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Forming a Learner-Player Persona

Posted by on 2024 年 02 月 26 号 in Advanced Designing Games for Learning, 所有文章 All Articles, 教育技术 Learning Technologies | Comments Off on Forming a Learner-Player Persona

I attended a workshop at the Teaching for Learning Center. Once again, I was reminded by the host of the workshop (slides) Dr. Bethany Stone that all the good lecturers need to understand their audiences. While designing a serious game, the reminder is still meaningful. ShowMeGeo Studios memembers have been working on designing a learner-player personna to develop a serious game to introduce more audience what the geographers do. Dr. Opren encouraged us to design the persona from three different perspectives: a learner, a user and a player.

Part 1: Gather Some Information for creating a learner persona

As a learner, the most important thing, while I play games for learning, is providing me with a new way or new angle to observe the learning content. For example, I can learn the special relationships between the planet earth and sun and other celestial bodies according to read books and watch documentary films. But the game may provide me a chance to manipulate a spaceship to travel through our solar system to explore them. For the most valuable entertainment I would like to enjoy while playing games, is a feeling of freedom. The freedom bring by the game should let me forget the difficulties in my real life and help me forget bitterness or anxiety for a while, which help me refresh. When I use games and simulations as learning tools, my highest expectations is to extend my attention span to focus on practicing or learning.

Source of the information: I have asked three secondary school students about their preferences while playing games. I interviewed them and record their responses.

Types of information I collected: verbal descriptions.

Part 2: Analyze my Findings for creating a learner persona

When I taught science courses in my former school, I used game-based learning as a very important teaching strategy. From my experience, I could understand learners’ preferences when they engaged in the learning games. So, I conducted virtual interviews with three of my former students who, during their middle or high school years, chose Geography as their major in college. As their former science teacher and homeroom teacher, I not only maintain close connections with them but also have a deep understanding of their personalities and experiences. Please note that these three students represent a larger group who majored in Geography, embodying the most common traits of those passionate about the subject.

Based on my virtual interviews with these former students, I have summarized my findings below. Additionally, if time permits, I would like to share and discuss these findings with the real persons to refine and enhance my understanding.

  Participant 1 Participant 2 Participant 3
Name Zhang Qin Zhu
Bio G7 student in middle school.  GPA is in top 20% of his class. Interested in observing starry night. Freshman in high school. GPA is in top 40% of her class. Interested in investigating the stories back of the hills and rivers. Senior in high school. GPA is in top 60% of his class. Interested in traveling around the world.
Age 13 15 17
Gender Male Female Male
What is important to you when you play games for learning? How can I learn fast and better? Not too hard and complicated. Help me understand the learning content.
What is important to you when you play games for entertainment? I want to have more joy. Peaceful and beautiful. Give me a real experience feeling.
What is important to you regarding user experience and usability with learning games as learning tools? Can it help me tackle learning difficulties? Use less time and learn more. I want it can give me possibilities to design my games to learn the knowledge.

Part 3: Reflect on my Data Collection Process

I would like to express my sincere thanks to Maureen for providing a well-structured learner persona template. Following our discussions on Canvas and during our online meeting, we have decided to merge her college student learner persona with my high school student persona. Narrowing the focus from broad to specific presents a challenge, as does expanding your focus in diverse directions. Drawing on the insights gained from virtual interviews with my former students, I am proposing a secondary school learner persona utilizing Maureen’s template. The referenced articles are: How to Use Learner Personas to Understand Your Audience (growthengineering.co.uk)And How to Develop Learner Personas for Effective Training (td.org)

A new learner persona (high-school student) created by me

Name: Danny
Bio:
Age: 15 Freshman in high school. GPA is in top 50% of his class. From a mid-size city, studying in a public high school, interested in travelling
Race: mixed race
Gender: Male
Motivation: stories enthusiast
Key character traits: curious energetic, positive, considers himself a Creative
Key learning type: kinesthetic learner (learns by doing), Visual learner, naturalistic learner
Key challenges toward learning: does not like math, has trouble concentrating during lectures, requires highly structured instructions, wants all classes to be goal oriented, difficulty understanding scientific concepts.
Games: Role-Playing-Games and flight simulation games.

