Computer Gaming Scenarios for Product Development Teams

In this paper, computer gaming approaches are introduced as a viable means to structure the interaction of a product development team during concept generation. During concept generation, teams gather large amounts of information before generating new ideas and concepts. Digital technologies mean that relevant information can be sourced faster than ever, but this does not necessarily migrate into the activity of concept creation. It is suggested that cues from computer games can help integrate information as well as individuals more effectively, resulting in better conceptual output. A range of game types are evaluated with a view to their possible utilization in support of concept design. Two scenarios for the implementation of gaming methods are proposed, and one refined scenario identified as having potential for further development.

Measuring Student Perceptions

As educational games become more pervasive, the evolution of game design software is inevitable. This study looked at student perceptions of teacher created Serious Educational Games as part of a project striving to create a game development software where teachers and students create games as part of educational activities. The objective was to use evidence from student perceptions to inform further development of the software. A mixed method design ascertained data from 181 male and 178 females from 33 teacher created games. Results indicate that the software is relatively effective by the supporting documentation and training lacked in several areas. This information led to the creation of a commercial game development software set for release in 2010.

Exploring Cognitive Load in Immersive Educational Games

SAVE Science is a research project focused on creating an innovative model for assessment of learning in STEM. In SAVE Science, we are implementing game-like modules for evaluating science content and inquiry in grades 7-8, using an assessment rubric of student interactions in a virtual environment designed to capture evolving patterns of scientific understanding among students. We are also investigating two “conditions for success” for virtual environment-based assessment: managing the effects of cognitive load students experience in complex virtual environments, and helping teachers integrate technology into their pedagogy. In this paper, we provide an overview of our design approaches aimed at helping students manage the high levels of cognitive load they report experiencing in virtual environments. By reducing the perceived complexity of virtual environment-based assessments, we hypothesize that learners will be better able to attend to the processes associated with the assessments, leading to more accurate evidentiary data.

Narratizing Disciplines and Disciplinizing Narratives

Education is about revealing possibility and exciting passions, empowering learners with the disciplinary expertise to meaningfully act on problematic contexts in which applying disciplinary knowledge is important. Toward this end, we have been using gaming methodologies and technologies to design curricular dramas that position students as active change agents who use knowledge to inquire into particular circumstances and, through their actions, transform the problematic situation into a known. Unlike more traditional textbooks designed to transmit facts or micro-stories, our focus is on building interactive experiences in which understanding core concepts, such as erosion or the idea of metaphor, and seeing oneself as a person who uses these to address personally meaningful and socially significant problems is valued. It is the explicit goal of this manuscript to communicate this power of educational videogames, as well as the design steps that we have been using to make this happen.

Automated Event Recognition for Football Commentary Generation

The enjoyment of many games can be enhanced by in-game commentaries. In this paper, the authors focus on the automatic generation of commentaries for football games, using Championship Manager as a case study. The basis of this approach is a real-time mapping of game states to commentary concepts, such as “dangerous situation for team A”. While in some cases it is feasible to provide such a mapping by hand-coding, in some cases it is not straight-forward because the meaning of the concepts cannot be easily formalized. In these cases, the authors propose to use inductive learning techniques that learn such a mapping from annotated game traces.

Towards Games for Knowledge Acquisition and Modeling

Many model-based methods in AI require formal representation of knowledge as input. For the acquisition of highly structured, domain-specific knowledge, machine learning techniques still fall short, and knowledge elicitation and modelling is then the standard. However, obtaining formal models from informants who have few or no formal skills is a non-trivial aspect of knowledge acquisition, which can be viewed as an instance of the well-known “knowledge acquisition bottleneck”. Based on the authors’ work in conceptual modelling and method engineering, this paper casts methods for knowledge modelling in the framework of games. The resulting games-for-modelling approach is illustrated by a first prototype of such a game. The authors’ long-term goal is to lower the threshold for formal knowledge acquisition and modelling.

Evaluating User Experience of Actual and Imagined Movement in BCI Gaming

Most research on Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCI) focuses on developing ways of expression for disabled people who are not able to communicate through other means. Recently it has been shown that BCI can also be used in games to give users a richer experience and new ways to interact with a computer or game console. This paper describes research conducted to find out what the differences are between using actual and imagined movement as modalities in a BCI game. Results show that there are significant differences in user experience and that actual movement is a more robust way of communicating through a BCI.

Wee Wii

In this paper, the authors specifically focus on the opportunities and challenges presented by the Nintendo Wii to preschoolers in context to three key objectives in order to facilitate game development: First, to understand the range of physical and cognitive abilities of preschoolers in motion-based game play; Second, to understand how preschoolers interact with the Wii; Third, to understand the expectations of the parents of preschoolers with regard to these new gaming platforms and the purchase and play contexts within which game play occurs. In addition to reporting challenges and advantages of the motion-based play for preschoolers, the authors also discuss how the findings of this research were then implemented by the game producers to develop the first preschool-targeted game on the market in the United States.

Toward a Theory of Game-Media Literacy

This paper discusses varied ideas on games, learning, and digital literacy for 21st-century education as theorized and practiced by the author and James Paul Gee, and their colleagues. With attention to games as means for learning, the author links Gee’s theories to the learning sciences tradition (particularly those of the MIT Constructionists) and extending game media literacy to encompass “writing” (producing) as well as “reading” (playing) games. If game-playing is like reading and game-making is like writing, then we must introduce learners to both from a young age. The imagining and writing of web-games fosters the development of many essential skill-sets needed for creativity and innovation, providing an appealing new way for a global computing education, STEM education, for closing achievement gaps. Gee and the author reveal a shared aim to encourage researchers and theorists, as well as policymakers, to investigate gaming with regard to epistemology and cognition.

Adaptive Interactive Narrative Model to Teach Ethics

Promoting ethical, responsible, and caring young people is a perennial aim of education. Efforts have been made to find ways of teaching other than traditional ones like games and role play. Narrative-based computer games are engaging learning platforms that allow collaboration of humans and computers in the creation of innovative experiences. In this paper, the authors examine the design of an adaptive, interactive narrative model that uses a student model to provide an individualized story-path and an individualized learning process. In this regard, the authors comprise strong learning objectives underpinned by effective story telling. The adaptive narrative model has been deployed in the educational game environment, AEINS, along with the use of the Socratic Method and pedagogical agents to support teaching in the ethics domain. Evaluation results indicate the usefulness of the design and provide evidence on the development of moral reasoning and the transfer of moral virtues to its users.