Game-based learning

Red-Ink Seminar,

Sept. 13/2008 Lugano

Wim Westera

Director of Learning Media

wim.westera@ou.nl

Proposed agenda

Personal introduction OUNL Todays topics and goals Technology’s role Serious gaming Game development tools Various topics Evaluation

Goals/expectations/agenda

Games; design/development evaluation Rich media are OUNL/ web 2, SL, games Support of learners/ techn/tools; semantic web How can our fun be used for learners? I-A design Collaborative tools development skills (games) Examples of games; learner evaluations Gbl large scale implementation at OUNL !!Serious games (possible?); how experience?/simulation

Task 4: Pedagogical motives

What are pedagogical motives for using serious games?

Educational power of games

Intrinsic attraction by: Active role: learning by doing Changing circumstances Freedom of movement, decision power Natural feedback `Involve me and I will understand…`

Why educational appliance?

Motivation Exploration Context Activation Culture

Task 5: game genres

Identify different game genres and their usefulness for education

Task 6: Disadvantages

What are risks and disadvantages of serious games?

Task 7: Feedback in games

Describe different ways of providing feedback to learners in games

Task 8: critical success factors

Identify critical success factors for serious gaming

Terug

Design a Doughnut stall game

3-player optimisation game In this game you experience a commercial

optimisation process and learn to identify relevant variables for business optimisation.

Game description

You own a doughnut stall at a town square. You sell three types of products: A) doughnut balls, B) apple turnovers and C) wafers, and your goal is to optimise your profits. You can set the prices of your products and if necessary adjust these continually. However, you will have to compete with other players that run a similar doughnut stall next to you. Note that your delivery capacity is limited, because each product is to be heated in the oven for some time. You may also decide to spend on commercial advertising in order to attract more customers. The game runs about 10 minutes.

Game Logic

Players set their prices for products A, B and C Customers arrive separately, with the time-interval statistics according to

neg.exp: So ti+1- ti= -Tave* ln (1-Random(0,1)) with Tave= average time interval 1/3* average processing effort

Game secret: customers prefer the products according to the following statistics:Customer preferences A=40%, B=33%, C=27%

Each new customers is first assigned a product need (A, B or C) and will choose a stall according to a combined criterion of price and marketing effort. For each stall the following criterion is calculated for each stall (j):P(j)=1/3+5*L(j)+5*N(j)With L= 1 if lowest price, else 0; N is number of marketing efforts of player (j).After normalisation: PN (j)= P(j)/ (P(1)+P(2)+P(3)), customers are allocated to a stall using weighted statistics (Random gen.).

[Players can check all prices of competitor by buying one product] EVENTS: Every Y minutes, players receive messages about changing

cost of raw materials for their products. This may urge them to adapt prices.

Locations & I/O

Own stall + display overall player score, + display of customer order; + Number of customers waiting + change prices of products+ select the right product for processing + display count down of product processing + display message about adjusted raw materials costs+ select marketing effort

Stall of player 2 Stall of player 3

Simulation versus games

Simulation mimicking (part of) reality

Game: - An immanent goal (“to win”)- an artificial conflict- Rules of play- one or more players

What about motivation?

Games are motivating (?) When a learner is engaged in an interesting

activity his/her motivation goes up (?)

(Is motivation an output or an input?)

OUNL-example Diagnost (1998)

Complex psycho-diagnostic skills Branching story; 1st person role play Stand alone version Methodical approach to diagnosing

- Intelligent support

EMERGO (OUNL, 2008)

Complex skills (competences) Web-based case development methodology Game development toolkit Case library Case templates Communication Tracking data statistics for feedback

Emergo info www.emergo.cc

For instance brief clip in English/French/German

Emergo accounts at http://emergo.ou.nl

4 temp. accounts (USERID/PASSWORD): wimstudent1/student1 wimstudent2/student2 wimstudent3/student3 wimstudent4/student4 (I’ll make sure that these account will be available

for a few weeks; they all cover all developer, case manager, tutor and learner rights)

Making a game with Game maker

Download game maker 7.0 lite at http://www.yoyogames.com/gamemaker

Install Download tutorial at

http://www.yoyogames.com/make/tutorials For instance: “Catch the clown”

Build the Catch the Clown game

Create sprites (clown, wall) Create sounds (bounce, click) Create objects (wall, clown) Add events and logic

Clown: 1) Create, 2) Wall collision 3) Click Create room Run the game

More advanced examples

Check-out the yoyogames site for many fine tutorials on Game maker.

Please don’t hesitate to call or email me for further comments or requests.

Best wishes,

Wim