A learner persona (a college student) created by Maureen

Name: Sue Learner (she/her)
Bio: College Freshman, currently Undecided.  Graduated in top 25% of her high school class.  From a small, rural community and attending a large public university.  Follows van life influencers and is interested in building a tiny house.
Age: 18
Race: mixed race
Gender: female
Motivation: Wants a job in “sustainability,” financial stability
Key character traits: excited, self-motivated, positive, considers herself a Creative
Key learning type: kinesthetic learner (learns by doing)
Key challenges toward learning: does not like math, has trouble concentrating during lectures, requires highly structured instructions, wants all classes to be goal oriented.
Games: Enjoys Stardew Valley, Animal Crossing, and Breath of the Wild, has a Twitch stream with 250 followers.  Prefers solo games, but likes to chat with her followers while playing.

Part 4: The combination learner persona

Name: Kayla S. Learner (she/her)

Bio: Age: 17, Senior in high school with a GPA in the top 40% of her class. From a mid-size city and interested in sustainability, particularly in the context of travel and building spaces such as tiny houses. 

Race: Mixed race 

Gender: Female 

Motivation: Passionate about stories telling, sustainability, and financial stability. Aims to work in a field that combines their creative interests with environmental consciousness. 

Key Character Traits: Curious, energetic, excited, self-motivated, positive, and highly creative. 

Key Learning Type: Kinesthetic learner (learns by doing), visual learner, and naturalistic learner. 

Key Challenges Toward Learning: Struggles with math and has difficulty concentrating during lectures, needs highly structured instructions, prefers goal-oriented classes, and sometimes finds scientific concepts challenging. 

Games: Enjoys a variety of games, including role-playing games, flight simulation, Stardew Valley, Animal Crossing, and Breath of the Wild. They have a moderate following on Twitch where they engage with followers while playing mainly solo games, but also enjoy the social interaction that comes with streaming.

The challenges I encountered for forming information into a persona were include which the key words I should select can on behalf of the main traits of the interviewees? How can I use a simple but accurate way to describe the learner personal? Finally, I thought the current process for me was to get a quick and dirty persona as a scratch to continue the following steps. I should focus on the main traits of the users.

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Researching Learner Persona

Posted by on 2024 年 02 月 21 号 in Advanced Designing Games for Learning, 所有文章 All Articles, 教育技术 Learning Technologies | Comments Off on Researching Learner Persona

I will use this blog entry to share my learner persona creation, as well as the reflection of the whole creation process.

Part 1: Gather Some Information

As a learner, the most important thing while I playing games for learning is providing me a new way or new angle to observe the learning content. For example, I can learn the special relationships between planet earth and sun and other celestial bodies according to read books and watch documentary films. But the game may provide me a chance to manipulate a spaceship to travel through our solar system to explore them. For the most valuable entertainment I would like to enjoy while playing games, is a feeling of freedom. The freedom bring by the game should let me forget the difficulties in my real life and help me forget bitterness or anxiety for a while, which help me refresh. When I use games and simulations as learning tools, my highest expectations is to extend my attention span to focus on practicing or learning.

Source of the information: I have asked three secondary school students about their preferences while playing games. I interviewed them and record their responses.

Types of information I collected: verbal descriptions.

Part 2: Analyze my Findings

When I taught science courses in my former school, I used game-based learning as a very important teaching strategy. From my experience, I could understand learners’ preferences when they engaged in the learning games. So, I conducted virtual interviews with three of my former students who, during their middle or high school years, chose Geography as their major in college. As their former science teacher and homeroom teacher, I not only maintain close connections with them but also have a deep understanding of their personalities and experiences. Please note that these three students represent a larger group who majored in Geography, embodying the most common traits of those passionate about the subject.

