playing and also anticipate the outcomes of the story
learning, to creative problem solving, and to participate
(Carlquist, 2002). Narrative strengths of games combine
in collaborative activities. Jones, Valdez, Nowakowski,
to produce even more immersive and enjoyable gaming
and Rasmussen (1994) found that student engagement
environments (Lambert & Rider, 2001).
plays a vital role in the process of learning. Reflection and
Game play
action are critical components in the construction of
Fitts and Posner (1967) suggest that learning is a process
knowledge and it is difficult to extricate one from the other
of acquiring skills and displaying skilled performance.
(Caine & Caine, 1991; Freire, 1973). Freire believed that
These processes are comprised of a string of organized
reflection promotes critical thinking and learners become
activities. Organization, goal directedness and utilization
actors and not observers and authors of their own
of feedback form the core characteristics of a skilled
decisions.
performance. The journey of learning and mastering the
The theoretical foundation provides the game designer
strategy to reach the goal should include stages that
with a framework by which to structure essential elements
increase gradually in levels of difficulty and complexity of
of a game. This framework provides insight into how
rules. Retaux and Rouchier (2002) state that there must be
players will interact and, hopefully, learn, from the serious
a cognitive challenge in the discovery of the laws of the
game.
universe some of which are implicit and require training.
Essential Characteristics of a Game
An example of this type of challenge would be assessing
All games should be comprised of essential characteristics to provide enjoyment and pleasure to the audience (Bateman & Boon, 2005; Novak, 2008). These characteristics frame the boundaries of the game and
and evaluating if a bridge can be crossed or jumped over in a given scenario. These challenges and complexities are what make the playability of a game interesting. Gameplay includes interactivity. Games are distinct from
set expectations for the design and development of the
many other types of art, such as listening to music or
game. These characteristics include audience and
watching a painting or a drama. Although all these forms
narration, gameplay, fantasy, graphics, choices,
of art provide pleasure and enjoyment, they engage as
challenge, immersion, and rules.
an observer, not as a participant. Games, on the other hand, are inherently interactive; even games designed
Audience/Compelling Narration The goal of every game is to provide enjoyment to the audience (Bateman & Boon, 2005). Bateman and Boon suggest that focus group interviews and team meetings can assist in developing an engaging framework from which to start the design process. Designers must ensure that game scenarios include interesting stories and plots to engage the player and encourage curiosity and
for individual play like puzzles are interactive since the individual does something that produces an effect. Games allow the player to explore the environment, participate and interact with it, make decisions, and observe transformations in a make-believe world. Fantasy The element of fantasy distinguishes a game from a
enticement. This combination facilitates an exploration of
simulation. A simulation is a representation of something
a world of fantasy. King (as cited in Novak, 2008) suggests
real, for example the working of an aircraft, atomic
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ARTICLES structure, surgical procedure etc. Simulations are also
situations and scenarios involving the application of
usually designed for computational or evaluative
higher-order thinking skills by requiring decision making.
purposes. (Crawford, 1997). Games, on the other hand,
Kellar, Watters and Duffy (2005) reported that gamers
include an element of fantasy or fiction in addition to its
preferred games with choices, since it provides the player
realistic components (e.g., buildings, characters, terrains)
with a sense of control over the environment. Examples of
(Crawford) and are designed for entertainment purposes.
these games include Role Playing Games (RPGs) like Lost
But these characters or situations need not correspond to
Odyssey and Civilization. RPGs allow the player to assume
real persons, animals, buildings, etc. A person can be an
roles, execute decisions and experience the outcomes of
alien, an animal can be a robot and a building can be in
decisions in a fictitious world, one different from the real
the shape of a butterfly. It is this aspect of representing
world. Such experiences can, in a sense, provide positive
reality through the artist's rendition with aspects of fantasy
social and emotional impacts on learners as the player
that transports the player from the real world to the world
has (a) learned to interact with real life scenarios such as
of fantasy and engages the learner in unfamiliar territory.
deliberating and deciding on one set of actions vs.
Games like Zork and Myst, through the elements of
another and (b) experimented with strategic planning
fantasy, provide an engaging and immersive
activities involving allocation of game resources in a
environment for the player (Novak, 2008).
fictitious environment and experience the consequences
Graphics and Level Design High-quality, relevant graphics are important for a successful game, examples of games include Doom, Quake 3 Arena (Hardwiger, 2000), and Myst (Novak,
through rewards and or penalties without real world hardships. These elements facilitate the player entering a fantasy environment, strengthening another element of the framework.
2008). They constitute a necessary condition for the ‘Net
Challenge and Tension
genners’ who grew up with an exposure to computers and
Engaging games must also include challenge and
digital media (Oblinger 2004; Prensky, 2005). Although
tension as a way to retain player interest. Challenge and
high-quality graphics are not a sufficient condition for a
tension can be encouraged through the use of elements
good game, or in other words, quality graphics do not, in
such as distractions and attention focusing strategies. A
and of themselves, make a game successful (Erick, 2006;
good game must have frequent changes in flow of the
Peney, 2008). Other elements such as gameplay,
game, peaks and dips to deliver challenge and tension
narration and fantasy are important for a successful
(Kramer, 2000).
game.
Immersion
Level design includes the creation of environments,
The most interesting aspect of games is that they create
scenarios and missions to be accomplished in a game
an immersive environment for the player. Immersion is an
(Novak, 2008). Additionally it also includes determining
aspect of games that is rated highly by game designers,
the time that a player should spend on a particular level. A
developers and players (Brown & Cairns, 2004) and
general rule seems to be that a player must be able to
makes the player a participant in the environment.
complete one level in a session to maintain the tension
Several aspects of the gaming environment contribute to
and interest in the game (Novak). This level perspective
this immersion including intricacies (e.g., realism, sound
approximates to fifteen minutes for children and two
effects and depth) woven into the game, elements of
hours for gamers for computer games and upto forty-five
fantasy, challenge, story line, and tension. Such
minutes for a console game (Novak).
immersion contributes to the player's enjoyment - a
Choices and Decision Making
primary goal of the game and ensures replayability
The gaming environment presents the player with
(Kramer, 2000).
i-manager’s Journal of Educational Technology, Vol. 5 l No. 2 l July - September 2008
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ARTICLES Rules and Feedback
video and computer games. The challenge for
Setting clear goals and feedback is necessary for a player
instructional designers is to use the myriad of available
to participate and progress in a gaming environment.
technologies to design an engaging and stimulating
Games must have clear instructions to help the player
learning environment. Experimental use of serious games
understand the rules of the game; rules must be equitable
to motivate children to learn include the use of PlayStation
(Crawford, 1997; Novak, 2008). Feedback is usually
games to teach fundamental math concepts in Britain
offered through rewards and penalties in games. Fullerton
(Macmillan, 2006). Dede (2005) found that the gaming
(as cited in Novak) stated that creating meaningful and
environment is beneficial for unmotivated, failing
interesting choices is an important challenge for game
students and observed that students who are distracted
designers. Positive and negative reinforcements and
and cannot concentrate on instruction can be highly
feedback provide the necessary motivation to make
focused and motivated to complete a task when
modifications of skill sets that allow the player to continue
engaged in games.
the game (Burgos, Van Nimwegen, Van Oostendorp, &
Games must be contextualized in situations, plots, and for
Koper, 2003).
serious games, on academic standards. Educators are searching for ways to prepare students to lead the way in
Games as an Instructional Strategy It is not surprising that games can be used as an instructional strategy, since games are inherently educational in that every game requires mastering a skill to win (Crawford, 1997). Jones (2003) and Oblinger (2004) indicated that nearly 60% of students in the age group of six and older ('Net genners and millenials [born since 1 9 8 0 ] ) p l a y c o m p u t e r g a m e s. I n t e g r a t i n g computer-based or video games into a learning environment scaffolds students from using video games as recreational activities to using games as educational materials. Students are attracted by video and computer games, and educators have the opportunity to take advantage of manipulating gaming environments for instructional purposes. Through the use of games educators can create an exciting and motivational instructional environment by including elements of imagery, challenge, experimentation through role play
inventions and innovations. During the development of the game ontology, that is the subject of this paper, a set of serious games were designed where the contextualization was a combination of STEM subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) and Careers. The objective of the challenge was to design a game where students could innovatively resolve problems while they built foundational knowledge and skills related to career awareness and the use of Algebra. A group of faculty, school district content experts and career specialists defined and used the ontology presented to develop tools to engage students in career and math and science concepts for the purpose of improving performance and practicing critical thinking skills in math, science, reading and writing all using an gaming instructional approach integrated into the middle school classroom.
and feedback, all essential to successful learning, and, in
The instructional strategy of gaming can promote skill
turn, defining elements of a serious game.
development in the following areas: critical thinking,
Oblinger (2004) further observed that the ‘Net genners’ had the following characteristics: (a) they gravitate toward group activity (b) believe that it is cool to be smart and (c) are fascinated by new technologies. This student
control, engagement and feedback. In addition gaming can help students see relevance of situations to their own environment and learn strategies to work in a self-paced environment.
population is not intimidated by technology; they believe
Critical Thinking and Problem Solving Skills
in using technology to its fullest potential and respond
Games are a creative teaching strategy that enhances
positively to technology-mediated instruction including
learning and problem solving. Gaming strategies are
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i-manager’s Journal of Educational Technology, Vol. 5 l No. 2 l July - September 2008
ARTICLES being used by the authors to make learning interesting,
Playing at their own pace, players gain familiarity with the
stimulating and fun in middle schools. Van Eck (2006)
setting, which increases their self esteem (Dempsey,
suggests the use of several commercial off the shelf
Lucassen, Gilley, & Rasmussen, 1994). The setting is
games in higher education, including Simcity2 and other
secure because there is no external pressure, and the
adventure games which are open ended for hypothesis
player creates and develops a comfort zone from which
testing and problem solving; games such as CSI can be
to navigate and participate in the game. Mitchell and
used to teach forensics.
Savill-Smith (2004) observed that the gaming scenario
Control
can provide prompt feedback, an essential element of a
Control and reflection are other critical elements in the learning process (Caine & Caine, 1991; Freire, 1973). Control is defined as a feeling of self-determination on the part of the student (Malone & Lepper, 1987). Providing students the ability to control their learning environment is in itself a motivation that helps learning (McLeod, 2006).
good instructional strategy (Chickering & Ehrmann, 1996), through game elements such as a score card and messages related to progress and answers to questions. Feedback can be advantageously used in creating instructional materials within a gaming environment in two ways:
McLeod maintained that video games provide
1. Motivate the student by providing hints, suggestions,
opportunities for gamers to be the producers of
and examples to steer the student in the right
knowledge, not just consumers. In addition, video and
direction towards learning.
computer games also provide students with scenarios
2. A reporting feature which provides accountability for
that require reflection (Anderson, 2004). Control can also
teachers and parents for the time the child spent in a
involve elements of reflection. Reflection provides the
gaming environment. Typically reporting should
ability to act and transfer knowledge to unfamiliar
include the cumulative score, time spent by the
territories and further acts as a motivational factor for the
student on each question, the bench mark or other
student because the student experiences the fulfillment
type of standardized information to identify the topic
of a successful transference of knowledge (TAP, 2000). The
being tested. Additional features could include
gaming scenario provides opportunities for students to
e-mailing the score to the teacher or parent of the ```
take control over their actions and reflect upon the
student for recording purposes, and maintaining
strategies employed in a particular game.
grade books. Figure 1 is an example of a report
Student Engagement and Motivation
generated by the Math Matters games.
Computer games provide engagement, which is why
Contextual Relevance
people want to play these games (Jones, 1997). Jones
Oblinger (2004) and Prensky (2005) also note that
suggests that since games offer participant engagement
computer and video games provide the context that
and interactivity, games can be a good instructional delivery system. Games allow the student to interact with the game world by manipulating the variables and experience the effects of these manipulations (Jenkins, 2005), thus engaging the student in play. Feedback A major roadblock that students face is the lack of confidence on their journey to learning. A gaming situation is an ideal candidate to create a platform for boosting confidence through feedback mechanisms. Figure 1. Report from Math Matters game i-manager’s Journal of Educational Technology, Vol. 5 l No. 2 l July - September 2008
15
ARTICLES students can relate to, since it is an environment that they
gaming environment and the learning environment.
are constantly engaged in and are not intimidated by. In
Ideally this ontology should include all of the concepts
fact as pointed out by Klassen and Willoughby (2003) the
previously discussed as essential characteristics of a
gaming world can be used as a motivational factor to
game comprising the first catalog, and a learning
promote learning. Consequently, the gaming
environment comprising the second catalog. The third
environment can be used as a strategy to have a captive
catalog is the ontology which merges the concepts from
audience for instructional purposes.
these two catalogs and concepts inherent in serious
Self-Paced Learning Environment
games. The methodology used to construct this ontology
Oblinger (2006) and McLeod (2006) maintain that a computer gaming environment can provide a self-paced learning environment that is advantageous to both the student and the instructor. Students usually shy away from approaching the instructor for further explanations on a concept, but the gaming environment
is to map the correspondence for the elements in each catalog and provide a strategy to address the correspondence in the serious games column. Table 1 is the resulting ontology, IDEAS Pro. The ontology can be implemented into a game design and development project by using traditional instructional design processes
provides an alternative pathway, allowing the student to learn concepts by replaying a section of the game any number of times. This self-paced learning environment also frees up the instructor time to help other students who prefer instructor help. Connolly, Stansfield, and McLellan
Games – Essential Elements (Catalog 1)
Learning environment – Essential Elements (Catalog 2)
Serious Games Essential Elements (Catalog 3)
1. Audience
a. Audience and Learning outcomes
Identify and Design for a specific Domain / Audience with appropriate learning Outcomes
2. Gameplay
b. Instructional Strategy to deliver content including goals, objectives etc
Determine Instructional Strategies to be embedded in a game environment
3. Narration / Immersion
c. Student Engagement
Establish Story line and build contextual relevance for instructional content in an Immersive environment
4. Challenge / Tension
d. Challenge / Scaffolding, Reflection
Apply Instructional strategy to story line and provide challenging scenarios to encourage Reflection
5. Rules / Feedback
e. Feedback
Set and design scenarios to promote critical thinking, Reflection and include feedback mechanisms
6. Fantasy, Graphics, level Design
g. Attention / Motivation
Production phase Design an enticing environment with rich media effects that attracts student attention and provides motivation.
(2006) mention that a virtual tutor or an e-coach provides coaching/feedback through hints and is extremely important in serious games. Such feedback and guidance help students develop abilities of reflection and scaffolding (Collins et al., 1990). A Proposed Ontology for Serious Games Ontology is defined as “[A] classification of the types and subtypes of concepts and relations necessary to describe everything in the application domain” (Sowa, 2000, p. 454). In a series of research and development efforts, catalogs of gaming and learning environments elements that facilitate and promote performance and, motivation have been designed, developed, implemented, and evaluated. From the two catalogs, a third catalog was designed: a serious gaming environment protocol which links the elements in gaming and learning environments. This protocol led to the development of an ontology that provides designers of educational games and other serious game developers a framework for creating serious games. A sample design of a game with the proposed ontology is presented here. The ontology for serious games is a marriage between the
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Table 1. Ontology of Serious Games: IDEAS-Pro
i-manager’s Journal of Educational Technology, Vol. 5 l No. 2 l July - September 2008
ARTICLES and principles. These processes and principles include application of learning and instruction theory as the product is designed, developed, implemented, and evaluated. This process, formalized as IDEAS-Pro, is outlined in Figure 2. In the IDEAS-Pro system, learning outcomes are identified, using needs analysis and academic standards data. From that point, instructional strategies, the type of game to be designed is selected. The plot, or story line, is then established. Extensive storyboards are used to make sure that standards, content, and story are aligned. Finally, the production begins (the Pro in IDEAS-Pro). The cycle is iterative and includes both formative and summative evaluations. An iterative, concurrent system becomes the norm where decisions are revisited and revised as the ontology is put into practice. In Table 2, the application of IDEAS-Pro to a serious game Providers, a game designed to teach algebraic concepts for 7th and 8th graders is
Figure 3. Avatar (female) Pilot in trading card format.
presented (Prayaga & Rasmussen, 2007). Figures 3 and 4 are game assets from Providers used as trading cards similar to the popular toy trading cards like Yohijo that students can exchange as they go through the different game levels during the semester. Conclusion In this article we have provided an ontology which was found in theory from both the academic and the entertainment (gaming) worlds. The application of the IDEAS-Pro ontology to game development provides a framework or structure by which designers and developers can create serious games that meet the requirements of the education or training situation as well
Figure 4. Spaceship in trading card format.
as the entertainment needs of the player. In environments where performance is the ultimate objective, merging the essential game elements with a strong theoretical foundation greatly improves chances for successful serious games. Figure 2. Ontology Framework i-manager’s Journal of Educational Technology, Vol. 5 l No. 2 l July - September 2008
17
ARTICLES Identify Audience (7th & 8th Graders) / Narration/ Game Summary
Determine Instructional Strategy / ARCS/ MALONE Elements
determine Instructional Strategy Goals and Outcomes / SSS Benchmarks
Establish Contextual Characteristics (Aligned Knowledge, Skills, Abilities
Apply Instructional strategy to story line /Roles of Avatars & Nonplaying Characters (NPC)
Set and design Sample Activities in the game to reflect Math Examples (Type of Assessment)
Supporting Materials Video Support
Steers aircraft along planned routes with the assistance of autopilot and flight management computers
Commander: Sets the scenario stage, explains the problem. Establish the role of participant in problem-solving the scenario. Participant plays role of captain and chooses one of the following avatars to represent character Avatar 1: human male Avatar 2: human female Avatar 3: alien furry creature Avatar 4: alien muscular creature NPC- Navigator/ Radiotransmitter NPC- Leader of the Federation NPCCommanding Officer
The cruiser is at position (x,y). In what quadrant is it located.
Opening overview of game, with power expert explaining the purpose of the game and detailing the uses of math as part of the game. Establishes the environment, context, and overall goal.
STEM
Providers Simulation where the members of an elite group called the Providers must collect fuel cells found at mathematically coded locations in the galaxy and successfully bring to the reactor which is desperately low on fuel cells. Player chooses an avatar and cruiser before departing on mission. Each level introduces different coordinate locations, equations, and navigation obstacles.
Establish Contextual relevance /Career Cluster/ Related Career Fields
Gain attention through student activity (Steering aircraft) Activity is located in a fantasy world. Motivates the student, arouses his / her curiosity to explore the game
Provides Relevance for mathematics, because the game scenario requires the student to go to allocation given the coordinates. Motivates and Challenges the student to complete this task to proceed further into the game.
Aerospace Pilot, Learning Copilot and Flight outcomes: Student identifies Engineer each quadrant and the characteristics of points in each quadrant (positive and negative
Example Benchmark From: Florida SSS MA.D.1.3.2 Interprets and creates tables, function tables and graphs (all four quadrants
Aerospace Engineering and Operations Technicians
Summary at end of each level, recap of progress, motivation to next level, reiteration of the math processes explored.
