Edutainment - Learning from the primary schools...

PhD Simon Egenfeldt-Nielsen

CEO Serious Games Interactive

18. April 2007, Copenhagen

”Educational games are fundamentally different than the prevalent instructional paradigm. They are based on challenge, reward, learning through doing and guided discovery, in contrast to ”tell and test” methods of traditional instruction.”

-Report of the Federation of American Scientiest, ”Educational Games 2006”

”I learned more history from this game in one day than I have learned from the teaching the last 6 months”

Oliver Hansen, Student, 16 years

Target groups

Subjects:

What is the product

Danish 8th graders using the game early 2006.

Global Conflicts: Palestine target students of 13-19 years

Primary: Citizensship & History Secondary: Media, religion, ethics,

geography & communication

f

Welcome to the reality

Material from Global Conflicts: Palestine online learning resource.

Welcome to Global Conflicts: Palestine

In-game shots from the game Global Conflicts: Palestine

Checkpoint!

Feel and understand the tense atmosphere and problems of the conflict of Palestine

Build trust by understanding and exploring different perspectives to get people’s personal story

Breath-taking engagement with people, you, the journalist, makes your mark on the media coverage

Students explore and learn from detailed and scary environment - they see the inside of the conflict

Freelance journalist

Get the best article

Find informants

Gain their trust

Get their story

Dig out best quotes

Put together article

Highest journalist level

GameplayWhat is Global Conflicts: Palestine

You

Goal

Means

Winning

Blended learning experience

Experiential: The games provides a virtual tour to the

conflict with concrete experiences that provide a strong

starting point for learning about the topic. Learning styles: Dynamic feedback, interaction that

makes a differences, multimodal encoding, mistakes

are safe to make & you are present with challnges.

What is the product

ddd simple tests

In-depth online learning companion w. integrated webshop for digital distribution

Background for students: Timeline, documents, encyclopedia & links:

Specific themes: Work questions, small tests, links, video & pictures

Meet and discuss with other students: Forum & newsletter

Teaching form

Teacher talks

Play Game

PlenumGroup

discussions

Read textbook Overview of theme

Explore perspectives Experience issues

Discuss experiences Write article

Debriefing Evaluation

What is the product

Different rooms for learning styles

Group work

Reflectiveobservation

Activeexperimentation

GC: Palestine

Lecture Abstractconcepts

Concreteexperiences

•Kolb’s cycle covered with different teaching forms in the course.

• The teacher is crucial to facilitate a full learning experience.

Empirical study

Qualitative feedback

“Global Conflicts: Palestine is a fun and different way to receive learning” (Female student, 18 years)

“You had a greater desire to learn about the topic from Global Conflicts: Palestine” (Male student, 16 years)

”You learn a lot about how Israelis and Palestinians respectively look at the conflict, because you talk to

different persons... I think it is good that the stories derive from reality, providing the stories with a realistic tone.”

(Female student, 18 years)

Empirical study

Students want more...Empirical study

90% students find it to be an interesting course

88% students find it to be an interesting educational material

59 % students find they learned more

90% students wants to try a similar course again

Sample: 51 Danish High school low-middle class students after a one-week course

Other support for effiency

More motivated & engaged Activity perceived as more challenging Rention is often better

Most research say you learn from games - at least the same as

other teaching methods. Below overview of studies that support

learning from games

Yes Maybe No

20 1 2

Closing

Next generation of game-based learning is in the making. Research suggest that game-based learning is very effective Team needed to build next-gen game-based learning more complex Nordic learning approach gaining ground

Contact: sen@seriousgames.dk

Web: www.seriousgames.dk

Gruppediskussion: Fra folkeskole til virksomhed

Der er nu tid til at diskutere og konkludere, hvorfor og hvordan avancerede læringsspil fra folkeskolen kan anvendes til relevante formål i virksomheder.