Based on my virtual interviews with these former students, I have summarized my findings below. Additionally, if time permits, I would like to share and discuss these findings with the real persons to refine and enhance my understanding.

  Participant 1 Participant 2 Participant 3
Name Zhang Qin Zhu
Bio G7 student in middle school.  GPA is in top 20% of his class. Interested in observing starry night. Freshman in high school. GPA is in top 40% of her class. Interested in investigating the stories back of the hills and rivers. Senior in high school. GPA is in top 60% of his class. Interested in traveling around the world.
Age 13 15 17
Gender Male Female Male
What is important to you when you play games for learning? How can I learn fast and better? Not too hard and complicated. Help me understand the learning content.
What is important to you when you play games for entertainment? I want to have more joy. Peaceful and beautiful. Give me a real experience feeling.
What is important to you regarding user experience and usability with learning games as learning tools? Can it help me tackle learning difficulties? Use less time and learn more. I want it can give me possibilities to design my games to learn the knowledge.

Part 3: Reflect on my Data Collection Process

I would like to express my sincere thanks to Maureen for providing a well-structured learner persona template. Following our discussions on Canvas and during our online meeting, we have decided to merge her college student learner persona with my high school student persona. Narrowing the focus from broad to specific presents a challenge, as does expanding your focus in diverse directions. Drawing on the insights gained from virtual interviews with my former students, I am proposing a secondary school learner persona utilizing Maureen’s template. The referenced articles are: How to Use Learner Personas to Understand Your Audience (growthengineering.co.uk)And How to Develop Learner Personas for Effective Training (td.org)

A new learner persona (high-school student) created by me

Name: Danny
Bio:
Age: 15 Freshman in high school. GPA is in top 50% of his class. From a mid-size city, studying in a public high school, interested in travelling
Race: mixed race
Gender: Male
Motivation: stories enthusiast
Key character traits: curious energetic, positive, considers himself a Creative
Key learning type: kinesthetic learner (learns by doing), Visual learner, naturalistic learner
Key challenges toward learning: does not like math, has trouble concentrating during lectures, requires highly structured instructions, wants all classes to be goal oriented, difficulty understanding scientific concepts.
Games: Role-Playing-Games and flight simulation games.

A learner persona (a college student) created by Maureen

Name: Sue Learner (she/her)
Bio: College Freshman, currently Undecided.  Graduated in top 25% of her high school class.  From a small, rural community and attending a large public university.  Follows van life influencers and is interested in building a tiny house.
Age: 18
Race: mixed race
Gender: female
Motivation: Wants a job in “sustainability,” financial stability
Key character traits: excited, self-motivated, positive, considers herself a Creative
Key learning type: kinesthetic learner (learns by doing)
Key challenges toward learning: does not like math, has trouble concentrating during lectures, requires highly structured instructions, wants all classes to be goal oriented.
Games: Enjoys Stardew Valley, Animal Crossing, and Breath of the Wild, has a Twitch stream with 250 followers.  Prefers solo games, but likes to chat with her followers while playing.

The combination learner persona

Name: Danielle Learner (she/her)

Bio: Age: 17, Senior in high school with a GPA in the top 40% of their class. From a mid-size city and interested in sustainability, particularly in the context of travel and building spaces such as tiny houses. 

Race: Mixed race 

Gender: Female 

Motivation: Passionate about stories telling, sustainability, and financial stability. Aims to work in a field that combines their creative interests with environmental consciousness. 

Key Character Traits: Curious, energetic, excited, self-motivated, positive, and highly creative. 

Key Learning Type: Kinesthetic learner (learns by doing), visual learner, and naturalistic learner. 

Key Challenges Toward Learning: Struggles with math and has difficulty concentrating during lectures, needs highly structured instructions, prefers goal-oriented classes, and sometimes finds scientific concepts challenging. 

