Branston, C. (2006). From game studies to bibliographic gaming: Libraries tap into the video game culture. Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science and Technology.
A 2003 Gallup Poll found that 69% of teenagers play video games each week, 1/4 of which play over 11 hours per week. She stresses the need to focus on the entertainment factor and gaming experience rather than the educational aspects. Game-based learning goes against the "point of need theory" but she feels the two can compliment each other.
It is important to get the players involved at every stage of development. Strive to make the players lose track of time. If a game fails, it is most likely because the game is not fun. In games, "the learning is completely interactive and immersive."
Gamers often do "secondary research," looking up information on strategies, tips, hints, fan fiction, and Web sites devoted to the game. Bibliographic instruction can use gaming literature in a BI session to show how the skills they already have transfer to academic research.
Friday, March 6, 2009
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Sounds & Games
The student computers in the library classroom were not equipped with speakers for obvious reasons. I have made most of my games without sound effects, which does help when trying to limit the file size of the games. However, sound is a critical part of the gaming experience. I have been struggling to give visual clues to students when an answer is right or wrong, but it interferes with their activities, which is a big no-no in game development. They should not have to wait for the "Correct!" image to fade before they can click on the next item. A simple bling or gong sound would allow them to know immediately if they got something right or wrong without interrupting their progress.
We are in the process of ordering some relatively cheap speakers for those computers specifically for my games. I hope they will arrive soon, though it's too late to use them in classes this year. This morning, I started putting sound into my plagiarism game. I am getting most of my sound effects from The Freesound Project. I don't think I'm going to go so far as to put music into my games, at least not yet. However, I found a great juicy-sounding splat noise when an answer is correct since the player is supposedly killing goblins, and a nice water noise to play when the player clicks on the courtyard's fountain.
Everything I have read has stressed the importance of the gaming experience to make the learning part less noticeable to students, and sound is definitely important to the experience.
We are in the process of ordering some relatively cheap speakers for those computers specifically for my games. I hope they will arrive soon, though it's too late to use them in classes this year. This morning, I started putting sound into my plagiarism game. I am getting most of my sound effects from The Freesound Project. I don't think I'm going to go so far as to put music into my games, at least not yet. However, I found a great juicy-sounding splat noise when an answer is correct since the player is supposedly killing goblins, and a nice water noise to play when the player clicks on the courtyard's fountain.
Everything I have read has stressed the importance of the gaming experience to make the learning part less noticeable to students, and sound is definitely important to the experience.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Article Review: Digital games in education
Gros, B. (2007). Digital games in education: The design of games-based learning environments. Journal of Research on Technology in Education 40(1), 23-38.
This article is a literature review on digital game-based learning and should lead to some great resources. DGBL stretches across many disciplines which each have their own focus and terminology, which make a comprehensive lit review difficulty. Research on DGBL in the field of education started to grow in the late 1990’s.
1st generation of educational games: called “edutainment.” This failed because the games were too simplistic in comparison to the commercial games. Also, the games were repetitive, poorly designed and did not support progressive understanding.
2nd generation: focused on the cognitive approach with the learner as the center of attention.
3rd generation: looked at the broader process of educational uses of computer games. This stressed the teacher as a facilitator who could provide the games with a social context.
(Egenfeldt & Nielsen, 2005)
The article goes on to talk about statistics of computer game users among children. Many studies have been done on the abstract learning effects, like improved mental rotation skills, ability to read iconic images, and divided visual attention/keeping track of multiple things.
Squire (2005) points out that the difference between e-learning and games is the focus on content vs. the gaming experience. Researchers think games don’t support “textual understanding” as much as other media, but do support: conceptual learning, problem solving, cooperation, and practical participation.
Greenfield (1996) found that games help learning through observation and hypotheses testing and that they “broadened understanding of scientific simulations.” The biggest disadvantage of games is the amount of time they take.
In author’s games, they strove towards learning environments that include 1) experimentation 2) reflection 3) activity 4) discussion
They found games to be most beneficial to less-advanced learners, though this is not supported in other researchers’ work. Little research has been done so far on how the knowledge gained in games transfers to other places.