The first fuel cell is at coordinates (x, y). The formula for the distance from the 2 2 origin is d = x  y The distance to the first cell is approximately,
Uses mathematics to solve problems
Table 2. The Providers (A serious game designed using the proposed ontology of serious games)
investigation of game immersion, CHI '04 extended
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20
i-manager’s Journal of Educational Technology, Vol. 5 l No. 2 l July - September 2008
ARTICLES ABOUT THE AUTHORS Dr. Lakshmi Prayaga, Assistant Professor, is actively engaged in research in the use of simulations, educational games and visualization tools for mathematics, science and computer science concepts. She was the PI for a partnership grant from FLDOE (2007) to design and develop educational games to teach middle school mathematics with a focus on the importance of math in careers. She also received a grant from MROW (2008) to direct women students to design a game to teach high school economics and target female students. She will be involved in the design and testing phases of the project. She co-authored two books, Beginning Game Programming with Flash (CengageLearning, 2007) and Programming the Web with ColdFusion MX and XHTML. (McGraw-Hill Publishers, 2004). Dr. Karen Rasmussen is the chair of the Department of Computer and Engineering Technology and the Department of Instructional and Performance Technology at the University of West Florida. She is a professor and teaches courses in Performance and Instructional Technology. She has co-authored a text on web-based instruction and conducts research on the variables affecting learning in distance environments. Her department leads the way in implementing two mobile learning initiatives, Human Performance Technology and Technology Systems Support.
i-manager’s Journal of Educational Technology, Vol. 5 l No. 2 l July - September 2008
21
ARTICLES
CREATING EFFECTIVE EDUCATIONAL COMPUTER GAMES FOR UNDERGRADUATE CLASSROOM LEARNING: A CONCEPTUAL MODEL By KOWIT RAPEEPISARN*
KOK WAI WONG**
CHUN CHE FUNG***
MYINT SWE KHINE****
* School of Information Technology, Murdoch University, Western Australia. ** School of Information Technology, Murdoch University, Western Australia. *** School of Information Technology, Murdoch University, Western Australia. **** Emirates College for Advanced Education, United Arab Emirates.
ABSTRACT When designing Educational Computer Games, designers usually consider target age, interactivity, interface and other related issues. They rarely explore the genres which should employ into one type of educational game. Recently, some digital game-based researchers made attempt to combine game genre with learning theory. Different researchers use different pedagogy conceptions. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the appropriate computer genre in designing effective educational computer games that can be used as learning tools in Thai undergraduate classrooms by integrating the learning conceptions from the previous work of those researcher’s. The following steps are used to conduct this study: summarize the survey of Thai students' opinions toward game genre; analyse the characteristics of genre of computer game; match those characteristics of genre with learning theories; and propose the conceptual model from the comparison. The results of this analysis can be used as a guideline for Educational computer game designers in considering appropriate genres of game for education purpose.
INTRODUCTION
(2002). Thus, the idea of using computer games for
Computer and video games are becoming popular due
learning has gained more attention in recent years.
to the fact that youth today are growing up with
Educational games have been widely used in schools
technology and playing games become part of their
both in primary and secondary levels. The Interactive
daily activities. On average, the children between 2 and
Digital Software Association (Van Eck, 2005) reported that
18 years of age spend 20-33 minutes a day playing digital
35% of game players are under the age of 18, 55% are;
games. Boys between the age of 8 and 13 spend most
male; 43% are female, and 43% of game players are in
time playing digital games with an average of 47 minutes
the age group of 18-49 . From the figures, it implies that
per day (Green & McNeese, 2007). Computer games
people have played computer game significantly in
have taken over as the medium of choice of
colleges and universities. But the idea of bringing this
entertainment. Game as a medium is not only good for
educational technology in tertiary level has just begun in
entertainment, but also has huge potential in education.
some countries.
Game researchers like Prenskey (2001), Gikas & Van Eck
research on educational computer game for tertiary
(2004), Boop (2007) and Gee (2003) confirm that
level in Thailand.
computer games can be effectively used for learning
design the effective educational computer games for
Unfortunately, there is scarcely any Game researchers also attempt to
and teaching. Computer games can be used to give a
classroom environment. Variety of aspects brought into
better form of education and can even make computers
considerations include: gender, level of age, racial
become the unique tools of learning (Jayakanthan
diversity, number of players and the role of teachers.
22
i-manager’s Journal of Educational Technology, Vol. 5 l No. 2 l July - September 2008
ARTICLES Apart from these, quite a few computer game researches
1. Overview of IT and Digital Game Markets in Thailand
focus on analyzing educational design with learning
The computer gaming industry in many countries has
conceptions.
become bigger than other entertainment business such
Some examples of researchers on
game-based learning like Prenskey (2001), Gikas & Van
as movies and music. The digital game industry in
Eck (2004), Boop (2007) and Gee (2003) attempt to
Thailand is also expanding considerably with the
analyze game genre to support learning theory.
The
government support under the National IT plan
question that follows is “what appropriate game genres
(Thuvasethkul and Koanantakool, 2002). IT 2000 has
can be used for education purpose?”
This paper
provided the framework and guideline for IT policies and
attempts to answer this question.
initiative for five years. After that the National IT Committee
Consequently, the authors conducted a survey of the Thai
(NITC) conducted a research and developed a ten year
students from four universities, two private and two public,
National IT Policy for the period 2001-2010 called IT 2010.
which are both in metropolitan and regional areas.
IT 2010 identified five main goals that have to be
Nineteen participants were interviewed with the above
developed as follows: e-Society, e-Education,
question. Participants provided variety opinions. Most of
e-Government, e-Commerce, and e-Industry.
them claimed that selection of appropriate game genres
In e-Education aspect, educators tend to concentrate on
for learning is based on the learning contents and subject
what a specific ICT technology can and cannot do for
areas. Thus, the authors carry on this finding by further
education. Even though many of the technologies have
investigating the learning conceptions. Subsequently, it
similar characteristics, one technology may have
came up with four sub-query concern with learning
different potentials depending on the purpose of using it
theories which will relate to and be supported by the
(Haddad and Jurich, 2002). As illustrated in Table 1,
game genre. They are (i) what should learner learn from
Personal Computer and Internet have high flexibility and
each particular genre?
interactivity.
(ii) what level of the learner's
intellectual skills is required to reach these learning objectives? (iii) what should be the matter or subject to reach these objectives and match the characteristic of particular genre?, and (iv) what kind of learner should learn this learning content and use particular genre? Hence, the learning theories of Bloom-learning objectives (Bloom (1956), Gangé-learning capabilities (Gagne, Briggs & Wager (1992), Prensky-learning content (Prensky (2001) and Honey and Mumford-learning styles (Honey & Mumford, 1992) have been examined to answer the above 4 questions respectively. Eventually, the conceptual model of game genre that supports the learning theories has been proposed as a guideline for designing effective educational computer games. This
It is observed that while gaming industry in Thailand is growing rapidly, computer games are not widely used for teaching in tertiary institutions. 2 . Genre of Computer Games in Education Environment Computer game genres have been organized in many ways.
Computer game experts classified them into
various categories. Crawford (1984) divides genres of computer game into 2 broad groups: (i) Skill-and-action games including Combat Skill-and-action games: Combat Games, Maze Games, Sports Games, Paddle Games, Race Games; and
comprising of Adventures, D&D Games, Wargames, Technology
Outreach
Flexibility
Radio
High
Television
High
how the game industry in Thailand is growing. This will be
Video
followed by the genres of games in education
paper will begin with the overview of IT and digital game markets in Thailand in order to pave the background of
environment, and game genre supported pedagogy theories.
(ii) Strategy games
Sensorial Stimulation
Interactivity
Limited
Audio only
Limited
Limited
Audio-Visual
Limited
Low
High
Audio-Visual
Limited
Computer
Low
High
Audio-Visual
High
Internet
Highest
High
Audio-Visual
High
Table 1. ICT and their potential for education (Haddad and Jurich, 2002)
i-manager’s Journal of Educational Technology, Vol. 5 l No. 2 l July - September 2008
23
ARTICLES Games of Change, Educational and children games, and Inter personal Games. Bergeron (2006) concludes that the standard genre of game encompass Action, Adventure, Arcade (Retro), Combat (Fighting), Driving, First-Person Shooter (FPS), Military Shooter Multiplayer Puzzle Real-Time Simulation (RTS) Role Playing Game (RPG)
Game genre
Frequency 52
Action
Percentage 5.0
Adventure
52
5.0
Battle Music (song) game
10 93
1.0 8.9
Fighting
8
0.8
First Person Shooter
21
2.0
Flight Simulator
8.9
0.2
Shooter, Simulation, Sneaker, Sports, Strategy, Third-Person
Puzzle
2 93
Shooter (TPS), Trivia and Turn-Based. While Prensky (2001)
Racing
33
3.2
Real Time Strategy
233
22.5
affirms that computer games are generally recognized
Role Play Game (RPG)
216
into eight genres consisting of action, adventure, fighting,
Sport game
156
20.8 15.0
puzzle, role-playing, simulation, sports and strategy
Shooter
69
6.7
1,038
100.0
games, most games fall within a particular category. Some bridge different gaming styles and, thus, could appear under more than one category simultaneously. For instance, Battle, Racing, Fighting and Shooting games are subcategory of Action games. Strategy games may include Puzzles and Adventure games on the gameplay. Additionally, Role Play games may be a sub-genre or special type of Adventure games. Among those genres of games, some are more popular than others. From GMNews: Discussion on Game Genre (GMNews, 2008) some claim that First Person Shooters and Role Playing Games have pretty much dominated the market for a good few years now. Some argue that they don't think any genre has an advantage over the others. There are many games of different genres that have also become very successful. According to the survey of the games genres that Thai students play recorded from 4 universities, Strategy, Role Play and Sport games is the most popular game genres they play respectively ( Table 2).
Total
*Respondents can answer more than one game genre
Table 2. Game genres that Thai students from four universities play
classify educational games as one genre of computer games. Distinguishing from other game genres, the particular purpose of educational games is to teach or train with explicit educational goals and is based on an actual curriculum. The emphasis is on teaching a specific body of knowledge. Rather than being structured as a straight-forward set of lessons or exercise, these programs are structured like games, with such elements as scoring, timed performance, or incentives given for correct answers. Educational games consist of variety of general game genres and it is difficult to categorize them specifically (Schiffer, 2006). Amongst different genres, researchers Quinn (1994), Roberts, (1976), Ju & Wagner (1997) appear to concentrate on the two types, simulations and adventure. Quinn (1994) confirmed that the adventure game genre appears to provide the best foundation for the development of teaching resources. In addition Kirriemuir & McFarlane's survey (2003)
The summary of game genres classification in this paper,
discovered most education games belong to strategy
were selected and integrated from the standard genre
and simulation.
categories described by Bates (2004), Burn & Carr (2006),
those genres mentioned earlier, are there any genre that
Wolf (2002) and genre from the research finding of Thai
can work well in education environment?”
students.
The following category of game genre,
alphabetically, provides definitions, characteristics, and examples of game titles as illustrated in Table 3. 3. Computer Game Genre for Pedagogy: Thai Students' Perspective
To answer this question, the authors interviewed 19 participants from four Thai universities.
The results are
illustrated in Table 4. According to the participants the game genres which appropriate for education environment are action
Generally, game experts or game developers also
24
The question that follows is: “Besides
games, adventure games, puzzle games, racing games,
i-manager’s Journal of Educational Technology, Vol. 5 l No. 2 l July - September 2008
ARTICLES Game genre
Explanation of Genre
Action Games
The most well known genre & the largest class of computer games. Keeps the player moving and involved all the times. Does Not require deep thinking, primary skills are hand/eye coordination & quick reflexes. It is often about fighting, battle, shooting, racing and highly intense physical play.
Beat-em-up, Survival Horror,Unreal Tournament,Doom, Quake, issile Command
Adventure Focus on storytelling & narrative. Players must Games move through a complex world, accumulating tools, overcoming obstacle until finally reaching the treasure or goal. Game play typically needs logical thinking & persistence from the player.
Adventure on the ATARI 2600, Gabriel Knight, Indiana Jones, Monkey Island, Time Zone, Wizard and the Princess.
Fighting Games
Sub-genre of action games & is one of the major computer games. Games involve characters who fight usually hand-to-hand, in one-to-one combat situations. Fighters are represented as humans or anthropomorphic characters. The goal is to create quick bursts of swift and intense action.
Bloody Roar, Dead or Alive, Double Dragon, Fight Unlimited, Mortal Kombat, Starmaster, Street Fighter, Tekken, Virtua Fighter.
Include Rhythm and Dance Games. Game play requires players to keep time with a musical rhythm. This grouping of games is differentiated by the timed elements usually synched to music somehow. Many require a specialized controller like DDR, but not all. May include controller simulating drums, turntables, guitars or maracas.
Beatmania, Bust a Groove, Dance Dance Revolution, Donkey Konga, Eyetoy Groove, Guitar Freaks, Para Para Paradise, Pon 'n' Music, Space Channel 5.
Music Games
Puzzle Games
Example of game title
Atari Video Cube, Devil Dice, Intelligent Qube, Jigsaw, Mercury, Myst, Puzzle Bobble.
Using motorized vehicle to move faster than an opponent to reach a specified goal or beat a specified time. Usually racing games use cars, but motorcycle, power boat, and flight/space racing games also exist.
APX skiing game DOWNHILL, Dog Daze, Indy500, Night Driver, Street Racing.
Player assumes the roles of fictional character and collaboratively creates stories. The characters may include specifics such as species, race, gender, occupation or also include various abilities: strength and dexterity.
Anvil of Dawn, Diable, Dragon Lore 2, Rivers of MUD, Sacred Pools, Sunflower, Unsafe Haven, Zodiac.
Simulation Contain a mixture of skill, chance, and strategy to simulate or try to accurately depict real world situations, physics, and events as accurately as possible. There are several categories of simulation games: Racing Simulators, Flight Simulators and ‘Sim' type games
Flight simulators: Microsoft Flight Simulator 2000: Racing Simulators: NASCAR; 'SIM' type: SimCityBrotherbund
Role Playing Games
Shooter Games
Sports Games
Strategy Games
Focus on shooting & often destroying. Sometime called Shoot-Em'-up. Requires the player to blow enemies or objects in order to survive and continue game play.
Asteroids, Berzerk, Centipede, Duckshot, Galaga, Missile Command, Starwar, Tempest
Games that simulate the playing of any Tiger Woods, PGA Tour, sporting activity. Focus on planning & NHL 2004. management. Have to know the rules right but can also let players change them. It may let the players to customize the game to suit for themselves. Emphasize on thinking, rationalizing, theorizing, problem-solving, etc. The focus is the combination of analytical skill & tactics. Require more time to play. Need balance resource, just enough information provide for motivation and interest.
Frequency Percentage
Action Games
1
5.2
Adventure Games
6
31.6
Puzzle Games
3
15.8
Racing Games
2
10.5
Role-Playing Games
5
26.3
Simulation Games
8
42.1
Sports Games All game genres Depend on content & subject areas
Require the player to solve logic puzzle or navigate complex locations. Not surrounded with story or actions. Most puzzles should present without time pressure, but the rules must be clear.
Racing Games
What game genres do you think are appropriate for education environment?
Chess Games, Civilization, Command and Conquer, Final Fantasy, Tactics, Ogre Tactics, Roller Coaster Tycoon.
6
31.6
10
52.6
5
26.3
*Participants can answer more than one opinion
Table 4. Game genres which appropriate for education environment: interview results from Thai teachers and students
role-playing games, simulation games, and sports games. Among these range of genres, the top three most appropriate access along to the genres participants are Simulation games (42.1%), Adventure games (31.6%) and Sport games (31.6%) respectively. Conversely, there were three participants who thought that violent game genre such as Fighting and Shooting Games are not suitable to pertain in learning situation. Some argue that “it is not a genre but a content that increase in violent, aggressive or sexual areas”. However, most of them thought that every genre of game can apply to educational games (52.6%). Those who gave this opinion indicated that it depends on the content and subject areas of what will be taught. Subsequently, the authors pursue another question: “What subject areas do you think educational computer games can best support? Why?” The results are shown in Table 5. In addition to the information in Table 5, six participants indicated that educational computer games can support almost every subject area. Some of them added the comments of game genre which is suitable for some subjects, for example, role-playing games for 'law' when people are in the court; simulation games for learning content which is risky or need an experimental basis. In brief, the findings imply that not any particular game genre is the most suitable for learning and teaching. Every genre can be considered but depends on the learning content and subject areas. For further study in
Table 3. Characteristic of game genre
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25
ARTICLES Learning Content
Subject areas
analysis of learning and teaching method to answer the
Communication
Journalism, new report, Advertising, Tourism
Experiment & Risk
Human anatomy, Medical Science, Surgery, Chemistry
taxonomy to compare with Bate's (2004) Game
Fact
Laws, Political Science
taxonomy.
Language
Vocabulary, Grammar, Foreign language
The above literature review, reflects back to the purpose
Management
Planning, Business, Accountcy
Memory
History, Archaeology
Motor skill
Sports, Physical Education
Procedure
Cookery Science, subjects related to 'How to'
Reasoning & Logic
Mathematics, Arithmetic, geometry
Table 5. Subject areas which educational computer games can best support: interview results from Thai students
above three questions. Gikas and Van Eck (2004) used theories of Gagné's learning capabilities and Bloom's
of this paper which is to answer the main question: “What is the appropriate game genre to design educational computer games?” Prior to this question, there are four sub-queries concerned with learning theories which will relate to and be supported by game genre. They are: (i) What should learner learn from each particular genre (learning objective)? (ii) What levels of the learner's intellectual skills is required to reach these objectives (learning capability)? (iii) What should be the matter or
this matter, some other learning theories should be taken
subject to reach these objectives and match the
into account. Those learning theories will be discussed in
characteristic of particular genre (learning content)? and
the following section.
(iv) What kind of learner should learn this learning content
4. Game Genre and Pedagogy Theories
and what learner's behavior match the characteristics of
To understand educational gaming and fully utilize the power of this digital technology in the classroom, several pedagogy theories need to be emphasized and examined in order to develop a framework for the deployment of computer games for learning. Different researchers on game-based learning use different
particular genre (learning style)?
Hence, this section will
provide the basic concepts of each learning theories and reflect on these four sub-queries. The learning theories and concepts include: Bloom's Leaning Objectives, Gagné's Learning Capabilities, Prensky's Learning Contents, and Honey and Mumford's Learning Style.
pedagogy concepts to analyse games in the use of
4.1 Learning Objectives
learning environment. One of these is Prensky (2001) who
Bloom's (1956) taxonomy of educational objectives
claimed that teachers have to understand the type of
includes three domains: cognitive (about knowledge),
learning content. Prensky proposed the relationship of
affective (about attitudes) and psychomotor (about
learning content, learning activities and possible game
doing). Among these three domains, cognitive domain is
style. Gee (2003) also attempted with a list of 36 learning
the widely accepted system.
principles in computer games which contain 12
h i e r a r c h y o f s k i l l s r a n g i n g f r o m k n o w l e d g e,
It was classified into a
principles. Gee's principles are strongly centred on the
comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis and
traditional ways of guided leaning by doing. Boop (2007)
evaluation. He stated that the main reason in constructing
proposed a framework to answer three main questions
taxonomy of educational objectives is to facilitate
that are important to educational game design. These
communication. An awareness of these levels can help
questions are: (i) what actually is the learning purpose? (ii)
one determine how well students really know the course
what is and should be the material used to reach these
content.