Games: Enjoys a variety of games, including role-playing games, flight simulation, Stardew Valley, Animal Crossing, and Breath of the Wild. They have a moderate following on Twitch where they engage with followers while playing mainly solo games, but also enjoy the social interaction that comes with streaming.

The challenges I encountered for forming information into a persona were include which the key words I should select can on behalf of the main traits of the interviewees? How can I use a simple but accurate way to describe the learner personal? Finally, I thought the current process for me was to get a quick and dirty persona as a scratch to continue the following steps. I should focus on the main traits of the users.

If I had to do this again, I wish to collect more experienced teachers’ feedbacks about their students who eventually chose Geography as college majors. I would like to design a survey to collect the persona information both from teachers and students.

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Geography Games Research Report

Posted by on 2024 年 02 月 13 号 in Advanced Designing Games for Learning, 所有文章 All Articles, 教育技术 Learning Technologies | Comments Off on Geography Games Research Report

Part 1 – The Method

Initially, I thought it would be very easy for me to find a couple of high-quality serious games or simulations for introduction to Geography major. Since I used quite frequently a lot of applications based on Geography – google map, Uber, Zillow (recently, I have been searching for new apartment rentals for next school year)… However, when I formally started to do the search, the difficulty was beyond my imagination. Finally, I only got a few directly related games about Geography major introduction.

Before searching, I tended to clarify the definition of Geography. With better understanding about the definition of Geography, I could trace the targeted games more accurately. I preferred the definition of Geography from the National Geography website after I compared different descriptions of “What is Geography” from different references, “Geography is the study of places and the relationships between people and their environments. Geographers explore both the physical properties of Earth’s surface and the human societies spread across it. They also examine how human culture interacts with the natural environment, and the way that locations and places can have an impact on people. Geography seeks to understand where things are found, why they are there, and how they develop and change over time(Geography, n.d.).”

Beyond the definition, I knew that as an expansive discipline, geography covers a lot of study which can always be confused with other disciplines in Environment Sciences and GeoScience. About three-quarters of graduates from the doctoral program become college professors or join college faculties(Beck, 2019). Then, based on the better understanding about what Geography as a major focuses on, I used the following platforms and methods to do the searching. 

  • GoogleScholar

I used “Game”, “Geography Education” as keywords to research the related articles published after 2014, 51,700 results returned, narrowed down the research results by adding more keywords, such as “Introduction OR Simulation OR Orientation”, and picked up 4 related articles (Robinson et al., 2021) (Gi̇rgi̇n, 2017) (Tidmarsh, n.d.) (Morawski & Wolff-Seidel, 2023) from the results. Unfortunately, none of the related articles mentioned specific games or simulations about Geography general introduction. They were related to game design theory or instructional suggestions with games. 

  • Google

I used “Game OR Simulation OR Geography OR Geographer” as keywords and keyword groups to search related targets. Most of the results were web pages with game introductions, but seldom of them met my expectations. Finally, I found three mostly related games. 