This article is a literature review on digital game-based learning and should lead to some great resources. DGBL stretches across many disciplines which each have their own focus and terminology, which make a comprehensive lit review difficulty. Research on DGBL in the field of education started to grow in the late 1990’s.
1st generation of educational games: called “edutainment.” This failed because the games were too simplistic in comparison to the commercial games. Also, the games were repetitive, poorly designed and did not support progressive understanding.
2nd generation: focused on the cognitive approach with the learner as the center of attention.
3rd generation: looked at the broader process of educational uses of computer games. This stressed the teacher as a facilitator who could provide the games with a social context.
(Egenfeldt & Nielsen, 2005)
The article goes on to talk about statistics of computer game users among children. Many studies have been done on the abstract learning effects, like improved mental rotation skills, ability to read iconic images, and divided visual attention/keeping track of multiple things.
Squire (2005) points out that the difference between e-learning and games is the focus on content vs. the gaming experience. Researchers think games don’t support “textual understanding” as much as other media, but do support: conceptual learning, problem solving, cooperation, and practical participation.
Greenfield (1996) found that games help learning through observation and hypotheses testing and that they “broadened understanding of scientific simulations.” The biggest disadvantage of games is the amount of time they take.
In author’s games, they strove towards learning environments that include 1) experimentation 2) reflection 3) activity 4) discussion
They found games to be most beneficial to less-advanced learners, though this is not supported in other researchers’ work. Little research has been done so far on how the knowledge gained in games transfers to other places.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Nobel Games
While helping a student on a reference question, I stumbled onto a large number of educational Flash games on the Nobel Web site. I've tested out a few, some are quite fun. The one on building plastic ducks actually answered a question that came up at a Mardi Gras party last weekend (as in, how could the plastic baby Jesus figurine be cooked into the king cake without melting?).
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
A few more under my belt
This week I had three back-to-back freshman comp classes with two different professors. These classes were scheduled with only a week's notice, so I was limited to the changes within the Secret Agents game that I could do. Still, I think the changes I did do were effective. The first was to add a few animations to make it more game-like. These were simpler than I hope they will be in the future, and were very reminiscent of Carmen Sandiego. I changed the story from the students being secret agents that break into an information mainframe (the library) to an intruder has broken into the mainframe and the students (still rookie agents) have to get to the resources before he does and catch him. I also made the Boolean and truncation exercises interactive, which was lacking previously. I believe these changes were a leap in the right direction.
As my office-mate suggested after observing one of the games last fall, I followed the game up with a 10-question quiz using "clickers." I was able to save the results for my records, and make sure the students were leaving with a clear understanding of the basics. Two of the three classes had no problems with the quiz, the third class had two questions that required further clarification. The last question asked if this game was a fun way to learn about the library. 75% of the first class said yes to this question, 62% of the second class said yes, 53% of the last class said yes. This last class was a talkative group, and there was chatter that they didn't like having to physically get up and move around the library, otherwise they would have said "yes."
When doing a more traditional instruction session, you often feel like one class goes very differently from another. But as an instructor, that could have been because of you. I often feel that I improve the second time I have to do the same class back-to-back. However, the game stays constant, and the differences between the classes and even between each group continues to surprise me. The range of scores varies, the time it takes students to complete the game varies, and obviously their opinion of how much "fun" it was varies. Perhaps earlier classes were not as physically lazy as the last group, or perhaps their desire to be nice to me influenced their answer. Who knows?
I had another co-worker observing me today. She had further advice on how to make these more effective including clarity of questions and improving the introduction. We also discussed incorporating the librarian at the desk. I think I will have them go to "The Librarian" (code name, of course) at the desk to receive their next mission, which will be to find a particular print journal. This would associate them with an additional librarian and force them to locate the reference desk (which we call the Research Help Desk).
This furthers the point that games cannot be effective when they are solely computer-based. Students must interact with the physical library, and traditional instruction methods must be mixed with the technology based ones. Digital game-based learning in the library classroom can take the best of both worlds and use the advantages of each to create something truly spectacular. I think what I've done so far is really good, and with suggestions from librarians and students will one day become great.... though I will always require them to go up to the stacks to find their books!