- Hvilke formål kan spil som GC:Palestine bruges til i virksomheder?- Hvad kan avancerede læringsspil gøre for læringen i virksomheder?

Edutainment From thinking to action, this is what it takes...

PhD Simon Egenfeldt-Nielsen

CEO Serious Games Interactive

18. April 2007, Copenhagen

Most of what goes under the name "edutainment" reminds me of George Bernard Shaw's response to a famous beauty who speculated on the marvelous child they could have together: "With your brains and my looks ..." He retorted, "But what if the child had my looks and your brains?"

(Papert, 1998: 88)

Common pitfalls in edutainment…

Little intrinsic motivation: Extrinsic motivation through rewards, rather than intrinsic motivation.

No integrated learning experience: Lacks integration of the learning experience with playing experience - learning subordinated play experience.

Drill-and-practice learning principles: Rely on drill-and-practice rather than understanding – training above learning.

No teacher presence: No demands on teachers or parents.

Simple gameplay: Built on a simple gameplay from classic titles.

Small budgets: Produced on limited budgets with limited technology.

Same topics - different game...

Sales training Fona

1. Quiz show: The player must get all the answers right and compete with other colleagues.

2. Treasure hunt: The player must explore different web-sites and sources in competition with colleagues to answer the most questions.

3. Virtual job: The player explores a virtual universe with different sources, people and methods for making the sale in competition with other colleagues.

Edutainment

Next-gen(Serious Games)

Der kræves QuickTime™ og et TIFF (ukomprimeret)-komprimeringsværktøj,

for at man kan se dette billede.

Der kræves QuickTime™ og et TIFF (ukomprimeret)-komprimeringsværktøj,

for at man kan se dette billede.Der kræves QuickTime™ og

et TIFF (ukomprimeret)-komprimeringsværktøj,for at man kan se dette billede.

Quiz show Treasure hunt Virtual job

101 Games development

Many different genres (action, simulation, strategy, adventure, RPG)..

On different platforms (pc, consoles, mobiles)

With different complexity level: Singelplayer -> multiplayer 2D graphics -> 3D graphics Small universe -> large univers 15 minutes -> 50 hours playtime

Everybody might play games, although many still don’t and games are played very differently. Latest US survey find average gamer is 33 years...

A consortium on game-based learning

Roles

i. Serious Games: Concept development, storyboarding, design, programming and test

ii. IMS: Concept development, learning goals, learing flow, script-writing, adjustment to learning in companies and test

iii. 4 customers: Expert content, testing and implementation

Der kræves QuickTime™ og et TIFF (ukomprimeret)-komprimeringsværktøj,

for at man kan se dette billede.

• Get competitive advantage on education of employees• Brand company as innovative & attractive on a world-wide scale• Save money but making learning more effective and long-lasting.

Setting up the consortium

Specs: 3D, virtual world, 4 levels w. 30 minutes gameplay.

Budget: 5 mio. DKK

Time: 15 months

Your resources: 2 man month pr. level spread over development

Shared resources: Technology, assets, learning & experiences.

Basic framework

Customized each partners

Shared assets

Game

Timeline & milestones

Concept Prototype

• Research • Concept• Gameplay • Scope• Genre• Setting• Budget• IPR• Learning goals

Pre-production Production Testing Go

• Basic code• Environment • Playable Lvl• Proof concept

• All assets• Playable Lvl• Environment• Proof concept• Lock features

2 months 3 months 2 months 6 months 2 months 1 months

• Make all lvls • Testing• Packaging

Der kræves QuickTime™ og et TIFF (ukomprimeret)-komprimeringsværktøj,

for at man kan se dette billede.

Example: anti-McDonalds training game.

Mini-møde: Barrierer og muligheder

I holder holder parvis møder om barrierer og muligheder forbundet med avancerede læringsspil i jeres virksomhed.

Kontaktinfo:Serious Games InteractiveNjalsgade 92, 2. Sal2300 København Swww.seriousgames.dkSen@seriousgames.dk