Part 2 – The Results

  • Core dynamic: exploration. 
  • Summary: The purpose of this simulation is to invite learners to explore anywhere on the planet earth they are interested in, and design a map with different layers which they want to have on the map. For example, they can add latitudes and longitudes, transportation, Earthquake information, Volcanic Eruptions information, etc. on their own map. The different layers include many categories which can meet the designers’ personal preferences and help them understand the meaning of maps, as well as the work details of geographers. 
  • Client’s expectation: All ages will be welcome to use. The higher standard functions will be more suitable for high-school students and college students who are going to prefer geography as their majors. But the players can not easily understand the traits of geography majors by simply playing the game without instructor’s introduction and guideline. 
  • Game 2: Geographical Adventures (Under Construction)
  • https://sebastian.itch.io/geographical-adventures 
  • Learning Domain: Declarative knowledge, Conceptual knowledge, Affective knowledge
  • Core dynamics of the game are exploration and collecting. 
  • Summary: It is a little game under development. The game rules are simple: fly around the world, picking up packages and delivering them to various cities as players go. There are three locations marked at the top of the screen. At each location, players will find a hot air balloon waiting with a package for the players to collect. Fly the plane through the balloons to collect the packages. Once the package has been picked up, its location at the top of the screen will change to a delivery address. Fly over to that city based on geography knowledge and drop the package off there. While playing the little game, players will be familiar with the world map, as well as the specific locations of the main cities on the map. The comfortable music and pleasant game graphics give players a beautiful feeling of being a world traveller. 
  • Client’s expectation: All ages are welcome, especially designed for the players who want to change their understanding about world maps and knowledge of cities all over the world. But the players can not easily understand the traits of geography majors by simply playing the game without instructor’s introduction and guideline. 
  • Game 3: NASA Earth Observations
  • Website: https://neo.gsfc.nasa.gov/ 
  • The core dynamic of the simulation is exploration. 
  • Learning Domain: Declarative knowledge, Conceptual knowledge
  • Summary: Users can get visually descriptive data about energy, land, life, ocean of the world from a birdview angle, and the time bar at the bottom can show the date in different years, which are helpful to see the relative change and do comparison.  
  • Client’s expectation: All ages can use it, but it is more suitable for college students or graduate students who need specific data about geography. But the players can not easily understand the traits of geography majors by simply playing the game without instructor’s introduction and guideline. 
  • Game 4: Mini Solar System
  • Video introduction website: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHnfQzlqKPg 
  •  Core dynamic: Exploration, Matching. 
  • Learning Domain: Declarative knowledge, Conceptual knowledge, Affective knowledge
  • Summary: In the Fall semester of 2023-2024, I learnt how to use OpenSimulator to create a desktop Virtual Reality project. When I used OpenSimulator to design my instructional content, I used more energy to decide which learning content I should create than thinking about what technologies I should use during my personal project. What kind of scenarios can I create in the virtual reality learning environment (VRLE) to provide the learners with a better learning experience than in the real learning environment? At that moment, a sentence sounded near my ears, “People do not learn from technology; they learn from thinking. When technologies can enhance students thinking, they should be used. Otherwise, they are probably no better than no technology.” This sentence was from David H. Jonassen, when he commented to the relationships between learning and technology during an interview(Simsek, 2012). My initial thinking for creating my VR project was a studying area contains more barriers or constraints for the learners in the real world. Both the small-sized and large-sized worlds met my assumption. E.g., a plant cell or a solar system is impossible for common learners to experience in real life, but in the VRLE, the answer is OK. Plus, in OpenSimulator, the avatar can fly to check the virtual creation from more dimensions, making it easier and more beneficial for learners who want to learn space science. Then, I created my personal VRLE, a Mini Solar System. 
  • Client’s expectation: In this serious game, players can manipulate an avatar to explore the mini solar system to better understand the location of our planet earth, then increase their interests in Geography learning. I believe this serious game is suitable for high-school students and college students to explore the solar system in a VR setting. But the players can not easily understand the traits of geography majors by simply playing the game without instructor’s introduction and guideline. 

Part 3 – The Critique

There were quite a few apparent commonalities between the games I introduced. Three of them were related to maps. Maybe maps were much easier to be designed for Geological games or simulations. 

Game designers like instructional designers, will face a diverse audience, they will never know the specific expectations of the audience. The best games, as well as the best instructions, should be the most proper ones to the players and learners. It requires the game designers to have a tool box which can create different types to fit different players’ expectations. The relationship between chance, strategy, skill, simulation, expressiveness, performance, whimsy, role-playing, competition, and cooperation can be recombined in different ways to create new play experiences – like a chef combines different ingredients and cuisines to create new dishes and fusions (Macklin & Sharp, 2016). The four games I introduced belong to different categories. According to their different traits, they can be put in different positions in a play matrix (Fig. 1) (Fullerton, 2018). Mini Solar System belongs to skill-based Play. Geographical Adventures contains both skill-based game and experience-based game elements. MapMake and NASA Earth Observation belong to simulation-based play (Fullerton, 2018).