As my office-mate suggested after observing one of the games last fall, I followed the game up with a 10-question quiz using "clickers." I was able to save the results for my records, and make sure the students were leaving with a clear understanding of the basics. Two of the three classes had no problems with the quiz, the third class had two questions that required further clarification. The last question asked if this game was a fun way to learn about the library. 75% of the first class said yes to this question, 62% of the second class said yes, 53% of the last class said yes. This last class was a talkative group, and there was chatter that they didn't like having to physically get up and move around the library, otherwise they would have said "yes."
When doing a more traditional instruction session, you often feel like one class goes very differently from another. But as an instructor, that could have been because of you. I often feel that I improve the second time I have to do the same class back-to-back. However, the game stays constant, and the differences between the classes and even between each group continues to surprise me. The range of scores varies, the time it takes students to complete the game varies, and obviously their opinion of how much "fun" it was varies. Perhaps earlier classes were not as physically lazy as the last group, or perhaps their desire to be nice to me influenced their answer. Who knows?
I had another co-worker observing me today. She had further advice on how to make these more effective including clarity of questions and improving the introduction. We also discussed incorporating the librarian at the desk. I think I will have them go to "The Librarian" (code name, of course) at the desk to receive their next mission, which will be to find a particular print journal. This would associate them with an additional librarian and force them to locate the reference desk (which we call the Research Help Desk).
This furthers the point that games cannot be effective when they are solely computer-based. Students must interact with the physical library, and traditional instruction methods must be mixed with the technology based ones. Digital game-based learning in the library classroom can take the best of both worlds and use the advantages of each to create something truly spectacular. I think what I've done so far is really good, and with suggestions from librarians and students will one day become great.... though I will always require them to go up to the stacks to find their books!
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Dream Chronicles
Despite having been playing with games for a number of months now, the only game I have completed is Dream Chronicles. I have dabbled in the "casual games" online, but this one held my attention better. You can play it for free for 30 minutes in the link I provided above, or buy it through that site for $20. I bought it at Target for $10 and felt it was worth every penny.The best part about this game that I discovered was how simple the programming is. I can't re-create the beautiful graphics of the game, but there is little that I couldn't program to some degree of similarity. Each screen view is stable, so you can't move around within the world, and you don't have to program any characters that move other than very simple animations.
There is also an example of a dialog that determines the outcome of the game when you are in the greenhouse. I have been reading about dialog in games, but couldn't figure out how that could work. In this case, the plant talks and you have four choices of responses. That is as simple as programming a multiple choice question.
This is the style of game I based my plagiarism game on, which I'm still working on. I highly recommend it as a place for non-gamers to start. It's an inspiring game!
Big Games
I continue to be fascinated by the idea of "Big Games" as described by Gregory Trefly on the ALA's gaming Web site. The slides and audio are on that site, and the presentation is highly worth listening to. If you really can't listen to the whole thing, fast-forward to slide 45 and about 37 minutes into the audio presentation, but the earlier stuff is very helpful background info. This is where it starts to specifically discuss big games in libraries. Almost all of the big games revolve around four basic games:
- tag
- scavenger hunt
- hide & seek
- capture the flag
- Secret Agent - based on the scavenger hunt. It involves secret meeting points, and avoiding detection (no running or disturbing people who aren't playing). Collect codes, and set levels so they know how they're doing when they "level up."
- Then/Now - this one interests me the most at the moment. In their example, they had old pictures of places around NYC from the library's archives, and the players have to go around and take pictures of how it looks now. I want to do this around campus.
- Rent control - the real real estate game. I don't understand this.
- Babel code - using the foreign language materials in the library to break codes
- Dewey's Demons - finding codes online or in the stacks to create and take care of creatures. I don't understand the details of this either.
To do one of these big games, look around your everyday world. Give normal activities goals, look for simple ways to track moves. Once you have a plan, run a test play (or he called it playtest) several times until it works, because it never works the first time.This presentation is definitely worth listening to, and I hope we can do the Then/Now thing with freshmen this fall.
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