A hierarchy of six levels, description (learner
goals? and (iii) how should this learning content be learnt?.
action), and key verbs associated with each cognitive
Boop (2007) proposed three subfields of didactic analysis
domain, and some potential IT activities are illustrated in
analysis of learning goal, analysis of learning content, and
Table 6.
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i-manager’s Journal of Educational Technology, Vol. 5 l No. 2 l July - September 2008
ARTICLES Level
Description (Learner action)
Knowledge
Find answers to quiz Recall previously Define, repeat, learned material identify, list, label, question from internet
Comprehension
Application
Analysis
Synthesis
Evaluation
Key verbs
Grasp meaning, Describe, pick, explain, restate choose, review, discuss, pick ideas
Potential IT activities
Use PowerPoint to make a cartoon, or make a newspaper report
Use learned material in new situations
Apply, use, solve, Use Publisher to interpret, employ create a board game, make a storyboard of book using PowerPoint
Separate material into component parts & show relationship between parts
Analyse, detect, compare, inter, test, conclude
Pull together separate ideas to form a whole
Arrange, create, collect, predict, combine, plan,
Identify relationships between information using the charting features of Excel
Problem solving Problem solving Involve the formation of
Higher-order rules order rules which require as prerequisites
Rules and defined concept
which require as prerequisites
Concrete concepts
Make judgments Assess, decide, about the value judge, revise, of materials or select, test methods
Use Dreamweaver to construct a web site which helps solve an everyday problem
which require as prerequisites
Discriminations
Use email to engage in an online forum debating the issues
Combining lower level rules to solve problems in a situation never encountered by the person solving the problem. May involve generating new rules which receive trial and error use until one that solves the problem is found.
Combining of more simple rules to more complex. These rules are invented to the purpose of solving a practical problem. Performing a kind of 'regularity' over a variety of specific situations. Learners can define concept when they can demonstrate the meaning of some particular class of objects, events, or relations. Identifying an object property and object attributes (colour, shape, etc.). Such concepts are called concrete because the human performance they require is recognition of a concrete object Learners are able to identify it by name or other ways Making different responses to the different members of a particular class. Learners can see the essential different between inputs and responding differently to each.
Figure 1. Gagne's intellectual skills of learning capabilities Table 6. Bloom's Cognitive Objectives group by level, description, key verbs and potential IT activities (Bloom, 1956; Dalton, 1986)
different learning activities according to particular types of content. Prensky proposed the relationship of learning
4.2 Learning Capabilities
content, learning activities and possible game type as
Gagné's taxonomy of learning states that there are five
illustrate in Table 7.
major categories of learning outcome: verbal
4.4
information, intellectual skills, cognitive strategies, motor
Learning style is useful in identifying the methods by which
skills and attitude. The five subcategories of intellectual
people prefer to receive information from their
Learning Style
skills are hierarchical in nature (low level skills to high level
environment and undertake their learning. Among the
skills). Intellectual skills are the capabilities that make the
learning styles which are classified as experiential, Honey
human individual competent. They enable him/her to
and Mumford learning style is one of the well known
respond to conceptualizations of his/her environment.
experiential learning. These learning styles are easy to
Gagné's hierarchy of intellectual skills follows
remember, widely understood, accepted and used by
programmed instruction since one skill must be learned
most learners. Honey and Mumford (1992) classified
before another can be mastered. Five levels of learning
learners into activist, reflector, theorist, and pragmatist.
capabilities are illustrated in Figure 1.
The four styles are as shown in Table 8.
4.3 Learning Contents
There is an attempt to integrate learning style with game
Prensky discussed about how to combine gameplay and
genre as appeared in Rapeepisarn (2008) and
learning in his paper “Computer Games and Learning:
Dondlinger (2007). They proposed a new conceptual
Digital Game-Based Learning”. He claimed that teacher
model of relationship between game genre, learning
has to understand the types of learning content. With
activities and learning style by bridging the gap between
different kinds of learning content, teacher can see what
the Prensky (2001) and Chong's et al (2005) studies. They
kind of learning are really going on such as learning fact,
argued that Prensky choose all standard game
skill, judgment, theory, reasoning, process, procedure,
categories of computer games matching with learning
creativity, language, system, obser vation and
activities and learning content, but these is lack of the
communication.
comparison with learning style of the users. While Chong
Additionally, teacher can choose
i-manager’s Journal of Educational Technology, Vol. 5 l No. 2 l July - September 2008
27
ARTICLES Learning content
Learning Activities
Possible Game Styles
Facts: Law, politics, product
Questions, association, memorization, drill
Game show competitions, flashcard type game, mnemonics
Skills: interviewing, teaching, management
Imitation, feedback, coaching, continuous practice
Persistent state games, role-play game, detective game
Judgment: management, decisions, timing, ethics
Reviewing cases, asking Role-play games, questions, feedback, multiplayer interactive, coaching adventure game, strategy game, detective game Imitation, feedback, Role-play games coaching, practice
Behaviors: supervision, selfcontrol, setting example Theories: marketing rationales, how people learn Reasoning: strategic & tactical thinking, quality analysis
Logic, experimentation, Open ended simulation questioning games, building game, construction games Problems, examples Puzzle
Process: Auditing, strategy creation
System analysis & Strategy game, adventure deconstruction, practice games
Procedure: assembly, bank teller, legal
Imitation, practice, play Timed games, reflex games
Creativity: invention, product design
Play
Puzzle, invention games
Language: acronyms, foreign language
Imitation, continuous practice, immersion
Role-play games, reflex games, flashcard games
Systems: health care, markets, refineries
Understanding principles, Simulation games graduated tasks
Observation: models, morale, inefficiencies, problems
Observing, feedback
Communication: appropriate language, involvement
Imitation, practice
Concentration games, adventure games Role-play games, reflex games
game genres are regrouped into 8 categories and are compared to learning objectives, learning capabilities, learning contents, and learning style as a model shown in Figure 3 and Table 9. Learning Styles
Characteristics
Play Game Behavior
Immerse in new experience, enjoy here & now, open minded, flexible, enthusiastic, Seek to centre activity around themselves.
Prefer working as a team, being a group leader, Be able to brainstorm to solve the problems.
Reflectors
Stand back & ob- serve, cautious, take a back seat, collect & analyse data about experience & events, slow to react con-clusion, use information to maintain a big picture per-spective.
Go through the important data in the game, follow the instructions, spend a long time before making decision, not to lead the game.
Theorists
Think in a logical manner, rationally & objectively, assimilate facts into coherent theories, fit things into ra-tional order, keen in basic assumptions, principles, theories, models & thinking system.
Go through the data and follow the instruction before the start of the game, be able to give careful thoughts when choosing the game elements, Formulate good strategy to defeat the enemy.
Keen to put ideas, theories & tech-niques into prac-tice, search new ideas & experimental, act quickly & confidently on ideas, get straight to the point, be patient with endless discussion.
Follow closely the instructions & strategies that were mentioned in the briefing, believe they can play better if they were given proper instruction.
Activists
Pragmatists
Table 8. Characteristics of four styles of learning (Honey & Mumford, 1992) and their behavior when playing game (Chong et al, 2005)
Table 7. Summary of Prensky's Learning Content, Learning Activities and possible Game Styles
and others investigated the behaviour of each learning style while playing game,
only three different game
genres are studied. Rapeepisarn and others' model is Figure 2. Conceptual model of relationship of learning styles, learning activities and possible game genres
illustrated in Figure 2. The list of game genres from the survey are classified into 13 genres according to which Thai students play (as shown in Table 3).
Those genres are somehow
overlapping and some can be classified as sub-genre of another. For example, Action Games fall into things that have to shoot, or race; Battle Games can be sub-genre in Fighting Games; Music Games may take variety of forms and often group with Puzzle Games due to their common use of “rhythmically generated puzzles”. Thus, in this paper
28
Figure 3. Integrated game genres to support learning concepts
i-manager’s Journal of Educational Technology, Vol. 5 l No. 2 l July - September 2008
ARTICLES Game Genres
Learning Objectives
Learning Capabilities
Learning Contents
Learning Styles
game. Basically game creator usually takes
Application Comprehensi on Knowledge
Defined Concepts Concrete Concepts Discriminations
Facts, Skills
Activists
demographic data, age, gender, racial diversity role of
Adventure Evaluation Synthesis Analysis Application Comprehensi on Knowledge
Problem Solving Higher Order Rules Defined Concepts Concrete Concepts Discriminations
Judgment, Reflections Process, Observation, Skills
Fighting
Application Comprehensi on Knowledge
Defined Concepts Concrete Concepts Discriminations
Facts, Skills
Puzzle
Comprehensi on Knowledge
Concrete Concepts Discriminations
Reasoning, Creativity
Pragmatists
Role Playing
Evaluation Synthesis Analysis Application Comprehensi on Knowledge
Problem Solving Higher Order Rules Defined Concepts Concrete Concepts Discriminations
Skills, Judgment, Behavior, Language, Communic ation
Activists
Evaluation Synthesis Analysis Application Comprehensi on Knowledge
Problem Solving Theories, Systems Higher Order Rules Defined Concepts Concrete Concepts Discriminations
Reflectors, Theorists
Application Comprehensi on Knowledge
Defined Concepts Concrete Concepts Discriminations
Activists
Evaluation Synthesis Analysis Application Comprehensi on Knowledge
Problem Solving Judgment, Process Higher Order Rules Defined Concepts Concrete Concepts Discriminations
Action
Simulation
Sports
Strategy
the teachers, into account when designing games. Several researchers on game-based learning (Prensky (2001), Gikas & Van Eck (2004), Boop (2007), Gee (2003) attempted to analyze the instructive methods by which computer games support learning. Nevertheless, there are many pedagogical principles which exist. Some of Activists
those principles are really useful.
For example, the
theories of well known and widely accepted such as Bloom's Taxonomy of Learning Objectives; Gangé's intellectual skills; Honey and Mumford's Learning Styles; and Learning Content of Prensky match to possible game types. It is the attempt of this paper to compare these learning conceptions with game genres. The model of integrating is shown in Figure 3. The process that led to this new model is conducted by (1) matching the
Facts, Skills
characteristics of game genres with Prensky's learning contents and learning activities, (2) analysing learning activities of each genre with Bloom's taxonomy and Gangé's intellectual skills, and (3) compare the behavior when playing game Chong et al (2005) of each style of learning (Honey & Mumford, 1992) with each game genre. In order to make this model comprehensive,
Theorists
Table 9. Comparison of game genres to support learning objectives,learning capabilities, learning contents and learning styles
comparison of game genres to support the learning concepts is illustrated in Table 9. The results of this analysis will be a tangible framework for choosing game genres for designing an effective educational computer game. This framework can also be used as a criterion to answer the question “What is the appropriate game genre to design educational
Discussion
computer game?” Interestingly, Adventure, Role-Playing,
Good educational computer games provide not only an
Simulation and Strategy Games reach all levels of
attractive context for engaging learners in activities, but
learning objectives and capabilities. All these four game
also need to deliver substantive educational content to
genres are also mentioned in the findings of most
achieve learning objectives. Educational computer
researchers Gee (2003), Quinn (1994), Roberts (1976), Ju
games require strategizing, hypothesis testing, or
& Wagner (1997) that they are good foundations of the
problem-solving, usually with higher order thinking than
development of teaching resources. On the contrary,
repeated memorization or simple comprehension
Puzzle games which fall into the least levels of learning
(Dondlinger, 2007). However, in creating effective
objective and capabilities are also used widely in
educational computer games, creator have to match
educational game.
particular education topics or content into the structure of
suggest the use of Puzzle games for the novice game
i-manager’s Journal of Educational Technology, Vol. 5 l No. 2 l July - September 2008
One of the survey's participants
29
ARTICLES players. This genre of game involve solving logic puzzles or
some findings from the Thai students and integrating the
navigating complex locations such as Maze. Most puzzles
works of researchers on digital game-based learning, the
should present without time pressure, and it is extremely
authors attempt to answer the question “ what
important that the rules be clear. The interface should be
appropriate game genre can be best used in education
simple and allow for trial and error without penalty by
environment?” After summarizing the opinion from the
making it easy to reset the problem or undo a particular
interview of Thai students, they come up with other four
move (Schiffer, 2006). As for Action Games, generally it is
sub-queries concerned with game genre and learning
the most well known genre, reaching three levels of
conceptions. Subsequently, the four pedagogy theories
learning objectives and capabilities, and also Fighting
namely Bloom's taxonomy of learning objective, Gagné's
and Sports Games as well. While in Adventure games, the
intellectual skills of learning capabilities, Prensky's learning
players must have patience and require a great deal of
contents compared with game genres and Honey and
thinking, Action Games have to be fast and keep the
Mumford learning styles have been integrated to answer
players moving at all times. Additionally, in terms of
the questions. Finally, the conceptual model that shows
selecting the appropriate game genres for a particular
the comparison of the use of computer game genre
style of learner, it can be determined by looking at
supporting learning theories has been proposed.
learner's dominant learning style.
hoped that findings from this research will be useful in
Wolf (2002) and Schiffer (2006) suggest a guideline for
designing educational games in the future.
designing effective educational computer games that
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Proceedings of the Level of Digital Games Research
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dr. Myint Swe Khine is currently working as an Associate Professor of Instructional Science and Technology, Emirates College for Advanced Education, United Arab Emirates. He teaches pedagogy and technology courses in undergraduate and postgraduate teacher education programmes. He has published over 100 articles and research papers in international journals.
i-manager’s Journal of Educational Technology, Vol. 5 l No. 2 l July - September 2008
31
ARTICLES
YOKOI'S THEORY OF LATERAL INNOVATION: APPLICATIONS FOR LEARNING GAME DESIGN By SCOTT J. WARREN*
GREG JONES**
* Assistant Professor, Department of Learning Technologies, University of North Texas, Denton, TX . **Assistant Professor, Department of Learning Technologies, University of North Texas, Denton, TX .
ABSTRACT There are several major challenges for instructional designers seeking to design learning games. These include the lack of access, the cost of rapidly advancing/expensive technology tools that make developing games uneconomical, the institutional time constraints limiting game use, and the concerns that schools lack sufficiently robust computer systems and bandwidth to allow their teachers and students to take full advantage of “bleeding edge” technology. This paper discusses how a theory of design from famed game system designer Gunpei Yokoi can be leveraged in learning game design by focusing on the use of mature technologies already widely present in schools. By thinking about older technologies in innovative ways instead of relying on the flash of the newest graphics to motivate learners, learning game design can deliver low-cost, engaging play for learning. Keywords: Yokoi, Lateral Thinking, Game Design, Learning, Instructional Design, Mature Technologies. INTRODUCTION
entertainment uses. Since these resourses are not
The use of digital games, simulations, and other complex
normally available to educators interested in designing
systems to support learning in educational environments
and building learning games, we must examine what is
are at the forefront of the current push in the field of
ideal and what is actually possible when creating learning
education, with the call coming from many quarters to
games.
seek out the motivating aspects of such constructs as a
Costs of the Bleeding Edge
means of improving learning (Prensky, 2001; Squire,
So-called “bleeding edge” technologies may be defined
2006). Research on these systems has been correlated to
as (i) so new that the user is required to risk stability and
improve student motivation to learn (Tuzun, 2004),
productivity to use it (ii) the tendency of the technology to
improve understanding of historical concepts (Squire,
be extremely expensive (iii) there is a lack of consensus
2004), improvement in student writing (Warren, Barab, &
about the best approach to design and (iv) there is a lack
Dondlinger, 2008), and understanding of complex
of knowledge about the technology in the particular field
science concepts and systems as well as social empathy
in which it is being used (Wikipedia, 2008a). In recent
and history content (Barab et al., 2007; Dede, Ketelhut, &
years, the term has also been used to refer to technology
Ruess, 2006). While these are promising results that bear
that is “ahead of cutting edge,” but still within the reach of
further study, the projects that support the game worlds
those technically sophisticated to attempt its use. Users of
are often funded with millions of dollars in government
such technology should expect that it should not always
funding, which makes employing the technologies and
work as expected. The first definition has been employed
accompanying designs difficult for the average
for this article.
practitioner. The high-end graphics, long development
What is problematic from this perspective is that there is a
times, and large staffs enjoyed by such projects allow for
lot of knowledge in the field of game design about the
the development of game systems that are closer to what
best way to design for entertainment, but much of this is
game companies are developing for commercial
kept commercially secret in order to protect trade
32
i-manager’s Journal of Educational Technology, Vol. 5 l No. 2 l July - September 2008
ARTICLES secrets. While there have been many books and articles
process for system design, not on the physical creation of
published on the subject of designing games in general,
it. As a result, they must often turn to professionals with
there are far fewer published about how to design games
these skills, since most complex design projects are
for learning. In the field of education, our knowledge of
difficult to develop by a single professional. Even a small
how to design educational games that allow us to reach
project requires several experts to provide the necessary
learning goals is still nascent, with only a few researchers
technical skills to create something. Salaries for these
reporting empirical studies that have found significant
experts range from $55,000 US a year to a high of around
differences for learning (Dondlinger, 2007; Hays, 2005).
$85,000 US for an experienced game programmer
Over the last decade, a lot of money has been spent
(International Game Developers Association, 2008).
developing bleeding edge games, simulations, and
This expense may in turn require the constant seeking of
other innovative systems that have life-like graphics,
grants from governmental and private sources, which
sounds, and experiences for those that can afford the
further reduces the time that the instructional designer has
systems. The cost of developing digital games has soared
to supervise the game's design. It therefore makes more
from reports of $3 to $6 million a few years ago to $10 to
sense to focus less on “bleeding edge technologies for
$20 million and more to make today (Takatsuki, 2007).
improving learning” and more on “bleeding edge
When the Sony PlayStation 3 was in development, it was
innovations that leverage technology for improving
estimated that the cost of a single console would run
learning” using existing or re-examined technologies.