Fig. 1 Four Games in a Game Matrix

My client’s expectation of the game was seeking a testable serious game design that not only can help attract interest in the field of Geography, but also educates players on what Geographers do. All the games I introduced met parts of the requirements, but without specific designs for introducing what kinds of jobs the Geographers will do after they graduated from a Geography major. After playing several games about geography, I can feel more realistically about what geography is about. But, the games and simulations I explored just covered surface learning content, which showed a clear signal to us that there is a gap for game designers to create some serious games. 

References

Beck, A. I. (2019, February 6). What Geographers Do. Esri. https://www.esri.com/about/newsroom/arcuser/what-geographers-do/

Fullerton, T. (2018). Game Design Workshop: A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games, Fourth Edition (4th edition). A K Peters/CRC Press.

Geography. (n.d.). Retrieved February 8, 2024, from https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/geography-article

Gi̇rgi̇n, M. (2017). Use of Games in Education: GeoGuessr in Geography Course. International Technology and Education Journal, 1(1), Article 1. https://dergipark.org.tr/en/pub/itej/issue/34472/382087

Macklin, C., & Sharp, J. (2016). Games, Design and Play: A detailed approach to iterative game design (1st edition). Addison-Wesley Professional.

Morawski, M., & Wolff-Seidel, S. (2023). Gaming & Geography (Education): A Model of Reflexive Analysis of Space & Action in Video Games. European Journal of Geography, 14(3), Article 3. https://doi.org/10.48088/ejg.m.mor.14.3.001.019

Robinson, G. M., Hardman, M., & Matley, R. J. (2021). Using games in geographical and planning-related teaching: Serious games, edutainment, board games and role-play. Social Sciences & Humanities Open, 4(1), 100208. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssaho.2021.100208

Simsek, A. (2012). Interview with David H. Jonassen: Looking at the Field of Educational Technology from Radical and Multiple Perspectives. Contemporary Educational Technology, 3(1). https://doi.org/10.30935/cedtech/6069

Tidmarsh, C. (n.d.). Think Piece – Using games in geography.

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Researching Game — Where Have All the Geography Majors Gone?

Posted by on 2024 年 02 月 8 号 in Advanced Designing Games for Learning, 所有文章 All Articles, 教育技术 Learning Technologies | Comments Off on Researching Game — Where Have All the Geography Majors Gone?

In this blog post, I want to report my researching on Geography games in the past week. Initially, I thought it would be very easy for me to find a couple of high-quality serious games or simulations for introduction to Geography major. Since I used quite frequently a lot of applications based on Geography – google map, Uber, Zillow (recently, I have been searching for new apartment rentals for next school year)… However, when I formally started to do the search, the difficulty was beyond my imagination. Finally, I only got a few directly related games about Geography major introduction.

Before searching, I tended to clarify the definition of Geography. With better understanding about the definition of Geography, I could trace the targeted games more accurately. I preferred the definition of Geography from the National Geography website after I compared different descriptions of “What is Geography” from different references, “Geography is the study of places and the relationships between people and their environments. Geographers explore both the physical properties of Earth’s surface and the human societies spread across it. They also examine how human culture interacts with the natural environment, and the way that locations and places can have an impact on people. Geography seeks to understand where things are found, why they are there, and how they develop and change over time(Geography, n.d.).”

Beyond the definition, I knew that as an expansive discipline, geography covers a lot of study which can always be confused with other disciplines in Environment Sciences and GeoScience. About three-quarters of graduates from the doctoral program become college professors or join college faculties(Beck, 2019). Then, based on the better understanding about what Geography as a major focuses on, I used the following platforms and methods to do the searching.

