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This is a discussion document about the possible use of Moodle for educational gaming.Educational gaming generally refers to simulations, though this concern with simulations asbeing the major form of educational gaming hides the benefits that other types of gamesprovide. A simulation is the gaming of a process or system (i.e. the running of a power station,or elements of the international political system). Early simulations used in education weresimulations of social interaction.

The document is not about games design, but does touches on issues of games design inorder to explore what Moodle modules can be used, or created to provide access to gameswithin Moodle. Equally this document is not about creating games within Moodle, and Im onlyconcerning myself with those actions within a game that provide some form of learningoutcome or provide communication capabilities between the players and/or players andteacher.

I think there are three possibilities for incorporating games within Moodle.

1. To use Moodle as the game engine,

2. Use some of Moodles modules as a way of providing some of the game play that centresaround learning outcomes and communication between the participants, but the main game

play happens outside of Moodle.3. Incorporate the game entirely into Moodle

Learning outcomes can be quantifiable as in whether a student has answered a quiz questioncorrectly, other can be semi-quantifiable as in whether a student has learnt about a particulartheory or why X behaves as they do, other will be non-quantifiable such as a studentsimproved decision making skills.

Games can be for solo play, two player or multiply player. Equally it is possible for teams ofplayers to play as a single unit (i.e. pub quizzes).

Games can be open or closed. Closed games are those games such as Chess orMonopolyin which the only interaction allowed in the game is between the players. Open games aregames which have a moderator and allow players to interact with Non-Player Character

(NPC) outside of the immediate boundary of the game. NPCs are played by the moderatorand generally have a role-playing nature to them; such games include Dungeons andDragons and most International Relations (IR) simulations.

Games can also be free play or constrained play. Constrained games are games where therules or the board govern the game play and the outcomes of player actions; this includesmost games. Free play games are games where a moderator decides the outcome of actionsbased upon their concept of physicality, in that if an action would be physically impossiblethen it would be over-ruled by the moderator; such games include IR simulations.

Games are based around a series of actions or phases. These actions are ordered by turns.Turns can be timed as in tournament Chess, orDiplomacy. A turn can also represent a periodof game times, such a minute, hour, day, month, year (i.e. Diplomacy), etc, or turns are simplya way of ordering game play such as in MonopolyorTrivia Pursuit. Players actions can be

sequential, simultaneous or a combination of both. Equally there may be sub-phases withinphases.

As an example of 2 above, and in order to provide an example of actions within a game I willlook briefly at how Trivia Pursuitcould be played using Moodle. Trivia Pursuitconsists of anumber of players taking turns to move their playing piece around a board and answerquestions on a particular subject. Each player turn basically consists of three actions, 1 roll adice to see how far you move, 2 move your playing piece around the board, and 3 answer aquestion on a particular subject. Actions 1 and 2 would happen outside of Moodle, and anamended quiz module could be used to provide the questions

An example of 3 above, where an entire game can be incorporated into Moodle would begames that use programmed learning. These games also have the benefit of being able to beplayed solo. One of the first uses of programmed learning was State of Emergency: A

Programmed Entertainment by Dennis Guerrier and Joan Richards. The reader takes the role

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of leader of a newly fictional independent African state called Lakoto, and must choose theright course to govern and develop it properly.

State of Emergency, the very first of its kind, combines a conventional novel with thetechnique of programmed or guided learning. Programmed learning provides a branchingstory line, in this book it is at the end of each chapter. The reader chooses from a number ofdifferent courses of actions and depending upon their choice, jumps to a page that continuesthe story using their choice of option as the starting point. This model of games play is nowused in a number of solo fantasy or adventure game novels and can be replicated in Moodleusing the Lesson module. This model of educational games design is used heavily for guidedlearning where you want to student to tick all the boxes, so to speak.

An example of 3 above using a Voice and Visual Conferencing System (Lyceum) developedat the OU, which can be incorporated into a VLE is the negotiation simulation to teach socialscience theory used in the OU course D833 Environmental Practice: Negotiating Policy in aGlobal Society. The use of this particular IR simulation based on a United Nations sessionhas been used to help OU students develop negotiating skills. Why the D833 course chair setout to chose Lyceum to deliver key outcomes (Humphreys, D. 2002).

The simulation itself requires the use of a moderator because it is both an open and free

game, in that there maybe a need for players to contact NPCs and the game itself isunconstrained within its limits by rules.