$494, but only sold for $399 with the maker seeking to
Another possibility is to examine our thinking about how we
make a profit from their licenses to develop games for the
leverage technology to design games for learning. Yokoi's
system (Gamespot Staff, 2005).
theory has been used for several decades and can
The existence of such bleeding edge systems for
provide some ideas for teachers and instructional
commercial entertainment that many students and
designers with small or no budgets and limited
teachers already have at home creates a difficult tension
technology proficiency.
for instructional designers and researchers seeking to
Yokoi's Theory: Lateral Thinking about Withered
exploit the motivating power of the game constructs that
Technology
have been developed for these systems. If the learning
Gunpei Yokoi was a long-time designer of game system
affordances of these systems stem only from the ever-
components for the Nintendo Company of Japan,
evolving graphics, sound, and interactions available from
currently well-known for its Wii game console as well as
these systems, how can a designer of educational games
popular video game characters like Mario and Donkey
match the explosive developments coming from the
Kong (Crigger, 2007; Wikipedia, 2008b). His most notable
game industry? Should designers even try to keep up with
achievement was designing Nintendo's highly successful
the massive corporate games or return to more traditional
Game Boy system. This evolved from his personal
curricula? Will students reject educational games that
philosophy of design, which he called “Lateral Thinking of
lack the high-powered graphics and interactions that are
Withered Technology”. This was originally depicted in a
present in commercial games? These questions pose a
book of interviews with the famed Nintendo game system
fairly serious challenge for educators seeking to use them
designer called “Yokoi Gunpei Game House”. Lateral
in classrooms and for designers considering their use as a
thinking has been conceived in the research literature as
basis for instructional systems development.
non-linear, creative or critical thinking that allows for
Another challenge that comes from attempting to
multiple, often innovative solutions to problems (Barak &
leverage these new systems is that many instructional
Doppelt, 1999; DeBono, 1968; Waks, 1997). The term
designers are researchers without advanced technical or
“withered” simply refers to technologies that have
programming skills. Their role as a designer is on guiding a
matured to the point that they are inexpensive,
i-manager’s Journal of Educational Technology, Vol. 5 l No. 2 l July - September 2008
33
ARTICLES understood by the general public, and require little
what a game must include and processes by which
training on the part of the user to be implemented easily
games should be designed. By synthesizing rules that are
(Wikipedia, 2008b). By applying linear thinking to such
offered by both of these authors, we may be led to state
mature technologies, his theory stated that they could be
that a game must include a) a rule-based interactive
employed in innovative ways that would engage users
system, b) a quantifiable outcome characteristic, c)
without adding unnecessary cost to the products.
artificial conflict and play characteristics, and may also
What matters in the context of this theory is that the novelty
include d) a modeling reality characteristic (Dondlinger &
of the play and the interactions between player and
Warren, in press).
system are intrinsic motivation rather than having top-end
What is problematic is that if a designer takes these as
graphics and high-end computer processor power
hard and fast rules instead of employing lateral thinking,
(Crigger, 2007). By employing this philosophy, it was
they may be constricted by thinking that each element
revealed that it is more cost effective to rely on older,
must be present or that they must follow prescribed
proven technologies for design rather than bleeding
design process in order to reach the goal of designing a
edge technologies and he even went so far as to suggest
game. This also artificially restricts what may be viewed as
that employing advanced technologies may interfere
a game. For example, some systems do not include an
with designing innovative products because of excess
artificial conflict, but instead incorporate a real one such
focus on the technology rather than on the innovate use
as in Jane McGonigal's World Without Oil (Ernst, 2007). This
of it. Further, the design and development time is lower
example could be disqualified, using the rules above, as
when applying lateral thinking about mature
being “game.” However, the average person engaged in
technologies than it is for “bleeding edge” products,
this system may clearly identify it as a game, because it
because they are proven to work effectively even as they
has a sufficient number of characteristics from those that
save both the developer and user money. In many
they have played in the past for them to categorize them
educational settings shrinking budgets and reduced
as such.
grant funding are recurrent problems. How then can be
If the designer can discard preconceived notions of what
Yokoi's theory leveraged in the field of education as we
constitutes a game, what technologies must be present,
seek to design games for learning?
and what technologies are valuable for designing
Re-examination
learning systems whether they come in the form of game,
The basic principle of lateral thinking is to generate new
simulation, or instructional module, they free themselves
ideas and approaches, without regard to order or
from the conceptual boxes that say that a game must be
sequence (Barak & Doppelt, 1999; DeBono, 1968; Waks,
the same as what has come before it. Further, if the
1997). This forces the examination of technologies that
designer can re-examine technologies that are
are already abundant in specific education settings in
perceived as “withered,” they may find utility in employing
creative ways that force instructional designers to think
them in an unintended, innovative manner that sparks
differently about how things must be done. Instead,
meaningful learning. The authors' research related to
designers must think about alternatives to the existing
learning game designs employed in several instructional
ways of using a well-known technology that are more
settings ranging from K-12 to corporate and higher
engaging for the learners by challenging them to act in
education and the assorted challenges facing each that
novel ways in response to our instructional designs. For
include limited bandwidth, tight budgets for software,
example, the authors have read numerous books about
older hardware, and limited training opportunities (Barab
game design ranging from Salen and Zimmerman's Rules
et al., 2007; Jones & Warren, 2008; Jones & Kalinowski,
of Play (2004) to Crawford's Art of Interactive Design
2007; Warren et al., 2008; Warren & Dondlinger, in press).
(2003) that have each provided concrete ideas about
This has led to the idea, borrowing from Yokoi's, that
34
i-manager’s Journal of Educational Technology, Vol. 5 l No. 2 l July - September 2008
ARTICLES educational games should avoid seeking bleeding edge
approaches are offered that stem from existing
solutions, and should instead leverage mature, disparate,
applications of the principles of re-examination noted in
and sometimes discarded technologies in innovative
the preceding figure. Most notably, two efforts that have
ways that stem from re-examination and analysis of the
served in their own instructional design and development
underlying learning affordances of these technologies,
projects or have been evident in the work of other major
rather than relying on the development of entirely new
projects have been focussed in which either
systems. There are five basic principles that should be
“mature/withered” or popular and widely available
considered when re-examining mature technologies that
technologies have been leveraged to support learning.
we frame in terms of the following questions:
Mature technologies.
Is it a mature technology?
Several technologies have made strides in terms of ease
Is it widely available?
of use and improved features since original research in
Is it well understood?
the late 1990s and early part of this decade found no
Is the technology inexpensive?
Can the technology be used to develop innovative pedagogy?
When applying these principles as part of lateral thinking towards innovation, it is suggested that the process that has emerged from the authors’ own design work takes advantage of the fairly simple ADDIE model of instructional design (Bichelmeyer, 2005) which consists of (a)nalysis, (d)esign, (d)evelopment, (i)mplementation, and (e)valuation. Figure 1 presents this process.
significant differences when employed to support learning and achievement (Fertig, in press). Given that products that leverage hypertext, simple graphics, word processing, and other tools that have existed for over a decade, users who may have found them challenging or even frightening to use initially, have likely developed substantially improved or even mastery over skills needed to use the products successfully. As such, each should be reexamined in terms of their utility for education and be accompanied by a liberal application of lateral thinking about how they may be used in innovative ways in schools
Defining the technologies
to support learning and/or instruction.
In terms of leveraging technology in the service of
By leveraging such technologies, instructors and/or
learning, the authors do not seek to limit the reader to a
instructional designers can generate a product in a fairly
small number of possibilities. Instead, a small number of
short period of time using existing tools that their students have high access to, as well as comfortable with in terms of daily use. Further, many of these technologies have morphed into Web 2.0 tools such as simple online word processors like Google Docs and open-source tools like those included in Sun's Open Office.org software suite. Being widely available at no cost, students and teachers use these often in classrooms to create projects on existing computers while requiring little to no bandwidth and does not require high processor speeds to function well. However, access alone to the product(s) does not engender use (Cuban, 1988; Cuban, Kirkpatrick, & Peck, 2001). By employing lateral thinking about how Google Docs may be used to encourage something like
Figure 1. Suggested process for Technology Re-examination
i-manager’s Journal of Educational Technology, Vol. 5 l No. 2 l July - September 2008
35
ARTICLES collaborative storytelling, the focus is taken off the
(Canadian Broadcasting Center News, 2006), The Lost
technology product itself and is instead focused on using
Ring (Terdiman, 2008), and World without Oil (Egner,
it in an innovative manner to engage in learning tasks.
2007). Within each of these games, players are sent to
Other innovative uses could include using inexpensive
numerous web sites, videos with embedded text and links,
wireless, global positioning system-enabled (GPS)
and social networks to discover and discuss clues to the
handheld computers to send students to investigate pre-
numerous puzzles and mini-games. By examining each,
developed science inquiry spaces (Wikipedia, 2008c).
engaging in creative and critical thinking, and working
Using the devices to perform experiments that leverage
with peers through numerous forms of online
the existing functions of the device could then allow
communication, players unravel the larger mysteries that
students to upload the data to a classroom computer.
are at the heart of each game.
Using this computer in conjunction with an LCD projector
At their core, alternate reality games (ARG) are those that
would then allow the class to challenge each group's
take the substance of everyday life and weave it into new
findings or make evidence supported inferences about
worlds that, while easily recognizable by players, is
problems posed by the teacher.
different enough that it drives cognitive dissonance in the
Alternatively, teachers could allow students to design
learners and includes a narrative that drives both play and
problems collaboratively online using hypertext links and
learning (M.J. Dondlinger & Warren, in press). Each of the
images to resources that other groups of students would
technologies employed to develop an ARG are widely
have to solve as they investigate real historical problems
available for free or can be constructed using the
depicted in artwork found on the web pages of numerous
software that can be downloaded for free or arrives pre-
museum collections. In this case, the students become
loaded on most personal computers such as simple
the designers of the learning activities themselves and
video editors, word processors, and image manipulation
use the technologies simply as a tool to show deep
programs like Google's Picasa.
learning about the concepts of history, art, and inquiry.
In this case, the maturing technologies are used laterally
This aids in taking the focus off the technology as
by linking them together in innovative ways to create
necessary for learning and instead places it in a category
innovative games without the cost of developing
of technology as means of supplementing student critical
bleeding edge games that often require high levels of
thinking, creativity, and communication with peers and
expertise and a large, highly trained staff. While the game
teacher.
may not have all of the intense graphics of the latest XBOX
Popular technologies
360 titles, they include the underlying motivating contexts
There is utility remaining in technologies that are not
and challenges. When employed in games, these
“bleeding edge” and these may be leveraged to
strategies drive players to engage in creative problem
improve learning game design. Technologies in the form
solving and collaborative play towards achieving the
of social networks such as MySpace and Ning.com or
learning and play goals of the design.
online digital video sharing sites like YouTube are
With these suggestions offered, it is important to note that
(i) supported by past research but still open to new
there are several projects that have developed
questions as they evolve, (ii) maturing in terms of user
educational games, simulations, and other innovative
familiarity and facility, (iii) less costly than “bleeding edge”
learning environments that have knowingly or
technologies in both development time and funding,
unknowingly applied one or more of these principles in
and (iv) can incorporate the motivational, social, and
their designs. These have often been constrained by the
narrative properties of bleeding edge technologies.
public school technology systems with which they
Examples of games that employ these technologies
worked, financial limitations of the project or users, and in
include online alternate reality games like Cathy's Book
some instances team member values that restricted
36
i-manager’s Journal of Educational Technology, Vol. 5 l No. 2 l July - September 2008
ARTICLES developing a high-cost product. Over the past few years,
In both cases, the lateral thinking about the technology
several projects have been developed in which
came in the form of the particular instructional designs
instructional designers have applied these in response to
and the actions that learners could take in each project's
the needs of their learners and have noted important
world. In the case of River City, students engage in the role
achievement, motivation, and attitudinal gains
of someone transported in time to investigate water
stemming from innovative uses of matured technologies.
pollution problems leading to community illness in a
In the following section, several projects that leverage
historical simulation (Dede et al., 2006). The learning
these principles to develop engaging games and other
activities, as well as the accompanying game activities,
forms of online environment are described.
would force students to both understand the science
Specific designs that leverage these principles
concepts as well as the historical context within which it
Quest Atlantis and River City: Active Worlds. Both Quest Atlantis (Barab et al., 2007) and River City (Dede, 2006), stemmed initially from the United States' National Science Foundation (NSF) which provided grant funding for projects that targeted science inquiry learning for elementary and early secondary students. In each case, the underlying system that the projects relied on was Active Worlds, which is a 3D virtual world building platform that includes both free building spaces as well as private worlds developers can purchase (Barab, Thomas, Dodge, Carteaux, & Tuzun, 2005). This particular technology was originally created in 1994 and has undergone several evolutions in technology since that time. When the educational projects began in the early part of this decade, the Active Worlds web browser could still run on a personal computer (PC) running Windows 95 with minimal video and memory requirements, which would allow most schools to run the game worlds. Figure 2 shows an example of the level graphics from one of Quest Atlantis' worlds.
occurred. In Quest Atlantis, students are engaged in an open-ended fantasy space in which they are asked to help the fictional Council of Atlantis, which consists mainly of fictional characters approximately the same age as the students themselves (Barab, Warren, & Ingram-Goble, in press). Players complete science and other subjectarea inquiry and problem-based learning activities in several different worlds where the fictional scenarios ask students to complete simulated science experiments (Barab et al., 2007). Student work is contextualized as helping the Council to better understand their own world, while players here on Earth receive game rewards, additional narrative elements, and new virtual spaces to explore. In both projects, the mature technology of Active Worlds, which is proven and has been developed over nearly fifteen years, and the lateral thinking by the project designers has come through innovative use of the technology to contextualize subject matter that is often resisted in the age group that they have created these spaces to serve (Anderman & Leake, 2005; Anderman, Maehr, & Midgely, 1999). Whyville: Adobe Flash™. This project was also funded in part by the NSF as well as other organizations and it was intended to increase the interest of children in science learning through multidisciplinary contexts. Research has found that girls have had an especially strong affinity for the virtual world, which is important since girls have traditionally not been as interested in science learning as boys (Foley, Jones, & McPhee-Baker, 2002). Beginning in the late 1990s, the
Figure 2. The observatory's linguistic cipher in Quest Atlantis' Anytown world.
project leveraged the Adobe Flash™ software to develop an online, collaborative world in which students could
i-manager’s Journal of Educational Technology, Vol. 5 l No. 2 l July - September 2008
37
ARTICLES communicate about what they learned, as well as build
the target goal of improving formal student achievement
virtual items and businesses as part of a virtual economy
related to vocabulary, reading comprehension, and
similar to those in commercial games described by
written language skills as a supplement to classroom
Castranova (Castranova, 2001). The innovative use of
instruction. Chalk House immerses students in an
widely available, mature commercial software such as
authentic writing role, a newspaper reporter, assigned to
Flash allowed the development of a strong virtual space
unearth the mystery of a purportedly haunted mansion in
that was both innovative when it emerged and continues
which several victims have disappeared. Numerous
to evolve today with a reported three million users.
puzzles, linguistic challenges, and game structures place
The Door: Web 2.0.
students in a world where assessment emerges naturally
This project, intended for undergraduate students at community colleges and universities, leverages numerous Web 2.0 technologies such as Facebook and MySpace social networks, Podcasts for digital audio sharing, YouTube digital videos, and Linden Labs' Second Life (Warren, Dondlinger, & Whitworth, 2008). These were used to develop a distributed, online course game modeled on alternate reality games (ARG) like ilovebees.com and World Without Oil (Dondlinger & Warren, in press; Ernst, 2007). Within the context of the game, students learn the basics of computer tools such as word processors and spreadsheets, as well as
from their interactions with characters and environment, with the goal of leading students increased engagement to reading and writing. As the group engaged in lateral thinking about the technology needed to support school use of the system that would drive Chalk House, a framework emerged that dictated that the game would (i) operate under Windows, Macintosh, and Linux operating systems, (ii) require minimal hard drive space, bandwidth, and computer memory, and (iii) deliver 3D graphics capable of being displayed in the majority of schools in the United States today. Figure 3 shows an example of the level graphics from Chalk House.
important concepts of group problem solving and
Java's™ computing performance several years ago
working for clients as they are immersed in a multi-tiered
made it an unlikely choice for developing a real-time
narrative mystery that challenges students to uncover the
multi-user online game. However, upon re-examining it
real motives of the characters with which they
today, the combination of improved computer
communicate with through e-mail, online forums, and
performance, pervasive use on multiple computer
with digital avatars. This project employed lateral thinking
platforms, and Java's™ better operating characteristics
about how courses could be designed to use low or no-
make it a good choice for educational game design.
cost technologies with a proven track record to design
Civilization III: Commercial gaming serving learning
and develop a dynamic curriculum that would engage
This seven year-old turn-based strategy simulation game
and motivate learners without the costs associated with developing other educational games (Warren, Dondlinger, & McLeod, 2008; Warren & Dondlinger, 2008). Chalk House: CRG Framework using Sun's Java™. This 3D online learning environment focuses on immersing middle school students in a narrative-based game intended to improve literacy skills: namely, reading and writing. Chalk House is the first of series of learning modules being developed using the CRG 3D Framework (Jones & Warren, 2007; Warren & Jones, 2008). The digital framework, developed in Java™, has been designed with
38
Figure 3. A view of Chalk House within the Created Realities engine.
i-manager’s Journal of Educational Technology, Vol. 5 l No. 2 l July - September 2008
ARTICLES comes from the world of commercial gaming and has been used in a support role for students coming to appreciate historical concepts (Squire, 2004, 2006). In this case, the lateral thinking about the technology has come in the form of determining how the game system may best support learning and then developing outside activities in the face-to-face classroom to interrogate the lessons that students learned as well as correct misconceptions they brought to the experience. Further, there are free versions of the original 1991 Civilization game simulation that can be downloaded and used that
Figure 4. Students participating in the Charles River City Augmented Reality from the MIT website (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2008)
do not have the high end graphic quality of the more recent versions of the series, and may be a better option
Discussion
for designer's with tight budgets. While this is definitely one
Despite the argument that in education it is important to
possible approach to applying lateral thinking, the fact
re-examine “withered technologies,” we also believe that
that ‘the underlying system may encourage some
research and design conducted with “bleeding edge”
misconceptions about linear historical thinking because
technologies is also important in education. Grant-
the game may not be intended to accurately simulate
funded projects by the United States' National Science
real events’, using older commercial games for learning
Foundation (NSF) and National Institutes of Health (NIH) as
should be done with caution.
well as their counterparts in other countries have
Augmented Reality Games: Handhelds.
contributed substantially to the forward thinking
These should not be confused with the previously discussed Alternate Reality Games. Augmented reality games (AuRG) combine real world and computergenerated data. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Teacher Education Program has created several educational AuRGs (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2008). The lateral thinking involved in designing AuRGs stems from using (i) handheld
orientation of researchers and theorists in the field of education as they seek innovations that help students and instructors at every level of education. In fact, several of the projects mentioned here began as inquiries into the use of, if not bleeding edge, then at least forward-thinking technologies to be leveraged to improve teaching and learning (Table 1). Uses Uses mature widely technology available, well understood technology
Project
computers, which are far less expensive than providing laptop computers to students and can provide one-toone computing, (ii) it allows the designer to leverage the
Uses inexpensive everyday technology
Uses innovative pedagogy and technology
portability of the units and, when equipped with GPS, they
Quest Atlantis
X
X
X
provide location to key into data, while (iii) blend nearly
River City
X
X
X
cost free real-world activities with low cost technologies
Whyville
X
X
X
The Door
X
X
X
X
X
X
Civilization Series
X
X
Augmented Reality Games
X
for creating content (Muir et al., 2006). Thus, AuRGs take advantage of real-world assets by overlaying the required new reality on top of the existing reality using the technology. Figure 4 shows students using handhelds during an augmented reality game experience.
Chalk House
X
X X
X
Table 1. Design projects that have leveraged older technologies.
i-manager’s Journal of Educational Technology, Vol. 5 l No. 2 l July - September 2008
39
ARTICLES The data and dynamic understandings of the role of
it's innovative game play and physical structures helps to
technology in education that have been reported by
answer this critique. The Wii, which has less graphics and
these well-funded basic research projects has been
computing power of competing consoles from Microsoft
invaluable in terms of moving forward everyday teachers
and Sony, has been the best-selling game unit in the world
and learners as they prepare for the conceptual age work
for the past two years (Carst, 2008; Richtel, 2007), while
st
of the 21 century.
selling for less than the competing systems.