What did I find?

Fig.1 MapMaker
  • I found this game on the website of National Geographic. I used “game” as a keyword and spotlighted the game from the search results. 
  • The core dynamic of this simulation is exploration. The purpose of this simulation is to invite learners to explore anywhere on the planet earth they interested in, and design a map with different layers which they want to have on the map. The different layers include many categories which can meet the designers’ personal preferences and help them understand the meaning of maps, as well as the work details of geographers. 
  • All ages will be welcome to use. The higer standard functions will be more suitable for high-school students and college students who are going to prefer geography as their majors. 
Fig2. Geographical Adventures (Under Construction)
  • Firstly, I found an introduction video of the game from youtube, then I trace the game on itchi.io and github. 
  • It is a little game under development. The Core dynamics of the game are exploration and collecting. The game rules are simple: fly around the world, picking up packages and delivering them to various cities as players go. There are three locations marked at the top of the screen. At each location, players will find a hot air balloon waiting with a package for the players to collect. Fly the plane through the balloons to collect the packages. Once the package has been picked up, its location at the top of the screen will change to a delivery address. Fly over to that city based on geography knowledge and drop the package off there. 
  • All ages, especially designed for the players who want to change their understanding about world map and knowledge of cities all over the world. 
Fig. 3 NASA Earth Observations
  • I found this simulation from NASA website.
  • The core dynamic of the simulation is exploration. Users can get visually descriptional data about energy, land, life, ocean of the world from a birdview angle, and the time bar at the bottom can show the date in different years, which are helpful to see the relative change and do comparison.  
  • All ages can use it, but it is more suitable for college students or graduate student who need specific data about geography. 
  • Mini Solar System
  • Video introduction website: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHnfQzlqKPg 
  • This is a serious game created by me. 
  •  In Fall semester of 2023-2024, I learnt how to use OpenSimulator to creat desktop Virtual Reality project. When I used OpenSimulator to design my instructional content, I used more energy to decide which learning content I should create than thinking about what technologies I should use during my personal project. What kind of scenarios can I create in the virtual reality learning environment (VRLE) to provide the learners with a better learning experience than in the real learning environment? At that moment, a sentence sounded near my ears, “People do not learn from technology; they learn from thinking. When technologies can enhance students thinking, they should be used. Otherwise, they are probably no better than no technology.” This sentence was from David H. Jonassen, when he commented to the relationships between learning and technology during an interview(Simsek, 2012). My initial thinking for creating my VR project was a studying area contains more barriers or constraints for the learners in the real world. Both the small-sized and large-sized worlds met my assumption. E.g., a planet cell or a solar system is impossible for common learners to experience in real life, but in the VRLE, the answer is OK. Plus, in OpenSimulator, the avatar can fly to check the virtual creation from more dimensions, making it easier and more beneficial for learners who want to learn space science. Then, I created my personal VRLE, a Mini Solar System. In this serious game, players can manipulate an avantar to explore the mini solar system to better understand the location of our planet earth, then increase their interests in Geography learning.     
  • I believe this serious game is suitable for high-school students and college students to explore solar system in a VR setting. 

What have I learned about games in my topic area?

In college, I minored in Science Education, which helped me understand the Geography was a broad major covered many study areas. According to play several games about geography, I can feel more realistically about what geography is about. But, the games and simulations I explored just covered superficial learning content, which showed a clear signal to us, the game designers to keep in mind the current gap. 

There were quite a few apparent commonalities between the games. Most of the games, include many games I played but not introduced in this blog post, were related to maps. May be maps were much easier to be designed to games or simulations. 