I want to look at a gaming medium which has naturally transferred to the electronic formatvery well, and that is play-by-mail (pbm). Games such as Diplomacyand Chess have beenpbm successfully for many years now. There is universal understanding of the rules by theplayers of these games, the rules are set and there is no randomness or partial randomnessin moving of players pieces or deciding the outcome of the players actions. The other typesof games that lend themselves to pbm are games that require the use of a moderator todetermine certain types of outcomes, usually combat outcomes. Here the moderator can usea computer program, a set of rules, or their own experience to decide the outcome of aplayers actions. Games that require randomness to determine player pieces movement suchas Trivia Pursuitand Monopolyare generally unsuitable for pbm.

The other type of game I want to look at is management games, in particular a footballmanagement game called Tactical Manager. The game is a computer game, and allowsthose playing it to take on the roll of a manager of a football club, and make strategicdecisions about the buying of players and doing other deals with NPCs. They can makeweekly operational decisions about such things as training issues, pay their players, arrangephysio sessions for their injured players, and decide upon the team to play on the Saturday.Come the day of the match they can decide upon a players starting position within the teamand the tactics the team wants to play. During the match (which is speeded up) the managerby pausing the match game play can make decisions about tactics, substitutions, and playingpositions.

Tactical Managerhas been re-programmed for use on the web, and rather than being a solo

computer game is now a true multi-player game. Seehttp://soccermaniacs.incagoldgames.com/soccerboss/index.php

Those playing the game can communicate with each other by use of the games forums ande-mail. Each game turn lasts for a week, but the one thing they can not do is to pause thematch play. The web based game version of the game is programmed in PHP and the playersare provided with forms on line to fill in order to run their clubs as they would do if playing theoriginal computer game. The only thing the players can not do is to pause the match play.In essence the original game has been cut up into chunks (actions) and each part of thegame play (the actions) separated out. I believe such an approach is necessary if we arelooking to incorporate games into Moodle. The main reason for this is that certain game playchunks themselves can live outside of Moodle, whilst certain elements of the game such asanswering quizzes, or negotiating deals or discussing the game via forums, e-mail or chat

rooms can be handled within Moodle.

http://soccermaniacs.incagoldgames.com/soccerboss/index.phphttp://soccermaniacs.incagoldgames.com/soccerboss/index.php

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There would also be a need for the learning outcomes to be stored somewhere after eachgame play. This is necessary so that the teacher can monitor how well a student is meetingtheir learning objectives. There is also a need for game play data to be passed through thegame play chunks along the results of that particular piece of game play. This is needed sothat the teacher can replay a students play, or to go back to a previous bit of game player inorder to point out a student possible other options, and to deal with what if questions by

exploring the playing of a different decisions. I think both of these data files should be createdin XML. This would seem to imply that any games designed for use with Moodle will need tobe chunked and interfaces provided for teachers to edit elements of the game play to suittheir curriculum needs.

It should be possible to use Moodle as a game engine for programmed learning games, andsome forms of simulations. In such cases a special type of course might need to be created,and code written to handle the passing of game time if need be, and the calling of non-Moodlegame elements.

Where most of the game play takes place outside of Moodle, then the game itself will need tocall the relevant Moodle modules to be used and pass the necessary data across to Moodlemodules so that they can be used within the game.

Where a game is used entirely outside of Moodle, if the learning objectives are to be passedback to Moodle then an interface for the teacher to enter the data would need to be providedby the games manufacturer or specially written be-spoke software used.

I would suggest that any passing of data between non-Moodle game modules and Moodlemodules will need to be programmed by the games manufacturer. Any data passed outside ofMoodle and internally within Moodle would need to be programmed by the Moodle moduleprogrammers. Equally I think we need to explore what data is necessary with reference tolearning outcomes and possible game use, and what data is required to be imported/exportedinto or from Moodle modules. Moodle already has backup/retrieve/import functionality thatcould be used to create the necessary XML formatted files for use between non-Moodle gamemodules and Moodle modules.

References

State of Emergency: A Programmed Entertainment, by Dennis Guerrier and Joan Richards,Hardcover: 288 pages, Publisher: William Heinemann (April 1969), ISBN-10: 0434307904,or ISBN-13: 978-0434307906.

The pedagogy and practice of role-play: using a negotiation simulation to teach social sciencetheory, by Dr. David Humphreys. The paper is taken from Kinshuk, Lewis, R., Akahori, K.,Kemp, R., Okamoto, T., Henderson, L. and Lee, C.-H. (eds) (2002) International Conferenceon Computers in Education 36 December, Auckland, New Zealand. Proceedings, vol.II, LosAlamitos, CA, IEEE Computer Society, pp.10637.