However, because of the costs of developing “bleeding
Conclusion
edge” technologies and the lack of access to these
By focusing too much on the media (e.g. video games,
projects for the majority of teachers and students, it is
simulations, virtual environments), we often fail to
important to identify the unexplored learning, instruction,
generate strong, replicable instructional game designs,
and media affordances of inexpensive existing and
distracted by the need to compete with the beauty of
mature technologies to determine how instructional
high resolution graphics. It is important to note that over
designs that lead to the same improved motivation,
the last forty years, there has been a lot of costly, difficult to
critical thinking, creativity, organizational skills, and self-
play games and simulations on the market and have
efficacy found in well-designed video games can be
failed commercially and have become laughing stocks
developed. The field has not sufficiently conducted
in mainstream media. This stems from the fact that they
research on these products to determine which of their
do not complete their task of entertaining well and the
constituent parts will lead to improvements in these
underlying system structures make them unusable. If
psychological constructs in order to build our own
instructional game designs are generated that use
effective games, simulations, or virtual environments
“bleeding edge” technologies that also do not do their
(Dondlinger & Warren, 2008). Further, if other instructional
task of educating well, the designer's time, the learner's
development products can be developed without the
time are wasted and we do not advance the field in
monetary, manpower and time cost, by including the
general. Most importantly, it is believed that moving
underlying elements of these products, it is a service to the
forward in the area of learning game design should be
learners, instructors, and field as a whole. If other
conducted with an acute awareness of the costs of
designers or educators cannot recreate the reported
pursuing bleeding edge technologies that most
successes of a “bleeding edge” product due to
educators cannot afford to accept.
inadequate reporting of instructional designs, research failures and successes, and the general price to be paid for the “bleeding edge,” it does not contribute to the field and advance the general knowledge.
[1]. Anderman, L. H., & Leake, V. (2005). The ABCs of Motivation: An alternative framework for teaching preservice teachers about motivation. Clearing House: A
What are some of the concerns that stem from this approach? It is possible that if we do not remain on the “bleeding edge” with the media and complex digital structures used for teaching and learning, students may lack engagement and interest because older designs are competing with the computer games and other advancing media they are engaged with. If the media generated is sub-par because of lack of facility to develop good instruction, they will be lost anyway. Further, the success of Nintendo's Wii game console (a descendant of those designed using Yokoi's theory) and 40
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ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Dr. Scott J. Warren works as an Assistant Professor of Learning Technologies at the University of North Texas. He holds a Ph.D. in Instructional Systems Technology from Indiana University-Bloomington. His current research examines the use of emerging online technologies such as immersive digital learning environments, educational games and simulations, and open source course management tools in complex systems in K-20 settings. Prior to working in higher education as a teacher, researcher and designer, he taught both social studies and English in urban and suburban settings for nearly a decade. Dr. Greg Jones interest is in expanding the way technology can be used to further the creation and distribution of knowledge and learning. His research focuses on the areas of emerging technologies for learning, which include visualization systems for Education, Virtual communities, Tele-mentoring, and 3D online learning environments (virtual environments). These technologies support learning by the distribution of interaction and feedback across both time and space via interactive forms of multimedia. http://courseweb.unt.edu/gjones
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ARTICLES
PLAY, GAMES, AND ATTITUDE: STUDENT AND TEACHER PERSPECTIVES OF EDUCATIONAL GAMES By GERRI MONGILLO* * Assistant Professor, William Paterson University, New Jersey.
ABSTRACT The main purpose of this qualitative study was to determine the influence of participation in educational games on cognition and attitudes of seventh-grade students. Student attitude towards learning scientific language and concepts during gameplay was examined. This study was conducted in a seventh-grade science classroom in a North Eastern (USA) middle school. The effects of collaboration, socialization, membership, identity, and game culture were examined. Findings indicated that the use of educational games engaged various types of learners via an Alternate Learning Approach. Specifically the students who have limited language skills may benefit from games through the use of common language. Also students who are disinterested or reluctant to talk in class may be encouraged to voice their opinions and ideas in the more relaxed group setting provided by game structures that foster cooperative learning. Key words: Middle School Education, Educational Games, Attitudinal Development. INTRODUCTION
concerning the selection and implementation of games
Primary grade teachers have long understood the
that address cognitive and attitudinal development.
benefits of using games as a method to re-contextualize
Review of Related Literature
learning. In our work driven middle and secondary
Extensive research validating the use of play, including
classrooms, play is eliminated from the curriculum in favor
the play of educational games, has been done on the
of direct instruction in what is referred to as the antiplay
primary level (e.g., Bruner, 1983; Bruner, Jolly, & Sylva,
philosophy (Johnson, Christie, &Yawkey, 1999).
If play
1976; Fromberg, 2002; Kamii, 1985, 1989) suggesting
appears at all in later schooling, it is relegated to the non-
that there is a strong relationship between gameplay and
essential status of an extra-curricula activity, or used as a
the development of cognitive and attitudinal
reward system (Fromberg, 2002). Games are demoted to
competencies (e.g., Bredekamp & Copple, 1997; Bruner,
an inferior status in middle school curricula because of
Jolly, Sylva, 1976; Johnson, Christie, & Yawkey, 1999; Kamii
the pejorative perspective of play and often regarded
& Lewis, 1992). However, there is less research on the
tangential; many educators perceive games as
value of play and games with upper elementary or
meaningless child's play.
middle school age students.
This perspective of games
suggests that the benefits of play in the development of student's cognitive and attitudinal capacities are overlooked and under rated in traditional middle school instruction (Holton, Ahmed, Williams, & Hill, 2001).
An attribute of play not to be overlooked is the contribution play makes toward enhancing the older student's attitude towards learning. One of the essential components of attitude was described as “a preparation
Games for the purpose of this study were defined as
or readiness for response” (Allport, 1935, p. 805). That is, an
having at least two or more players, an element of
individual's reaction to a situation is determined by past
challenge and competition following a predetermined
experiences, either positively or negatively. These prior
set of rules, and criteria for winning (Jacob & Dempsey,
experiences affect both interest and motivation.
1993; King, 1986). Not all games are educational,
Educators frequently bemoan the middle school
interesting or motivating so the question arises 44
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ARTICLES student's lack of interest and motivation as an obstacle to
Purpose of the Study
learning. Many middle school students' attitudes toward
This qualitative study sought to discover the impact on
learning are negatively affected by the irrelevant manner
student attitude towards science learning where games
in which academic material is introduced (Alberts, 2003).
were implemented as an educational strategy. This study
Students find little or no connection between learning and
was conducted within a seventh-grade classroom
their everyday lives. In addition, school-based learning
consisting of 27 average ability students aged 12-14 in
and play become mutually exclusive concepts. Dewey
order to observe and describe gameplay as it naturally
(1916) aptly commented on this disconnect when he
occurred. Data was collected from six participants (2
stated that “the passage from play to work should be
female, and 4 male) from one class section. The
gradual, not involving a radical change of attitude but
curriculum in this classroom was chiefly designed around
carrying into work the elements of play” (p. 10).
This
major scientific topics that were implemented within an
suggests that the cognitive and attitudinal capacities
inquiry-based model of instruction. Findings discussed
developed through play may transfer to life long learning
are taken from a larger study that also examined
strategies.
language and concept use during games, however this
Although games and play are not apparent in
paper will focus specifically on the following research
adolescent schooling, they are an integral part of their
question: What affect does participation in educational
daily lifestyle. One has only to observe the out-of-school
games have on student attitude toward learning scientific
activities of these students to see the amount of time and
language and concepts?
effort they spend on various games that require multiple
Method
literacy skills (Alverman, Hinchman, Moore, & Phelps, 1998; Bean, Bean, & Bean, 1999; Gee, 2003; Moje et al., 2004). Inclusive in the concept of multiple literacies are the various ways of communicating described as accepted language use in specific social and situational contexts (Gee, 1996; Street, 1995) as well as a variety of new multimedia technologies (New London Group, 1996/2000).
Over the course of this study, data were collected through teacher and student interviews, classroom observations, self-study evaluations and field notes. Data collection commenced at the start of the Earth History unit. The length of this study was 6 weeks. This researcher observed, interviewed, and recorded classroom activity at least 3 days each week. The classroom teacher implemented
Student attitude toward learning may not only be addressed by participation in games, it may be optimized.
Data Sources
Psychologist Csikszentmihalyi (1991)
theorized that we achieve optimal experiences through a trancelike state he called flow, a condition that is often achieved in play.
According to Csikszentmihalyi we are
totally absorbed in all aspects of play during the flow state, the experience is one “that focuses attention and motivates action” (p. 32).
5 educational games during the unit of study. The types of games observed varied and included versions of popular game shows (i.e., Gameshow, Jeopardy®, Memory, and Pyramid).
Frequently the teacher created the game
questions but in at least one instance (Gameshow) the students created the questions and answers. Students integrated technologies to create games such as using the Internet to research question and answers; and they also used an electronic version of Jeopardy® which was
Finally, the implications from the research on cooperative
located on the Internet. Using this electronic version the
games (DeVries & Slavin, 1976) include more effective
teacher was able to insert content specific questions and
teaching and learning, improved student achievement,
answers and the students were able to play the game, in
and improved attitude toward learning.
teams using the classroom computer. Educational games implemented in the classroom were audio taped
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45
ARTICLES while the researcher recorded field notes. One element
narrative and verbal data. Analysis was ongoing and it
of study during games focused on the participants'
was through this constant comparison method that the
behaviors and attitude.
The purpose of audio taping
researcher found emerging trends and patterns in the
gameplay was to holistically understand the dynamics of
data (Hubbard & Power, 1999). Reliability was assured
the game and capture the interactions between all of the
through this process as well as triangulation of data
participants during the games.
sources. Consistent with the design of the qualitative
The participants' audio taped interviews were analyzed to
study, findings were reported through a rich, thick
discover their attitude toward learning science through
description of the phenomena which creates for the
educational games.
reader the sense of having been there (Guba & Lincoln,
Responses to each interview
question were analyzed separately to understand
1981).
patterns that led to understanding of the participants'
Results and Discussion
perspective and attitude concerning games. Field notes
Attitudinal Development Toward Science Through
were analyzed and data was used to compare tentative
Educational Games
results from the interview findings. In addition to the initial interviews, impromptu interviews occurred with both the teacher and the students during the study and near the end of the study.
These interviews were also tape
recorded, and the researcher wrote field notes.
Attitude was defined in this study as the mental processes that determine the responses of each person in the social world (Allport, 1935). Further, attitudes are formed based on our values and beliefs mediated by our cultural background and daily social interaction. The analysis of
Data Analysis
participant interviews, self-evaluation forms, and
First, the teacher and student audio taped initial interviews
gameplay observations provided information relating to
were transcribed and analyzed to discover the
the research question concerning the affects of
participants' beliefs concerning educational games.
educational games on student attitude toward learning
Frequency of recurring themes were noted, compared
scientific vocabulary and concepts.
and contrasted to create discrete categories as the data
Student Interview Analysis
was systematically coded. Next, the subsequent interviews with the participants were transcribed and coded comparing the patterns from the initial interviews to the later.
Data analysis of the initial interviews suggested patterns in the following three categories: Motivation, Interest, and Fun. Table 1 provides definitions of these categories and samples of student (all names are pseudonyms)
One of the student documents collected and analyzed
responses from the initial interviews that exemplify these
was the teacher created and administered Study
categories.
Strategy Evaluation Form. This self-evaluation form
grounded in the theoretical rationale set forth in this study
provided important insights to how students perceive the
as well as a reflection of the participants' responses.
The definitions for these categories were
value of games and their role as participants in games. Qualitative procedures were used to collect and analyze
Category
data. Qualitative data were analyzed through a logico-
Motivation
Motivation is the reason we act and guides our interest and attitudes.
Student view: Like, when I know we are going to play a game I like to come to class.””
Interest
The quality of exciting curiosity or holding one’s attention.
“Student view: Games make it [science] more interesting…”
Fun
To enjoy an activity, amusement.
Student 1 view: “Games are a fun way to learn. Student 2 view: Games are pretty fun.””
inductive process where topics were identified, clustered in categories, and patterns were formed from these categories.
Finally, explanations and interpretations
were formed, based on the categories and used to answer the research questions (Mertler & Charles, 2008). The process was based on logic to make sense of the
46
Definition
Examples from the Initial Interview
Table 1. Students' Initial Perspectives of the Affect of Educational Games on their Attitude
i-manager’s Journal of Educational Technology, Vol. 5 l No. 2 l July - September 2008
ARTICLES Motivation, Interest, and Fun
activity (Fun).
Motivation was defined as the reason for why we act and
The findings of the final student interview (Table 2) were
motivation guides our interest and attitudes (Hallowell,
analyzed and compared to the initial interview. Although
1955). Only one student (1 of 6) said that he enjoyed
the conversation was guided by the questions asked in
science as a subject. Participants reported that
the initial interview, new issues were discussed.
educational games increased their motivation to
analysis yielded two additional patterns in the final
participate in a classroom activity when the games were
interview data, namely (i) Relief from Boredom and
based on scientific vocabular y and concepts.
(ii) Alternate Learning Approach. These additional
The
Participants suggested that they looked forward to
categories may have been generated because the final
coming to class when they anticipated gameplay and
interview was conducted in a whole group talk where
another student explained, “Games are a better way to
students had the opportunity to elaborate and extend
study vocabulary and concepts than just reading…it
their responses precipitated through feedback from their
[games] makes it easier and fun [sic] than tests.”
peers.
Interest was defined as the quality of exciting curiosity or
The category Relief from Boredom is associated with the
holding one's attention.
Interest is closely related to
participants' attitude toward an activity. During the final
motivation in that when students are motivated by an
interview the participants mentioned that the Earth History
activity, their interest is increased. Participants reported
unit contained a great deal of reading which they
during the interview that the games increased their
considered dull. That is, they found both the scientific
interest in science. Games peaked curiosity for some and
content and the activity boring.
as one student stated games “make it [the study of
mentioned in her interview that this unit was content
The teacher also
science] more interesting.” Another student spoke of the
heavy and “contains too much vocabulary and
excitement of games because of the possibility of
concepts.” This unit contained less hands-on activities
winning, “I like competing even though we don't always
than other units they had studied during the year. The
keep score . . . you know, it gets you into it.”
students also discussed that playing games relieved their
Responses where the participants discussed playing
boredom. One student explained, “Studying straight from
games as an enjoyment or amusement were
a book you kinda [sic] get bored after awhile and it's hard
categorized as Fun. All (6 of 6) described games as “a fun
Category
Definition
way of learning!” One student elaborated referring to the games played in previous science units “I found playing
Motivation
Motivation is the reason we act and guides our interest and attitudes.
Student view: “I don’t like science … …when we play games I look forward to coming to class.”
Interest
The quality of exciting curiosity or holding one ’’s attention.
Student view: ““I feel excited and curious because we play games.”
Relief from Boredom
In play we are absorbed by the activity and our attention is focused on the act of constructing knowledge.
Student view: ““Yeah, when playing a game, I ’’m always into it, awake and stuff. ”
Fun
To enjoy an activity, amusement.
Student view: “Games are a fun way to learn.”
Alternate Learning Approach
A non --traditional or a non --didactic learning approach or strategy.
Student view: “I know when I play a game I remember more.”
the games helpful because you were having fun and learning at the same time.” From the students' perspective, the games made learning science enjoyable, although the majority (5 of 6) said that they did not like science as a subject. Overall, the findings for the initial interview suggested that students' perceived the affect of educational games on their attitude toward learning scientific vocabulary and concepts as positive. The notable benefits of gameplay identified included, motivation to participate, increased interest in participating in an activity using scientific language and concepts, and experiencing an enjoyable
Examples from the Interviews
Table 2. Student Perspectives of the Affect of Educational Games on their Attitude Over Time
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47
ARTICLES to focus sometimes.”
forward to coming to class more than I usually do
During the play of educational games the participants
because I'd be having fun but at the same time I'm
had the opportunity to become focused on the science
learning something but you don't really realize it.” Students
content because they were not bored by the activity.
who have formed a negative attitude toward learning
Related to the Relief from Boredom category is the
scientific vocabulary and concepts may develop a more
concept of flow, (Csikszentmihalyi, 1997) a condition
positive attitude through participation in activities that
where one is totally absorbed in an activity. The flow state
motivate them to learn.
creates an optimal learning condition because there is
Some of the participants expressed that they were
intense focus on using skills to construct knowledge.
motivated by educational games because they felt less
According to Csikszentmihalyi (1991) play provides the
threatened in the game environment where the
conditions necessary to achieve the flow state because
atmosphere was relaxing and friendly. Consequences for
in play, we are focused and interested.
failure were minimized and students reported that they
An Alternate Learning Approach was defined as a non-
were at ease venturing answers in the form of guesses to
traditional or a non-didactic learning approach or
game questions, as opposed to being called upon to
strategy. One student reported, “When you play games
answer a question in the traditional classroom exchange.
you're not really thinking about the learning process.”
A student spoke about her attitude toward answering in
Research (Johnson & Johnson, 1994; Slavin, 1995) related
class verses answering game questions, “I'm nervous in
to cooperative learning approaches suggested that
class but not in games.” Another student agreed, “Yeah,
students' attitudes were positively affected through their
like tests you’re nervous if you know you are not going to do
participation in cooperative games.
well . . . But when you play a game like you have fun”.
Student Perspectives of the Value of Educational Games
Educational games lower the risks for some of the participants who felt empowered to venture answers
Over Time
without the fear of being penalized through grades or
Motivation
embarrassed in front of their peers.
Several participants stated the reason that they did not like the Earth History unit was because “there was too much reading.” However, all (6 of 6) of the participants reported that playing educational games motivated them to become involved in gameplay despite the fact
Interest When asked about playing games in class several of the responses mentioned increased interest as a reason for a change in attitude towards studying science content.
that the games were based on scientific content. One
Researcher: How do you feel about coming to class when
student, who had the lowest grades reported that she did
you know in advance that you will be playing a game that
not like science as a subject but she was motivated by
day?
gameplay as demonstrated in her remark, “I am not
Student 1 : I feel excited and curious because we are
much into science but because we are doing this
going to play…it feels like it's not a class at all, just having
[playing games] I'm getting more into science”. She
fun.
achieved higher scores in games, which suggested that
Researcher: Why do you think that your instructor
when motivated, she performed at a higher level when
Ms. Woods has you play games in class?
compared to the written assessments and the final quiz. Another student’s remarks mirrored the earlier student’s response concerning her attitude toward learning science. She stated, “I don't like science at all but I like games . . . I guess when we play games I kinda [sic] look
48
Student 2 : I don't like school but I think she has us play games so we get interested in science. Researcher: Okay, does it work for you? Student 2 : Yeah.
i-manager’s Journal of Educational Technology, Vol. 5 l No. 2 l July - September 2008
ARTICLES Researcher: (To student 3) How about you?
are bored.
Student 3 : I don't really listen in class but when we play
Student 2 : Yeah, like also when I'm playing games like I'm
games I am interested and I kinda [sic] learn stuff I never
always awake and stuff, but sometimes when we are just
pick up in class.
sitting here and reading or doing notes and stuff I'll just
From the participants perspective there appears to be a
zone out-like how when I'm reading a book sometimes I'll
link between interest in the activity and their attitude
like repeat the word but be thinking about
towards learning the subject matter.
something else.
