I was once asked to help design a game for a teacher. He put it up on his projector to show the kids and then gave them each copies so they could use it themselves, It was a virtual zoo, with challenges and a lot of basic information on animals (it was a science class).

I know this isn't what you asked, just thought I would share with you a few things.

The children never learned anything until we added the challenges in which they had to learn from the information in order to win (much like text book questions where the answers are in the text.)

We found that they liked the cartoon graphics and we even tried to make it multi-player so the kids could all run around the zoo together, though this never really paid off as they would just chase each other and get distracted.

If you think about real life places like museums, zoos, and pretty much everything or anywhere you are trying to teach people and build an adventure game around that.

For example, off the top of my head, teaching kids about ancient Rome, you could have a little top-down game in which the children could run around and talk to local people, while trying to answer questions, a score bored could be a good way of motivating them.

On a side note - I should really re-create that virtual zoo, was quite fun to research all the animals and design a zoo.

Also, there are a few threads I've seen on this very forum that are about games as educational tools, might want to give that a quick search.

Hi, this is not research info but just the type of game included
in your context. I just thought I would post it.

[ PowerHouseMuseum - Process of Innovation ]

This is the type of game where the primary function of the game is
not to entertain but as a platform to provide a context from which
the player learns by making decisions in that frame of reference.
The player/audience learns the process by going through the process
and making decisions along the way.

It distributes information, but not in the sense that the player
needs to find the information in the virtual world, but that the
player is put into a position where decisions matter, and
the player learns the range of considerations of an innovation
process.

(It is a different method and the subject is different. I am not
implying that educational games in general should be like this
regardless of subject.)

In terms of this post the game uses all three methods. To
discuss in those terms, the skill set must be defined:

Skills (some of them):

Decision making with consideration of
o consumer behavior
o manufacturing process
o soures of financial help
o intellectual property protection
o supplies

1) Withholding Content: When the player fails too early, the game
is terminated. The player cannot see the decisions in the later
part of the game.

2) Terminating Activity: The player could fail and the game is
terminated.

3) Evaluating Performance: The game tracks the profit, so the player
could play again to improve the skill.



Some Comments about the classification:

The interaction above is classified as a game because "failure" is
defined in the rule set of the intereaction. It is also a simulation.
But it is a simulation with 0 degree-of-freedom for the player to
adjust the initial condition of the simulated environment. In some
sense you could say that it is not a simulation.



[Edited by - Wai on April 27, 2009 12:39:23 PM]

I guess you're "jordifine" who asked the identical question on IGDA.
Second Life isn't a game, but the University of Southern California has been incorporating Second Life into education.
http://iml.usc.edu/index.php/projects/iml-initiatives/
http://sleducation.wikispaces.com/

Hi, I was reading the IGDA forum and see that the OP's post there is actually mis-classified. But there was no specific topic that talks about it. I suppose if you want to ask people that makes decision on how they would teach a subject, you can try [ Chronicle of Higher Education ].

Is there a specific subject you want to talk about? Such as:

How would you design a game that teaches organic chemistry at university undergraduate level that is more effective than the existing methods?

(A game here does not mean a virtual classroom or a set of online recording of lectures. Although the gaming environment could be a classroom.)

When a professor reads this question or your original question, some of them would probably tell you that you should not replace text book learning because most of the information (old and current) will be distributed in the form of text. It is a responsibility of the university to teach the students how to read and learn from that media. If you say that interactive learning is more interesting for the students, some professor would tell you that it is not their job to make the students interested--they shouldn't be there if they are not interested.

So it is perhaps essentail to define effectiveness like this:

1) The game lowers the overall cost of teaching
2) More students understand the subject in better quality
3) Students improve their learning skills including reading and discussing
4) Students improve their communication skills including writing (lab-reports or papers)
5) Students are more enthusiastic about the subject
6) Students understand how the subject fits in society
7) Students understand career paths related to the subject
8) Students understand the current areas of active research.

Some of the goals are less relevant to university education than to public education. A game as a learning tool has an advantage in teaching something that needs to be memorized, because could be repetitive. Some information that the "teacher" wants the player to know does not need to be explicitely told to the player.

For example, even if the game is about delivering muffins through town in a totally arcade fashion, but the map is real, then the player could still learn about the where everything is in the town: e.g. how many hospitals there are, how many gas stations, where they are, where the parks are, what festivals there are in town, etc... The game itself if about delivering bagel, and the challenge is to go to the right place within a time limit. The player loses if that takes too long. This distinguishes the game from an online quiz, because the player learns the information while traveling from one spot to the next, and notices additional city resources on the way there. If it were a quiz, it would be one where the player learns the information while taking the quiz, instead of prior to it.

On the other hand, computer simulations are widely used. But in this context, the students need to write the simulations usually. They aren't games and aren't meant to be games, because the "failure" condition is meaningless.

Re:

The "failure" condition in games is beneficial when they are used as an introduction to the course topics.

For example, for the Innovation game above, the alternative to a game the Museum provides is the picture of the innovation cycle and the related case-studies [ Link ]. On the animated diagram, after considerable effort, you see that that picture is not about FengShui (In my opinion that one of the worst diagram I've ever seen). You could click on the case-studies to see what the author meant by "Idea" and "Research", etc.

Instead of showing that up front, you could let the students play the game and discover what it is that they don't know. For example, in the game, the player is asked to select among three manufacturing processes: Cut and fold, Pressing, Molding. The game never explained the differences among these methods, but asked the player to choose among them. Since the "success" in the game does not actually matter, instead of feeling frustrated, the student would become aware of what it is that they don't know. The students goes from Incompetent to Consciously Incompetent.

Now that they know what it is that they don't know, they are properly motivated during lecture, or motivated to actively learn the information.

At the end of the couse, they could play the game again and verify that they are now Consciously Competent.

In this case, the game itself serves more as a motivation and/or check-list or the topics of the class, instead of the medium through which the students learn the actual material. (It does teach the cycle of innovation, but not the full details.)

The equivalent way is to give the students a motivational quiz (score does not go toward "the grade") at the beginning of class. If the course has a lot of technical words, the quiz would need to be phrased in a way that the student could understand the question. This could have the same effect using considerably less resource. And the instructor could change the quiz content without hiring a programmer to change the game.