References

Beck, A. I. (2019, February 6). What Geographers Do. Esri. https://www.esri.com/about/newsroom/arcuser/what-geographers-do/

Geography. (n.d.). Retrieved February 8, 2024, from https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/geography-articleSimsek, A. (2012). Interview with David H. Jonassen: Looking at the Field of Educational Technology from Radical and Multiple Perspectives. Contemporary Educational Technology, 3(1). https://doi.org/10.30935/cedtech/6069

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Analyzing Games and Simulations

Posted by on 2024 年 01 月 25 号 in Advanced Designing Games for Learning, 所有文章 All Articles, 教育技术 Learning Technologies | Comments Off on Analyzing Games and Simulations

I am writing a report on the games and simulations I have played in Module 1. I never thought that one day, I would need to play more games to finish my assignment. But it was a real learning challenge for me, especially since I needed to test the games from the angle of a game designer and researcher. Tell the difference between games, simulation games, and simulators is not easy. Among the games I played in the past week, here are the game test reports on the most impressive three games to me:

Figure 1. Game “3rd World Farmer”

This game shows me the real life of people in 3rd world. They have limited resources, bear diseases, are without good education, are short of medicines… Meanwhile, natural disasters like floods and droughts may be due to harvest failure. Petty thieves and corrupt officials may suddenly enhance the living burden on the people there. The player can play the role of a third-world farmer to experience their real challenges.

  • Describe the game’s/simulation’s structure
  • Core dynamic: Construct
  • Main mechanics: progress buttons; points (wealth, health, family members population); rewards (corps harvest data); challenges (accidents and disasters); storytelling; role-playing; social interaction (the players are welcome to share the simulation results on the social medias)
  • Game goal: to simulate the reality of the farms’ living in third-world countries or districts. It’s very hard for them to survive and live better.
  • What did you enjoy/not enjoy while playing the game/simulation? 

I felt sad while playing the game. However, I wasn’t sad because the game was badly designed but because it was well designed. It was designed so well to simulate the real challenges to the farmers in third-world countries and districts, which made me feel sad if I were one of them.

  • Would you classify this as a game, simulation game, or simulation? Why? 

I would classify this as a simulation since it is not for fun but for introducing farmers’ real lives in third-world countries or districts.

Figure 2. Game “Crack the Circuit”

This game is about circuit knowledge. Players need to figure out the right way to link the power and terminals.

  • Describe the game’s/simulation’s structure 
  • Core dynamic: Solution
  • Main mechanics: Levels; Progress Bars (18 levels in total); Rewards (play congratulation music and sound when the player successfully figures out the circuit); Challenges; Feedback.
  • Game goal: Motivate the help players learn circuit and electricity knowledge
  • What did you enjoy/not enjoy while playing the game/simulation? 

I enjoyed playing this simulation game because it provided me with real-time feedback about my right or wrong manipulations. It provided me with a safe environment to test my knowledge of electricity.

  • Would you classify this as a game, simulation game, or simulation? Why? 

I think it is a simulation game. It combines the joyfulness of the game and the meaningfulness of learning perfectly.

Figure 3. Game “The Blood Typing Game”

This serious game is about learning the blood types. The player will play the role of a doctor in an emergency room to rescue a patient by starting to test the patient’s blood type. The player can learn the blood theory before playing.

  • Describe the game’s/simulation’s structure 
  • Core dynamic: Solution
  • Main mechanics: Progress bars; points; rewards (confirmation feedback); challenges (the player needs to understand the blood type theory first before successfully resolving the challenges); Storytelling; Role-playing; Feedback (error messages).
  • Game goal: Motivate and help players learn blood type theory.
  • What did you enjoy/not enjoy while playing the game/simulation? 

I wish I had this game when I taught biology in middle school several years ago. The game visualized the different antigens in plasm and on the surfaces of different types of blood cells, which helped the players understand better the reasons behind the blood type theory.

  • Would you classify this as a game, simulation game, or simulation? Why? 

This is a serious game. Because it has very clear instructional aims, is built for non-entertainment, provides interesting and engaging challenges, and is designed to provide some form of skill development.

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