Relief from Boredom
Student 3 : When you play a game you are having fun and
As mentioned earlier, the ‘flow’ state provides an optimal learning environment that relieves boredom. According
you don't care about anything else really. Boredom appeared to play a large role in the
to Csikszentmihalyi (1997), “Optimal experiences usually
participants' dislike of the study of this unit. Their attitude
involve a fine balance between one's ability to act and
toward the science content was affected by boredom.
the available opportunities for action” (p.30). In order for
One student’s reference to the action of the game
flow to occur, the activity must provide an attainable
(“always into it”) displayed that he was in the state of flow
challenge. Too great a challenge causes anxiety and
where anxiety and boredom were alleviated. Another
too little causes boredom. Educational games provide
student echoed the earlier students’ perspective in his
the opportunity for the participants to act where they were
response to a question about boredom, “In class I'm
able to meet the challenges presented in the games
sleeping… she [teacher] talks too much so we get bored .
(successfully answering content questions 59% of the
. . when we play games we pay attention more.” One
time). In addition, the participants were interested and
more student aptly described the characteristic of flow
engaged in gameplay, thereby meeting the conditions
where one becomes totally absorbed when he said,
for the flow experience to take place.
It was noted
“When you play a game . . . you don't care about
however that some of the participants thought that
anything else.”
Memory and Pyramid 2 were less challenging than the
Fun
other games played. One student remarked, “In Memory
The participants also reiterated that games were “a fun
you only have to guess to be right” and another student
thing to do” and “a fun way to learn.” Fun is not usually
agreed “Yeah, like Jeopardy was more interesting and
associated with traditional school learning as echoed by
fun”.
student “we don't usually have fun learning in school.”
Findings indicated that all (6 of 6) of the participants
From another student’s perspective playing games were
complained that the Earth History unit contained too
not only fun but also a helpful approach for both the
much reading and suggested that the educational
students and the teacher, “I think its fun (playing games in
games were a relief from tedious reading. In the following
school) because it helps us and the teacher, it's like a two
conversation participants, explain how their participation
for one deal.” She expressed her belief that both the
in games was seen as a ‘Relief from Boredom’. They were
students and the teacher benefited from games
stimulated and focused which enabled them to become
because she assumed that the teacher also liked to have
involved in the science content where traditional
some fun most likely because the teacher frequently
teaching and learning instruction failed.
implemented gameplay in class.
Student 1 : Playing games once in a while will get you
An Alternate Learning Approach
more involved and more interested in it [science] instead
This category was defined as a non-traditional or a non-
of being bored . . . when you're studying you are just
didactic learning approach. Games as an alternate
thinking about it and it doesn't really help
learning approach were discussed during the final
because you
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49
ARTICLES interview and the students related the reasons why they
supervision they remained involved in the game and
felt they learned better and more willingly:
there was very little off task behavior. Students would
Student 1 : I know when I play a game, I remember more.
occasionally enter into sidebar conversations, but would
Student 2 : You don't really realize it [learning] when you
soon be pulled back into the game usually by peer request. Remarks such as “it's your turn” or “c'mon read the
play. Student 3 : Yeah, when you play games you are not really thinking about the learning process.
next question” were often made and such remarks brought order back to the group.
Another frequent
behavior that denoted engagement was that students
Student 4 : Yeah, not only do you enjoy [games] but you learn a lot at the same time.
often asked for the moderator to re-read the question or ask for clarification of either the question or answer.
These findings indicated that the students were capable
Several times the students sought out the assistance of the
of articulating the reasons why they felt educational
teacher to settle a dispute or clarify a response. These
games helped them to learn and study better than
behaviors suggested that the students' attitudinal
traditional approaches. A student summarized, “I learn
development was positively affected through their
from kids who know more than me. Sometimes I think I
participation in games.
don't know stuff but playing makes me know I actually know more stuff than I thought.”
When asked if they
thought they were prepared to take the final quiz most (4 of 6) reported that they thought they would do well (high B). However, one student thought she would obtain a high C and another remarked, “I think I'd do okay.” As it turned out the first student scored 83% and the second one scored 62%. Interestingly, in games the first student used vocabulary appropriately 43% of the time and the
Teacher Interview Analysis The classroom teacher, was also interviewed using a similar protocol that was used with the students.
responses were analyzed using the same method and coding that was applied to the student interviews to identify her perspectives on the use and value of educational games. Table 3 provides the results from the data analysis.
second one surpassed her by achieving correct usage
Category
Definition
Examples from the Interview
57% of the time. This finding emphasized the result that
Motivation
Motivation is the reason we act and guides our interest and attitudes.
Teacher: ““They [students] have self --drive to answer. ”
Interest
The quality of exciting curiosity or holding one ’s attention
Teacher: ““They seem happy playing games … especially pleased if they [can] answer a question. ”
Relief from Boredom
In play we are absorbed by the activity and our attention is focused on the act of constructing knowledge.
Teacher: ““Seventh grader ’s need to let their hair down and enjoy class. ”
Fun
To enjoy an activity, amusement.
Teacher: ““Games are a fun way to reinforce concepts that I have integrated into my lessons. ”
Alternate Learning Approach
A non-traditional or a non --didactic learning approach or strategy.
Teacher:““[Games] are another strategy, diversity, another facet of teaching.”
students learn and express their understandings in various ways and tests are just one measure of knowledge. Overall, the participants were able to clearly articulate the reasons they believed their attitude towards learning during the Earth History unit improved. They reported that the participation in educational games positively affected their attitude toward learning scientific vocabulary and concepts. One student suggested, “Learning vocabulary is hard . . . you should play games before every test because it can like help you” and another added, “to remember and put them [vocabulary and concepts] into your own words.” Researcher observations corroborated these findings in that student behaviors observed during games showed that students were engaged and on task.
Although
students played games in groups with minimal
50
Her
Table 3. Teacher Perspectives of the Affect of Educational Games on Student Attitude
i-manager’s Journal of Educational Technology, Vol. 5 l No. 2 l July - September 2008
ARTICLES Findings showed that there were several commonalities between the teachers’ and the students' perspectives on
Category
Question 1 Playing Jeopardy
Student:“ Jeopardy because we are playing a game.””
Interest
Student:““We remember because we want to.”
Student: ““It had questions that I knew the answers.””
Student: ““I find the game more helpful because we are having fun.””
Relief from boredom
Student: ““Games…rather … than just asking questions we can prepare competitively.””
Student:““Making the questions is a good way to study.”
Student: ““Jeopardy because it is easy. ”
Fun
Student: ““Yes, because we learn in a more fun way. ”
Alternate Learning Approach
Student: “Yes, because if I do not know the answer to a question, someone else will say it, and I will learn from that.””
behavior as self-drive, which guided the students' attitude teacher, her students “seem happy and especially pleased when they [can] answer questions.” As an experienced middle school teacher, the class
Student: “I preferred the game because it was fun and I learned. ”
teacher understood that adolescents are easily bored and distracted from learning science vocabulary and concepts, “Seventh grader's need to let their hair down and enjoy class.” Educational games offer a ‘Relief from Boredom’ as well as some fun, “There are serious times; games are a fun way to reinforce concepts that I have integrated into my lessons”. The teacher also expressed her belief that educational games provide an Alternate Learning Approach, one that “Helps them [students] to understand what they have studied adequately, a study strategy, they are learning a lot from it [games]. Further she stated that many of her students were auditory learners, “I remember what I hear,” said one of her students. Educational games are another approach for students to “hear” scientific content. Both the students and the teacher viewed games as a study strategy that improves
Question 3 Strategy Preference
Student:“Yes, “ I Student:““Yes, because found the activity I wrote down the helpful…because … it questions and I know had a lot of the answers.”” information.””
that games motivated her students to participate in an
and interest. Interest was sustained and according to the
Question 2 Writing Questions
Motivation
the value and use of educational games. She also felt activity based on scientific content. She described this
Self-Evaluation Question Topics
Student: “I needed to review my notes in order to create questions.””
Student: ““I think Jeopardy is a better study strategy because this makes learning fun, and this was competitive.””
Table 4. Student Reflections on Studying Science through Games and Writing Game Questions
the activity helpful in reviewing? Explain why? (b) This week, you completed a study guide packet of questions for our game show activity in which you reviewed the concepts for Part 1 of the Earth History unit. Did you find this study strategy helpful? Explain how this has helped you review the concepts, and (c) Which study strategy did you find more beneficial to you personally? Question one asked students if they thought playing
learning. The teacher reported that test scores increased
Jeopardy was a helpful study strategy. All (6 of 6) of the
when she included gameplay as an educational activity.
participants answered yes to this question. The reasons
Participants' Attitude Towards Studying Science Through Self-Report The participants were asked to answer three questions concerning the effectiveness of two study strategies implemented by the teacher for the Earth History unit. Each question and response was analyzed and compared and contrasted to the patterns discovered in the interview data. Responses were coded according to the methods used with the interview data to discover if similar or new patterns emerged (Table 4). The questions were: (a) Today, you played a Jeopardy science game show related to the Earth History-Part 1 unit of study. Did you find
varied, but they were related to the categories reported in the interviews. Three participants said that the game was a fun way to review material or “we learn in a more fun way.” A student said, “Yes, I found playing the game helpful because we were having fun and learning at the same time . . . we didn't even realize that we were learning.” As an Alternate Learning Approach, the game format allowed students to learn from their peers. One participant remarked, “If I do not know the answer to a question, someone else will say it, and I will learn from that.” One student wrote, “We remember because we want to” demonstrating both Motivation and Interest. In question two, all (6 of 6) of the participants agreed that
i-manager’s Journal of Educational Technology, Vol. 5 l No. 2 l July - September 2008
51
ARTICLES writing the questions and answers for the game was an
question, or requesting clarification of question. Their
effective way to study. This question addressed the ways
commitment to accuracy and following the rules also
in which the students felt about writing the game
demonstrated their interest in playing games.
questions and was considered a characteristic of an
findings suggested, educational games appeared to
Alternate Learning Approach. Several remarked that the
have had a positive affect on students' attitude towards
activity required a review of their notes and readings. For
learning scientific vocabulary and concepts.
example, a student said, “Yes, I needed to review my
Educational Implications: The Power of Play
notes in order to create questions.” Another participant stated that writing the questions was a helpful way to remember the material. Two students concluded that writing the questions was a positive experience that made them feel more confident about the subject matter. They were also motivated in terms of playing the game because they felt prepared, “I wrote down the questions and I know the answer to my questions.” One among them showed both Motivation and Interest because writing the questions meant that she would encounter some questions in the game that she had written and learned. Another student suggested that the boredom of studying is relieved in his statement, “making the questions is a good way to study”. Interestingly, none (0 of 6) of the participants described the writing activity as ‘Fun’. Not surprisingly, 5 of the 6 participants' responses confirmed that they preferred playing ‘Jeopardy’ to writing the questions. The sixth participant wrote “both” as an answer to the question. The themes that were repeated stressed that playing ‘Jeopardy’ was a fun, motivating, and interesting way to use scientific vocabulary and concepts. A student stated his preference and implied that the game was less tedious than writing the questions when he wrote, “Jeopardy because it is easy and fun and I learnt”.
As the
The value of playing educational games with older learners was demonstrated in this study. Students need opportunities to learn in a non threatening space and games offer this. Students should be afforded the opportunity to rehearse and explore ideas through play. Within the context of play, attitudes were positively affected and the participants reported that they felt less threatened than in their traditional classroom setting. The positive outcomes reported involved improved student attitude towards learning in the content areas. In addition, educational games created a venue where participants felt at ease exploring ideas through guesses and partial answers without the threat of embarrassment if their response was wrong. An advantage of game play is that students are at ease and often use their everyday language to help them understand the highly technical language of science by using their common language. From the socio-cultural perspective, where teaching and learning are influenced by social processes, Moje et al. (2004) reported that in traditional science classrooms, adolescents are often discouraged from using everyday language to explain their scientific understandings. Similarly, the participants in the present study were encouraged to utilize their multiple literacies through the play of games where the
The researcher's observations of the participants while
use of non-school language was considered
they played the games corroborated what was reported
acceptable.
during interviews and self-evaluations. Participants were on task, engaged and motivated during gameplay. The participants spent nearly five classroom hours engaged in gameplay during the time of this study. Throughout the game time activities, participants played eagerly and arduously.
Participants rarely engaged in off-task
conversations and when they did, they were usually concerning the game rules, a dispute over an answer to a 52
During games, participants talk to explore concepts and build understanding while 'playing' with their peers. Peer collaboration in games exposes them to alternate perspectives by listening to others. Participants also share and receive feedback that expands their understanding through dialogue. An important element in creating and implementing
i-manager’s Journal of Educational Technology, Vol. 5 l No. 2 l July - September 2008
ARTICLES successful educational games includes careful
42(6), 438-449.
Retrieved April 23, 2004, from the
consideration of the structure of the game as well as the
Academic Search Premier database.
student's role in its creation and implementation. When
[6]. Berk, L., & Winsler, A. (1995). Scaffolding children's
the students took an active role in writing the game
learning: Vygotsky and early childhood education.
questions they participated actively in their learning and
Washington, DC: National Association for the Education
reported that they recalled more information (despite the
of Young Children.
fact they complained about writing the questions, they were motivated because they preferred playing a game to the standard lecture or homework assignment). The structure is also critical because games that were too easy (i.e. Memory) were not engaging therefore neither educational nor motivating.
[7]. Bredekamp, S., & Copple, C. (Eds.). (1997). Developmentally appropriate practice in early childhood programs (Rev. ed.). Washington, DC: National Association for the Education of Young Children. [8]. Bruner, J.S., Jolly, A., & Sylva, K. (Eds.). (1976). Play: Its role in development and evolution. New York: Basic Books.
Finally, during games students are often totally involved in the play, a state referred to as ‘flow’ (Csikszentmihalyi, 1991) where one is totally absorbed in the activity. This creates an optimal learning environment and as educators we know that we are in need of finding
[9]. Bruner, J. S. (1983). Child's talk: Learning to use language. New York: Norton. [10]. Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1991). Flow: the psychology of optimal experience. New York.
alternative teaching and learning activities that stimulate
[11]. Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1997).
the often disinterested adolescent student. Games may
psychology of engagement with everyday life. New York:
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[12]. DeVries, D.L., & Slavin, R.E. (1976). Teams-games-
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR Dr. Gerri Mongillo, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Educational Leadership and Professional Studies at William Paterson University where she is the director of and teaches in the Graduate Reading Program. She completed her doctorate at Fordham University. Her research interests include teacher preparation, instructional games, adolescent literacy, and professional development of reading teachers. Her recent publications related to gameplay and instruction: Improving Expository Writing of Pre-service Teachers in an Online Environment. Contemporary Issues in Technology & Teacher Education (Wilder, & Mongillo, 2007) and Instructional Games: Scientific language use, concept understanding, and attitudinal development of middle school learners (Unpublished dissertation, 2006).
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ARTICLES
THE OVERLAPPING WORLDS VIEW: ANALYZING IDENTITY TRANSFORMATION IN REAL AND VIRTUAL WORLDS AND THE EFFECTS ON LEARNING By MICHAEL A EVANS*
FEIHONG WANG**
* Assistant Professor, Department of learning sciences and technologies, Virginia Tech. **Doctoral student, School of Education in the instructional design and technology program, Virginia Tech.
ABSTRACT Of late, digital game-based learning has attracted game designers, researchers and educators alike. Immersion in the virtual 3D environment of a game may have positive effects on K-12 students' cultivation of self (Dodge et al., 2006). Currently, two opposing views related to game-based identity formation are presented in the literature: the Separate Worlds View (SWV) and the Identical Worlds View (IWV) (Stevens, 2007). The purpose of this paper is to explore these views to determine whether a third position might be required for a more comprehensive treatment. To this end, we offer The Overlapping Worlds View (OWV). The Overlapping World View proposes that an individual's virtual and real world identities are neither entirely separate nor identical. The degree of overlapping of identities depends on the social consistencies between virtual and real worlds. This third view thus opens opportunities in educational research and instructional design in a context, where current and future generations of learners will grow up in a digital, environment many experiencing virtual worlds as an integral part of their private and public lives. Keywords: Identity, Separate World View, Identical World View, Overlapping World View, K-12 Education, Digital gamebased learning, Massive multi-player online games. INTRODUCTION
personalization of learning, lead game-based learning
Although the use of games for educational purposes can
proponents to claim: “A good game's design is inherently
be traced to the use of war games in the 1600s (Gredler,
connected to designing good learning for players” (Gee,
2004; Langton, Addinall, Ellington, & Percival, 1980), the
2007a, p.21). Today's students represent a generation
application of game techniques to create digital game-
growing up with interactive digital and communication
based learning (DGBL) has gained dizzying amounts of
tools, in which the use of games for home and school is
attention in the past decade. Riding on the back of
common (Oblinger, 2003, 2006). This generation,
continued advances in computing and networking
particularly youth from ages 8-18, are also considered to
technology, modern digital games have evolved far
be the leading population in online gaming (Annetta,
beyond their roots in arcades and simple graphical
Klesanth, & Holmes, 2008).
systems to include levels of complexity and realism that
An increasingly popular type of virtual experience for
permit for unprecedented levels of embodiment,
youth is what is referred to as massive multi-player online
experience, and immersion (Chee, 2007; Smyth, 2007).
games, or MMOGs. MMOGs are persistent, 3D online
Massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs), especially,
gaming worlds that incorporate role-playing and
have of late attracted specific attention from game
multiplayer systems with the use of instant messaging and
designers, researchers, and educators. As Squire (2007)
voice chat (Cole & Griffiths, 2007; Griffiths, Davies, &
states, “the study of games and learning is ready to come
Chappell, 2004). Often times, these virtual worlds require
of age” (p. 167). Attributes of digital games such as strong
teams of players to coordinate their efforts to conduct
motivation effects, contextual bridging, and
missions that advance their status, individually and
i-manager’s Journal of Educational Technology, Vol. 5 l No. 2 l July - September 2008
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ARTICLES collectively, in the game world. These worlds continuously
that a player takes on a new or independent identity in a
exist and evolve where literally thousands of players from
game world, one that is markedly different from the real
around the world meet, interact, and play together
world identity. Examples of these can be found in the 3D
(Smyth, 2007). Important to the position offered in this
virtual world Second Life (www.secondlife.com), where
article, virtual worlds are believed to have specific impact
participants portray themselves as animals, who in the in-
on children's formation of identity. To illustrate, this, Dodge,
world parlance are referred to as “furries.” The parameters
Barab, Stuckey, Warren, Heiselt, & Stein (2008) conducted
of Second Life allow players to construct and portray an
an in-depth ethnographic study of four middle school
identity much different from the real world. The IWV, on the
students participating in a 3D virtual world designed to
other hand, claims that game identities and real world
explore
identities are the same (Stevens, 2007). The argument is
life
sciences,
Quest
Atlantis
( h t t p : / / a t l a n t i s . c r l t. i n d i a n a . e d u / ) . T h e c a s e s
that players do not make a distinction between their real
demonstrated that children's senses of identity (within a
world and virtual world identities. One way this is expressed
learning context) might be altered and advanced within
is that virtual world occupants refer to themselves as
3D multi-user virtual worlds through “expressing agency,
“gamers.”
adopting commitments, developing meaning, and
Using the example of Cliff above as a substantive case,
engaging in learning” (p. 234). For example, one
our proposal is that separate and identical worldviews are
participant, Cliff, who had previously expressed disinterest
insufficient to explain the complex interrelationships of
and lack of motivation in the place-based classroom “lit
real and virtual world identities. In the next section, we
up” when he entered the 3D virtual world and became a
examine ways MMOGs potentially affect identities of
collaborative, supportive, expressive contributor. Most
youth during game play. After identifying what is
notably, Cliff expressed agency through the adopted role
perceived as insufficient specification and complexity in
of technology expert. As evidenced in the case study
the existing two views on identity, we offer a third
(p.236), Cliff's time spent in the 3D world and contributions
perspective, the Overlapping World View (OWV). The OWV
to the discussion increased noticeably. Most impressive
suggests that virtual and real world identities are mutually
was that Cliff identified himself as the “Quest Atlantis
constitutive in game play. The integration of an MMOG
Master” and was proud that he could now express his
player's virtual and real world identities depends in part on
inner “techno-geek” identity amongst classmates and
the individual's local and distant connections, ties, and
teacher. This reported episode compels us to question a
collaborations. As Nardi and Harris (2006) noted in an
simple either-or distinction between virtual and real
empirical investigation of players in World of Warcraft,
worlds. As Cliff's, and others' documented in Dodge et
perhaps the most popular MMOG in the world, learning
al.,'s (2008) work experience belies the relationships and
and identity are intricately intertwined during game play.
effects of virtual and real world, which are more complex.
As one player commented, “I like [in World of Warcraft]
Better stated is that there is a mutually constitutive
that you kind of feel a part of this bigger world. You have to
relationship (Barab & Wolf, 2006) between real and virtual
go and explore and find out things and meet people” (p.
world identities.
155). In conclusion, we suggest two key questions related
As Dinter (2006) notes, digital networked technologies
to this view that should be investigated to understand
and associated media are of great importance for
potential learning and to guide future teaching, design,
children's processes of individual identity formation.
and development: 1) What aspects of identity can be
Currently, two opposing views related to game-based
extracted from the virtual world to have positive, lasting
identity formation exist in the literature to explain the
effects on learning? 2) How should developers, designers,
effects: the Separate Worlds View (SWV) and the Identical
and teachers orchestrate virtual play to facilitate positive,
Worlds View (IWV) (Stevens, 2007). The SWV view proposes
healthy identity formation?
56
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ARTICLES MMOGs: Interdependency of Play, Identity, and
process of developing their own identity (Konijn & Bijvank,
Learning
2007). Stahl (2006) defined self and identity as a cognitive
Self, or identity, as Mead (1934) pointed out, “is
artifact that is socially constructed and internalized
accomplished in a process of taking the role of the other
through mimicking. Identity, as proposed by Marcia
with increasing degrees of sophistication that are
(1966), is resolved by an internal, self-constructed, and
mastered in sometimes literal and other times
dynamic organization of aspirations, skills, beliefs, and
metaphorical play and gaming activities” (p.338). From a
other factors. This paper defines identity as, basically, a
situated learning and legitimate peripheral participation
subjective sense of an invigorating feeling of being active
perspective (Lave & Wenger, 1991), identity
and alive (Erikson, 1968), that is to say, the sense and
transformation is a crucial indicator of learning and
perception of who one is (Lee & Hoadley, 2007). The virtual
development. Identities, in contrast to and combination
environment of a game is a sandbox, a set of
with group norms and practice, are important features to
representations and behaviors with which the player can
attend to when analyzing performance (Barab, Evans, &
use to express himself (Squire, 2007, p.175). Individuals,
Baek, 2004; Evans & Powell, 2007). Digital technologies
therefore, can explore new identities in game-based
including video games, as Jaffee (1998) states, may
virtual worlds, i.e., MMOGs, by participating in virtual
disrupt, threaten, or enhance identities. Consequently, an
communities and forming social relations (Hagel &
exploration of identities and game play is in order.
Armstrong, 1997).
The impact of video games is believed to have particular
Identity Formation and Transformation in Virtual and Real
relevance to today's K-12 students, the so-called “Net
Worlds
Generation” (Jones, 2002), as they have grown up with
There are two current opposing views regarding game-
interactive digital technologies readily at-hand. These
based identity formation and transformation: Separate
students approach life differently as they integrate digital
World View (SWV) and Identical World View (IWV). The SWV
technologies into their daily routine (Federation of
states that “games are a world apart from the real world
American Scientists, 2006). Gaining particular attention in
where players can take on new identities” (Stevens, 2007,
this realm of technologies and software are massive
p.59). While the opposing view claims that identities are
multi-player online games (MMOGs), which are defined
crafted through game play, virtual/game identities
as persistent, networked, interactive, narrative
actually mirror real world identities (Stevens, 2007). These
environments in which players collaborate, strategize,
two extreme views either neglect the effect of the virtual
plan, and interact with objects, resources, and other
community on individual identity formation or
players within a multi-modal environment (Dicky, 2006;
exaggerate it. On one hand, the SWV tends to propose
Nardi & Harris, 2006). Social interaction with mid-size to
that players leave their virtual identities in the virtual world
large groups online is a defining feature of MMOGs
as “leaving work at home”. This view fails to take into
(Smyth, 2007). MMOGs allow users to experiment in a safe,
account the effects of the virtual communities on an
non-threatening environment and to expand, explore,
individual's identity formation. As Calvert (2002) stated,
and reflect on different aspects of themselves (Turkle,
people's interactions and interpretations significantly
1995). In MMOGs “children can play imaginary roles and
influence the identities they form. MMOGs provide
in the process develop the capacity to see themselves,
participants with a different way of social interaction and
as others might-to see themselves as both object and
different technical experiences, which contribute to
subject- the quintessential quality of self ” (Waskul & Lust,
formation of individual identities. In a randomized,
2004, p.338). Therefore, immersion in MMOGs may
longitudinal study conducted by Smyth (2007), it was
possibly affect K-12 students' cultivation of self or identity
discovered that 100 college-aged MMOG players (18-20
specifically (Dodge et al., 2006) since they are still in the
year old) developed new friendships as a result of playing
i-manager’s Journal of Educational Technology, Vol. 5 l No. 2 l July - September 2008
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ARTICLES the game, and game play had unexpected, adverse
flows from being or seeking to become a member of a
effects on the real world (less sleep, worse health). Thus,
particular society, be it in-game or in-world (Gee, 2007a,
spending excessive time in a virtual world began to have
p. 40). That is to say, the transfer of a MMOG player's virtual
both positive and negative impact on the participants'
and real world identity to the opposite world depends on
real world. Though Smyth noted MMOGs bring a different
their social identity in that world. The mutual constitution of
experience than other types of game play, further work
an MMOG player's virtual and real world identities
need to be done to clearly delineate the unique
depends to a certain extent on social consistencies
behavioral implications. Contrastingly, the IWV takes
between these two worlds. Based on these raised issues,
virtual and real world identities to be identical, which may
this paper suggests an “Overlapping World View�. Figure 1
exaggerate the effects of virtual worlds on identity
indicates the relationship among these three worldviews.
formation. As the work of Penual and Wertsch (1995) help
When putting these three views on a continuum based on
us to understand, the identity of an individual established
the degree of identity sharing between the virtual and the
in a virtual world, most often in the form of an avatar with
real world, the OWV is centered emphasizing a healthy
varying similarities to the player's actual physiognomy, is
middle ground between extremes of the continuum.
often contextually constrained and will not be completely
Implicit points being raised are that ultimatums should be
transformed to his or her real life. Similar to everyday life,
avoided and that real and virtual worlds now need to be
the cultivation of a virtual identity in MMOGs emerges
examined in tandem. In an age of growing up digitally,
from the innumerable possibilities that culminate over a
and with national priorities (at least in the United States)
history of choices, decisions, and consequences that are
towards cyberlearning (US National Science Foundation,
patterned and structured (Waskul & Lust, 2004). Very often,
2008), empirical and practical work that engages real
there is a difference between an individual's self-
and virtual worlds cannot be avoided.
presentation in real life and what they develop as their
The Overlapping World View: Mutually Constitutive
virtual form of self-presentation (Dinter, 2006). For
Identities
example, gender-reversal is an often-practiced technique of MMOG players. A shy girl may become a talkative brutish boy in MMOGs. Neverthless, it does not mean she will take this male persona back to her everyday life, the embodiment of digital avatars is much more complex than the IWV claims (Biocca, 1997). Taken as a whole, a player's virtual and real world identities are neither entirely separate nor identical. The development of self entails a complex, shifting process of negotiation among an individual's ideas about what they might become, what they would become, and what they are afraid of becoming. An individual will behave so as to approach or avoid models of other possible selves
Virtual and real world identities are mutually constitutive in MMOG play. As Oblinger (2006) states, gamers must immediately recall prior learning from outside venues - life and school - when participating in an online virtual world. That is to say, gamers draw from their real world identities to adapt to and to succeed in a video game. However, there is a limitation of the transfer of an individual's real world identity to the virtual identity. As Stryker (1980) indicated, the human sense of identity is linked to roles, groups, and society. It is a product and process, as the identity is shaped by the larger society (p.163). The transfer of virtual and real identities depends on the social identities in the opposing worlds. Returning to the study by
(Marcia, 1966). The identities are often limited or shaped by the social identity, which is formed in a given situation in which one gains the values, established practices, knowledge, and skills from more capable peers. Research conducted by Yee (2005, 2007) indicate that MMOGs allow new forms of social identity. Social identity
58
Figure 1. The continuum of worldviews on real world and virtual identities.
i-manager’s Journal of Educational Technology, Vol. 5 l No. 2 l July - September 2008
ARTICLES Dodge et al. (2008), the case of Amelia, a fifth grader
Finally, in support of our proposal, Waskul and Lust (2004)
participating in Quest Atlantis, illustrates how real and
claim,“in role-playing game participants are uniquely
virtual world identities are susceptible to overlap. In a
situated in the loose boundaries of the person-player-
wonderful example of how a young girl combines her real
persona trinity” (p.340). Waskul and Lust (2004) define
and virtual identity, Dodge and his colleagues write:
person as the wide variety of identities players occupy
Amelia demonstrates a fluency with technology showing
and roles they play in everyday life such as students,
spontaneity and sociability. For example, she moves
employees, adolescents, adults, spouses, and parents.
comfortably through the Quest Atlantis virtual space,
Persona is the player's game role while player is gamer
zapping between worlds and often inviting other students
who plays the imaginary persona. Therefore, the person-
to accompany her: “u want to go somewhere fun?”;
player-persona in some significant ways justifies the need
“Minnie do u want to go to culture world?... follow
for a middle ground, or overlapping world view. Waskul
me.” Likewise, Amelia uses several different chat
and Lust (2004) take persona mainly as the product of
venues to meet friends: she often asks others, “you
game rules, which fails to recognize the importance of
know AIM talk? do u ever get on?” Indeed, in her
the virtual social identity in the formation of the virtual
online chats, she meets students at other local
identity. Waskul and Lust (2004) briefly touch on the identity
schools often asking questions to establish whether
transformation idea by stating “fantasy, imagination, and
they have friends in common and even in other cities
reality are notoriously porous: experience, knowledge,
and countries, a network of online communities.
and understanding routinely slip from one to another”
Despite the tension between nature and technology,
(p.339).
these examples suggest that technology affords
Implications for MMOGs in Education: Designing for
authentic and novel modes of participation. (P.242)
Identities
As Goffman (1974) pointed out, in taking on a role, the
As Lee and Hoadley (2007) point out, a major reason that
individual does not take on a personal identity but a bit of
educational games have failed to be effective and
social categorization, that is, social identity. On the other
relevant is because not enough attention has been given
hand, in a MMOG, a player may gain an identity as a
to the formation and effects of virtual identity. On one
great warrior; this identity is obviously not transferable to his
hand, the freedom to develop a healthy, positive identity
or her real world identity without some obvious alterations.
in a virtual world should be a general design specification.
For that reason, although it is often believed that identity
Contrarily, how one organizes and directs online play to
formation occurs whenever individuals participate in a
influence offline identify is poorly understood. For MMOGs
community of practice (Lee, 2007), transforming one's
to have a potentially positive influence on learning, game
real world identity to the virtual world (or the reciprocal) is
developers, instructional designers, and teachers might
limited by some degree to the social consistency
seek ways for social identities constructed in virtual worlds
between two worlds. The phenomena of playing with
to have positive effects on learners' real world identities.
external self-presentations can be found in the virtual
Figure 2 specifies the identity transfer between the virtual
world quite often (Dinter, 2006). Virtual worlds provide
world and the real world. There is a certain overlap of a
participants with chances of role-playing to try out
game player's real and virtual identities. The
different roles and identities, even among different virtual
transformation of identity starts with the transfer of the real
worlds. These examples indicate that consistency
world identity to the virtual world. Players bring their real
between two worlds cues the transfer of the user's virtual
world identities, knowledge, and skill into the game world.
identity to his everyday life, and transforms his real world
When these two worlds have high social consistency in
identity into one that is more closely aligned to his virtual
terms of the learning objectives, the circle will rotate, in our
world identity.
example in an arbitrary counter-clockwise fashion. If
i-manager’s Journal of Educational Technology, Vol. 5 l No. 2 l July - September 2008
59
ARTICLES executed correctly, players might feel more of
use of the role-playing features of MMOGs. The successes
themselves after playing the game, similar to the
in the game world should be determined by the degree
expressions captured by Cliff and Amelia above. As a
to which that the player is taking the desired identity.
result, indicated by the dotted line in the second image in
Consequently, the learner will feel that she/he should be
Figure 2, the overlap between identities increases.
praised for the virtual character's success or be blamed
The transformation of identity in real and virtual worlds is an
for the failure (Gee, 2007b, p. 49). NPCs in the game can
artifact of game play that requires further exploration to
also be designed to provide positive feedbacks to lead
understand potential learning and guide future design.
the shared value of the virtual communities toward the
There are two key questions that need to be investigated.
desired identities. Meanwhile, teachers can help to
1) What aspects of identity can be extracted from the
increase the transfer of the virtual identity by building the
virtual world to have positive, lasting effects on learning?
social values in the classroom to be consistent with the
2) How should developers, designers, and teachers
social identity in the virtual game world. For example, if the
orchestrate virtual play to facilitate positive, healthy
desired identity is “I am a math person”. The characters of
identity formation?
the game can be those who are normally related to math
Domain related identities are the first and the most important identities that can be extracted from the virtual game world to have positive, lasting effects on learning. As Gee (2007b) pointed out learning in semiotic domains requires taking on a new identity and forming bridges from one's old identities to the new one (p. 45). That is to say, a student needs to be willing to take on the identity related to a learning objective to be successful in learning it. For example, students in a foreign language learning class need to take on the identity as a conversational person to be involving in oral language practice. In addition to domain related identities, identities such as scientific
work in the real world such as mathematicians, engineers, or even a carpenter. All the challenges and rewards of the game should to some extent be closely related to math, though, they can start from very simple one to help the player gradually adapt to the new identity “ I know math”. The new math identity needs to be reinforced through the entire game play process by various forms of feedback introduced through design. In the end, the point we wish to emphasize has been captured well by Dodge et al. (2008): “educators should endeavor to better understand and utilize the potential of modern media and technologies for the cultivation of self” (p.247).
thinker and team worker are also important.
Conclusion
In order to orchestrate virtual play to facilitate positive and
Our emphasis on real and virtual world identities, and
healthy identity formation, the game developer and
subsequent import for education, is not unique. James
designer should first be clear about what identity they
Paul Gee, perhaps the most recognizable scholar in this
want students to bring out to their real world identities. After
emerging area of games and education, defined three
that, the designer can design the game roles, rules, and
different identities related to playing games: virtual
challenges based on the desired identities by taking full
identity, real identity, and projective identity (2007b). His definitions of virtual and real world identities lend credence to the definitions and extensions offered in this paper. The virtual identity is “one's identity as a virtual character in the virtual world” of game while the real world identity is the non-virtual person playing a computer game (Gee, 2007b. p. 47). Gee's focus of the projective identity is different to the overlapping view. Gee defined the projective identity as “to project one's values and
Figure 2. Relationship among three psychological needs
60
desires onto the virtual characters and seeing the virtual
i-manager’s Journal of Educational Technology, Vol. 5 l No. 2 l July - September 2008
ARTICLES characters as one's own project in the making� (Gee,
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ABOUT THE AUTHORS Dr. Michael A. Evans is an Assistant Professor in the department of learning sciences and technologies at Virginia Tech. He has established a research and scholarship agenda in educational games and simulations, focusing on collaborative play and mobile applications. Currently, he has two publications in press that deal with this emerging area “Mobility, Games, and Education” to be published in the Handbook of Research on Effective Electronic Gaming in Education, and “Games, Simulations, and Knowledge Building” to be published in the Handbook of Research on New Media Literacy at the K-12 Level. He has also developed a new graduate level course in Digital Game-Based Learning, where findings from his research and scholarship are presented and discussed. Moreover, he has established an informal network of colleagues and students to form the Move+Play+Learn Group, which studies games and simulations in formal and free-choice learning settings, URL: http://www.colab.soe.vt.edu/mpl/. Feihong Wang is a second year doctoral student in the instructional design and technology program, School of Education at Virginia Tech, Blacksburg. Her research interests include educational games and simulations, especially how identities are formed and transformed in game environments and the effects this may have on in world learning.
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63
ARTICLES
EVALUATION OF COMPUTER GAMES FOR LEARNING ABOUT MATHEMATICAL FUNCTIONS By HAKAN TÜZÜN*
SELAY ARKUN**
FUNDA KURT****
EZGİ BAYIRTEPE-YAĞIZ*** BENLİHAN YERMEYDAN-UĞUR*****
* Assistant Professor, Hacettepe University, Turkey. **Research Assistant, Hacettepe University, Turkey. ***Ministry of National Education, Turkey. ****Ministry of National Education, Turkey. *****Ministry of National Education, Turkey.
ABSTRACT In this study, researchers evaluated the usability of game environments for teaching and learning about mathematical functions. A 3-Dimensional multi-user computer game called as ‘Quest Atlantis’ has been used, and an educational game about mathematical functions has been developed in parallel to the Quest Atlantis' technical and pedagogical structure. The pedagogical aspects of the game were based on three theories of learning: experience-based learning, inquiry-based learning, and portfolio-based learning. For evaluating the effectiveness of the environment, four learners participated in the implementation in a lab environment and researchers observed and interviewed them. This paper includes information about the design process of the game world, an evaluation of its implementation, and reflections of the researchers. Keywords: Game-based learning, Computer games, Video games, Mathematical Functions real world, uncertain, and governed by rules. Instructional
INTRODUCTION In recent years, learners have become the focus of
games are software providing students to learn content or
education and new methods for learning have been
to develop problem solving abilities (Demirel, 2003).
developed and used. These initiatives have also affected
There are some components that make a game a real
the learning environments. Yalin (2000) describes the
game (Prensky, 2001):
learning environment as the physical environment in
1. Rules: Rules set the limitations of the games and
which teaching and learning occur. Learning
provide different ways to achieve our objectives. If there
environments that engage learners may provide an
aren't any rules, it is not a game, just an entertainment at
entertaining experience in the learning process and as a
large.
result the achievement of learners might get better. In
2. Goals: Goals have a major role in motivation. If there
parallel to the development of technology, interest in
aren't any goals, players will not want to keep playing
computers and computer games has grown and the
games. Through goals, users perceive that they have a
idea of using computer games for education has
responsibility, so they spend effort and time. In most
emerged. According to Garris, Ahlers, and Driskell (2002),
games, most of the goals are apparent from the
when learners come into the circle of a game, they
beginning like making the highest score, finishing the
discover its structure and continue playing game by
game, or taking the flag.
adopting it.
3. Feedback: Feedback provides notification of the users'
Garris, Ahlers, and Driskell (2002) describe a game as an
progress to them. When there is a change in users' status,
activity that is voluntary and enjoyable, different from the
feedback is given. This makes the game interactive.
64
i-manager’s Journal of Educational Technology, Vol. 5 l No. 2 l July - September 2008
ARTICLES 4. Challenge: Challenge in a game is the problem
model, the aforementioned game characteristics and
situation that players are trying to solve. Players would
instructional content are input. These go into a game
never feel fear or excitement without facing real
circle that includes user judgments or reactions such as
challenges. This motivates them and sustains their
enjoyment or interest, user behaviors such as greater
gameplay.
persistence or time on task, and feedback. In this process,
5. Interaction: There are two different types of interaction,
learner discovers the game's structure and then begins to
first of which is between player and computer, which
conduct inquiry. Finally, all of these lead to the
could be called as feedback. The second one is the
achievement of training objectives and specific learning
social relations forming among users while playing. It's
outcomes.
difficult to find the content the computer games include
In the past 30 years, the time being spent for video games
in movies or books, because computer games provide
has increased. In the mid 80's, children were spending 4
interaction and allow players to experiment.
hours a week on average at homes and in video game
6. Story: Story presents what the game is about. For
rooms. In early 90's, the time in video game rooms
example, chess is a conflict game; Tetris is about
decreased, but the time being spent for video games at
recognizing the shapes and positioning them. Story can
homes increased while the usage started to differ for
be conveyed at the beginning of the game or within the
gender. While girls were playing 2 hours a week on
game indirectly.
average, boys were playing 4 hours a week. In the mid
While challenge and risk are components of a game for some; it is rule, strategy, competition and chance for others (Garris et al., 2002). Actually, there are four components serving for instructional objectives (Squire, 2003): 1. Challenge: The challenge of the game must be neither so easy nor so hard to accomplish. Learner should taste glory and should keep on going. Through challenge, users find problems and solve them, while satisfying their emotions through excitement, fear and enjoyment. 2. Fantasy: Computer games involve fantasies. Games take us to a dreamland from the real world. That creates interest and motivates the users. Learners can learn in a dreamland, such as learning physics theories while piloting an airplane. 3. Complexity: Games should make the players think by creating complex situations that offer them different ways to get out of it. But this complexity should not be impossible.
90's, girls were spending 4.5 hours a week, while boys were spending 7.1 hours. Today girls are spending 5.5 hours a week, while boys are spending 13 hours (Gentile & Anderson, 2003). Considering all of this time being spent on computer games, using computer games for learning is clearly important. Using computer games might eliminate the boredom in the learning process and make learning enjoyable for learners. Numerous studies presented that learners generally have a difficulty in understanding mathematical functions (e.g., Barnes, 1988; Dorofeev, 1978; Gerson, 2008). Traditional method of learning and teaching mathematical functions require learners to attend materials presented along with lecture. More active methods have been called for “producing, discussing and testing the validity of mathematical statements” (Bloch, 2003). Such active methods have been evaluated recently as web-based materials (Baki & Güveli, 2008) and the use of graphical calculators (Ersoy, 2007). These studies found positive effects on learning
4. Control: A game must let players feel that they control
and learner attitudes. Godwin and Sutherland (2004)
the game, in this way players achieve enjoyment. On the
pointed to the importance of collective knowledge-
contrary, so much control might end up with players losing
building and indicated that “new pedagogical practices
their interest in game.
with ICT should both harness the potential of ICT to support
In Garris et al.'s (2002) Input-Process-Outcome Game
individual inquiry and work within this inquiry-led practice
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65
ARTICLES to develop collective knowledge” (p. 150). Based on this
QA includes inquiry-based and experiential activities and
need and the recent popularity of multi-player computer
portfolios for assessment. Content in QA is various such as
games, the purpose of this study was to evaluate the
science, geography, history, technology, health, art,
usability of a multi-user computer game for teaching and
economy and music. Though, there hasn't been any
learning about mathematical functions.
activity related to mathematics. This has been the first attempt of making a 3-D, multi-user game for a
1. Method This study is an evaluative case study (Yin, 2003), and is qualitative in nature. Evaluative case studies have three
mathematics lesson in QA, and mathematical functions was chosen as the subject for this experiment.
distinctive features: description, explanation, and
For design of the 3-D game environment, another existing
judgment (Merriam, 1998). Descriptions and researcher
virtual world has been duplicated and conceptualized as
reflections of the case were provided in this study for an
the “fonksi10” world. Then necessary 3-D objects have
understanding of the usability of a game environment for
been found and arranged. The fonksi10 virtual world
teaching and learning about mathematical functions.
included four schools, a barn, and a main building including bedrooms and a dinner room (Figure 1). The
1.1. Research context and participants The implementation occurred on January 26, 2005 at a computer laboratory in the Computer Education and Instructional Technology Department at Hacettepe University in Ankara, Turkey. Four conveniently invited learners attended the implementation. The characteristics of these participants are presented in
storyline immerses learners in this context as part of an imaginary vacation. The fonksi10 virtual world includes direction signs, explanation plates, and talking avatars all around the virtual world. This is to make sure learners do not get lost and for guiding them in tasks. Avatars narrate the written texts. There are three quests in the world, which are
Table 1. 1.2. Design of the game-based learning environment Quest Atlantis educational game was used for this study. Quest Atlantis (QA, http://www.QuestAtlantis.org) is a 3Dimensional (3-D) multi-user computer game. QA environment involves education, entertainment, and social commitments. General goal of the game is making users save Atlantis by engaging with educational
designed like a roll of paper. They rotate in the air for taking the attention of learners. Their explanation pop-up in a new window when quests are clicked on. Learners' progression in the game was designed in the following order:
Interacting with the first avatar in front of the home, at the entrance of the world (Figure 2).
tasks. QA is more than a technology. It's a virtual environment supporting learner communities all around the world. The structure of the QA, such as its narrative, virtual worlds, and rules, forms a meta-game and this context provides a base for learning activities (Tüzün, 2006). Prior Computer Knowledge Competency of Functions No Computer literate
Participant
Grade Level
Age
Gender
Participant 1
8th
14
Male
Participant 2
9th
15
Male
Yes
Computer literate
Participant 3
10th
16
Female
Yes
Computer literate
Participant 4
9th
14
Male
Yes
Computer literate
Table 1. Characteristics of participants
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Figure 1. An overview of the game world. The software allows for viewing the game world (upper left), built-in web browser (right), and chat window (lower left)
i-manager’s Journal of Educational Technology, Vol. 5 l No. 2 l July - September 2008
ARTICLES
Figure 4. Learner inquiries into function types Figure 2. Entrance of the game world
Going to barn and interacting with the avatar in front of it.
Going inside the barn, and reading the texts on the walls and getting information about functions (Figure 3).
Through the hints taken from avatars, going to schools and reading the boards for finding hints about function types.
Going home and learning function types by reading the tables (Figure 4).
Finding and solving the first quest.
Looking around the bedrooms.
Figure 5. Learner's avatar in the dinner room. Eating fruits on the tables is one of the activities to experience the type of functions
Looking around the dinner room and eating the
together in one school, and their going to schools in
dinner (Figure 5).
couples are all based on social-constructivism (Vygotsky,
Finding and solving the two quests in the dinner room.
1978). These experience-based activities were designed
The distribution of the learners into schools, their coming
so that learners could experience the types of functions through participatory activities. Likewise, the activities of eating in the dinner room or distribution into bedrooms served for a similar purpose. The constructivist side of these events gives answers indirectly by creating an environment which provides the learner assimilate the subject, by not leaving the learners alone, and by being there when it is needed. The pedagogical framework of the game has been based on three theories of learning: experience-based learning, inquiry-based learning, and portfolio-based learning (Tüzün, 2006). Experience-based learning: Actually, mathematics is a difficult subject to teach in an environment like QA
Figure 3. An avatar introduces the learner into mathematical functions
through experience-based learning methods. But in the
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67
ARTICLES fonksi10 world, the activities are about going to school,
participants were interviewed.
eating and sleeping which learners do everyday. Through
1.4. Data sources and data analysis
these daily activities, learners immerse themselves in functions without leaving the real world. They experience by living and doing.
All four participants were interviewed through semistructured methods at the end of the implementation. Interview questions prompted the participants to reflect
Inquiry-based learning: In fonksi10 world, activities and
on their experience and questions were related to their
hints for doing them are put around the world. Learners
general experience in the game, their learning
can find the hints by guiding their virtual characters. Hints
experience, their motivation while participating in the
were concealed in schools, in barn, and in the main
game, and the comparison of this environment to other
building. Text on the reading tables, number of beds and
learning environments the participants encountered
chairs are all hints. The reading texts do not include the
previously. Emergent issues were followed-up through
knowledge directly. Texts include just some information
additional questions. These interviews were recorded on a
and a questioning style, which make learners think and
digital recorder and later transcribed, and resulted in 36
conduct inquiry.
pages of single-spaced data.
Portfolio-based learning: There are three instructional
All researchers attended the implementation and
activities in the dinner room. Through the structure of QA,
recorded their observations, feelings, and overall
learners must answer these questions and write their
reflections immediately after the implementation and
reflections. Teachers can evaluate these answers and
interviews. These observation records produced 26
reflections through a teacher toolkit. All these give
pages of single-spaced data.
teachers an opportunity for portfolio-based assessment. 1.3. Implementation process
During the data analysis, the common themes across all observation records were identified through a content
Before experiencing the fonksi10 world, learners were
analysis and constant comparison method of grounded
immersed in other worlds of the QA for orientation for half
theory (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). The emergent themes
an hour. This orientation included:
were triangulated through the interview records. Excerpts
Information about QA and the fonksi10 world
The reason for learners' being there
from the interview records were used to illuminate the thematic reflections of researchers. These thematic units are presented as results in the following section.
Purpose of the study
Directions for navigating the world, necessary keys,
2. Results 2.1. Design
and how to use the chat. After the orientation, learners were guided to the fonksi10
3-D and experience-based learning environments are
world. When learners entered the fonksi10 world, they
difficult to design. For this project, four researchers spent
couldn't understand the situation, what to do, and how to
30 hours each. First step was preparing the content and
move at the beginning. They waited for the confirmation
second was developing an appropriate environment.
before every move. But after a couple of minutes, they
Both of these took so much time, effort, and creativity. It
adapted to the situation and started to move
was difficult to find every 3-D object in designers' mind.
independently. All four learners went in every place that
One had to either design herself/himself or buy it. In
they must go, but a few of them confused the order. They
addition, lots of technical difficulties were encountered in
went back for reading the texts again or for listening to the
the design process.
avatars. When it was thought they were lost, they were
2.2. Guidance
helped by giving hints. The whole implementation took an
Learners' unfamiliarity with the environment resulted in
hour to complete. At the end of the implementation, the
some difficulties related to navigation or following
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ARTICLES information, and this made them wait for researchers’
2.5. Getting out of focus
confirmation before their every move. In these situations,
In QA-like environments, the attraction of audio-visual
learners were guided. This guidance was provided in the
objects can cause the learners get away from the actual
following three areas:
focus. For example, learners might interact with objects
Guidance related to missed issues: In implementation,
unrelated to the subject matter when looking for hints in
some learners missed reading tables or interacting with
the world. Because of this, learners might miss the hints,
avatars. They were informed about the availability of
have difficulties with tackling game tasks, and as a result
these.
their motivation might decrease. So it is appropriate to
Guidance related to usability issues: At times, learners
pay attention to this matter when designing and
had difficulties when moving their virtual characters.
implementing this kind of learning environments.
Similarly, they were helped with these difficulties too.
2.6. Entertainment
Guidance related to challenges: They were asked
Learners clearly enjoy learning with games. Interviews
questions to help them find definitions and to give them
exposed that learners had fun while learning the
hints for questions that were not answered. They were
mathematical functions through a game. The following
reminded of possibilities about collaboration or their
excerpt reveals this matter:
chance for revisiting the virtual places.
Q: Would you like to learn functions in this way, instead of
2.3. Difficulties in the use and implementation of
school?
technology
A: Yes.
It is not possible to implement this project without
Q: Why?
electricity, Internet connection or computers. Even a comprehensive preparation may not work. In fact, we had to change the laboratory which was planned to use before. This caused so much technical troubles. First of all, the software had to be setup again. Then there was trouble with some computers' operating system and a
A: Because, that's more enjoyable. Q: Enjoyable? Could you please tell which things make this environment enjoyable? A: It's on a computer, we progress at our own pace, there are graphics and it's colorful, that's why.
speaker didn't work as a result and learners had to be
Q: I see. Alright, then could you please tell me the most
replaced. Because of these differences of performance
three that you liked?
between computers, pace of learners changed and this
A: When I click on the book on the table I can get
decreased their motivation at times. Consequently, it was
information, when I click on the avatars they narrate the
better to check for troubles again and again before the
information along with the text, and the quality of
implementation and to have a backup plan for technical
graphics and the environment around me.
difficulties.
2.7. Games are effective for learning
2.4. Implementation time
Games are appropriate for instructional objectives. All
The implementation of game environments took so much
four learners have ended all game activities willingly.
time. In a traditional class environment, teachers just
Through their answers in interviews and in the game, it was
lecture and students listen; this does not take much time.
apparent that they increased their experience related to
But in the game environment, learners were experiencing
mathematical functions:
and inquiring for learning; consequently this takes much
Q: How do you describe learning?
longer. Longer implementation time of game-based
A: If I could remember what I've seen before, this means
learning environments might be an inhibitor factor for
I've learned.
using them in formal school contexts.
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ARTICLES Q: Do you think you learned mathematical functions
learning. I think that environment was better with these
now?
questions.
A: Yes, I do.
Q: What do you mean with questions?
Q: Would you like to learn in this way, instead of school?
A: Hum, there were three [quests].
A: Yes, I would.
Q: You say that guidance was good?
Q: Why?
A: Yes.
C: It would be easily remembered.
Q: What are the other factors that made you continue?
2.8. Experience-Based Learning
A: It was not boring.
It is known fact that lessons would be better if we give
Q: Why it wasn't boring?
examples from learners' lives, prepare concrete learning
A: Because it was different. It was a new environment that
environments, and provide learning based on
was different from the real world.
experience. This could be easy for social and applied sciences, but it is harder to do in mathematics. In this study this approach has been used. Mathematical functions was chosen which was not easy to teach concretely. Learners' answers in interviews showed that, the design has provided an experience-based learning environment. One of them said the factor which made him enjoy the environment was the realistic structure of it. Another said he liked the examples and it was easier to keep the topic in mind with these kinds of examples.
2.11. Self-paced learning In environments like QA, learners learn at their pace and are independent from each other. Learners can go back and review the content if they want. The possibility to review the material and self-paced learning increases their engagement for sustaining their participation. A learner indicated the following about the environment: Q: What are the differences between the environments in school and here? A: In school, teachers just lecture. We don't have to use
2.9. Inquiry-Based Learning It has been observed that learners liked finding hints and answering quests by using these hints. Clearly, learners enjoyed inquiry-based learning. It has been observed that learners completed the first two quests willingly but
our minds. Here we must spend effort. We must think like, what I have to do now or where I have to go? We must think hard. Q: Anything else?
not the third one. The reason for this could be that the
A: It's enjoyable, I can do willingly.
questions of the third quest were similar to other quests
Q: You say this environment is more enjoyable? Why do
and there were more questions in the third quest. It could
you think so?
be better putting in fewer questions in the quests while
A: Because, you do it only by yourself. I don't like learning
reducing the redundancy.
in a very crowded environment.
2.10. High Motivation
Another learner indicated:
During the implementation, it was observed that learners
Q: What are the differences between the environments in
kept on answering questions by themselves without
school and here?
getting tired, and learning without blocking others.
A: First of all, this environment is hands-on, it is easy to
Sometimes, they forgot that this was a lesson. A learner
learn. School environment is boring, teachers always
implied this the following way:
stand by you. Here it is better and more enjoyable. I think it
Q: Which factors keep you going in the activities?
would be more effective.
A: First of all, the questions. You must learn for replying to
Q: You told that it was a hands-on environment. Why do
these questions and you must continue to activities for
you think so?
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ARTICLES A: You move around by yourself, you see everything and
opportunities for self-paced learning, and collaboration
recognize. Because of all these, it's more enjoyable.
affordances. The entertainment opportunities also
Q: Alright, you said teachers were boring, why do you
provided value-added to the learning process.
think so?
However, some issues related to using game-based
A: It changes from teacher to teacher. For example in
environments for learning need to be considered. The
exams, you beware of teachers.
case revealed that building these kinds of environments
Q: I see. Are there any more differences between these environments? A: Class is crowded, but here you are alone. It's quieter; you can concentrate on more easily. You can go back and review if you want; it's hands-on, because it's handson. 2.12. Collaboration
require extensive resources in terms of time and money. In addition, adoption of these kinds of learning environments by learners takes time and requires an orientation. Technical difficulties might arise that can hinder the usability of the learning environment. When compared to traditional learning environments, using these kinds of environments require more time. Learners in these environments might follow personally meaningful
In this study, collaboration had two dimensions. First, there
but off-target activities by being carried away by the
was a competitive situation and it was observed that
attractiveness of the environment.
learners didn't want to collaborate. But on the other side, environmental structure was suitable for helping one another. They could communicate by using the chat tool. A learner found the answer of a question that he couldn't solve in that way. This prevented the disappointment of that learner and was an add-on to the social process of learning. It also increased the satisfaction of the helper. In the interview the helper indicated that:
This study was conducted with limitations. For example, learners were put together conveniently in an experimental laboratory condition. The study can be replicated in natural classrooms having a unique culture and history under real world conditions. Another limitation was related to the topic chosen. It was difficult to generalize the findings to all discipline of mathematics since only the topic of mathematical functions was
Q: Which factors did you like when learning in this
covered in the game environment. For that reason, results
environment?
and conclusions need to be interpreted while considering
A: First of all, chatting with other students was so good.
these limitations.
Seeing others' characters in this environment was
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ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Hakan Tüzün is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Education and Instructional Technology at Hacettepe University in Ankara, Turkey. His current work involves the design of rich learning environments, frequently with the aid of technology but also by considering the culture of the learners and the communities they are part of. He can be contacted at htuzun@hacettepe.edu.tr Selay Arkun is a research assistant in the Department of Computer Education and Instructional Technology at Hacettepe University in Ankara, Turkey. Ezgi Bayırtepe-Yağız, Funda Kurt, and Benlihan Yermeydan-Uğur are Computer teachers at primary schools in Turkey.
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