Game Design as Authentic Science: Creating Low-Tech Games that Do Science (original) (raw)
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There has been much recent interest in the use of computer and video games in the classroom. Unfortunately, this interest has often been met with resistance from the educational establishment. The resistance, coupled with technical and logistical barriers to the use of commercial off-the-shelf games in Kâ12 classrooms, suggests that the full potential of learning by playing games will likely not be realized anytime soon. Fortunately, there are alternatives. We propose having students design their own low-tech games using Microsoft PowerPoint. MS PowerPoint is a ubiquitous classroom tool that most teachers are comfortable using and can be used as a game creation tool. In this chapter we describe the concept of homemade MS PowerPoint games, provide a rationale for their use, and outline a five-day method for incorporating this form of design activity into your classroom.
Research on educational games often focuses on the benefits that playing games has on student achievement. However, there is a growing body of research examining the benefits of having students design games rather than play them. Problems with game design as an instructional tool include the additional instruction on the programming language itself as well as the potential costs associated with new software. One way to mitigate these problems is to use Microsoft PowerPoint as game design software. While not intended for this purpose, MS PowerPoint is ubiquitous in schools and requires little additional instruction before students can design games. In this literature review, we introduce homemade PowerPoint games, examine the three pedagogical justifications for their use (i.e., constructionism, narrative writing, and question writing), and review research studies involving homemade PowerPoint games. When we compared the recommendations from the literature for the justifications with how the homemade PowerPoint games were implemented, we found that the recommendations were not followed. Future research examining the use of homemade PowerPoint games should look to better align the implementation of a game design project with recommendations based on the research examining the individual justifications.
Journal of Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia, 2013
Research on educational games often focuses on the benefits that playing games has on student achievement. however, there is a growing body of research examining the benefits of having students design games rather than play them. Problems with game design as an instructional tool include the additional instruction on the programming language itself as well as the potential costs associated with new software. one way to mitigate these problems is to use Microsoft Power-Point as game design software. While not intended for this purpose, MS PowerPoint is ubiquitous in schools and requires little additional instruction before students can design games. in this literature review, we introduce homemade PowerPoint games, examine the three pedagogical justifications for their use (i.e., constructionism, narrative writing, and question writing), and review research studies involving homemade PowerPoint games. When we compared the recommendations from the literature for the justifications with how the homemade PowerPoint games were implemented, we found that the recommendations were not followed. Future research examining the use of homemade PowerPoint games should look to better align the implementation of a game design project with recommendations based on the research examining the individual justifications.
Homemade PowerPoint games are a low-tech alternative for using game design in classrooms. To date, much of the research examining the games has not shown an improvement in performance. This has led some to question whether the games are properly aligned with the instructional strategies researchers have used as justifications to support using them. This study examined how increasing the structure of the game design project affected student performance when compared to control groups, as well as those who created games in previous iterations of the study. In addition, we examined the effects of student performance when two of the instructional strategies (microtheme writing and question writing) were tested in isolation. Most of the comparisons showed no statistical difference in performance; however, results from the final iteration yielded significant gains when compared to the control group.
Building a Better Mousetrap: How Design-Based Research was Used to Improve Homemade PowerPoint Games
TechTrends, 2016
This paper is a review of a three-cycle, designbased research study that explored the relationship between the pedagogical research and the actual implementation of a game design project using Microsoft PowerPoint. Much of the initial literature on using homemade PowerPoint games showed no significant improvement in test scores when students created these low-tech games, despite the fact that the game project was grounded in sound pedagogical strategies. After each iteration changes were made to better reflect the recommendations from the literature, and at the end of the study, students creating games were performing statistically higher on tests than their counterparts who did not create games. Limitations of the study are discussed, as well as ideas for future research in the area of student-generated games as an instructional approach.
Exploring the Use of Game Making Across the School Curriculum
INTED2017 Proceedings, 2017
Computer games as part of education is a well-established topic for research, suggesting that creating games is linked to a range of cognitive and behavioural outcomes. Creating games in all subject disciplines is becoming increasingly possible due to the increasingly higher status of computing in schools across Europe and the prevalence of visual programming languages such as Scratch and Pocket Code. The use of games within education is not new; in a systematic review of 129 papers [1] found that playing games impacts across a range of areas including engagement, cognitive ability and, most commonly, knowledge acquisition and content understanding. However, while research has thus far examined game play and game based learning in education there is limited work focussing on the process of game creation as a method of classroom teaching. This is a prospect which is increasingly possible with the introduction of visual programming languages such as Scratch [2] and Pocket Code. It is suggested that playful learning through computer games could stimulate students' intrinsic motivation ([3] and that knowledge creation can emerge through the construction of artefacts in a playful learning environment via the co-creation of games [4]. The research presented in this paper is from a pilot study examining the impact of game making in traditional primary and secondary school classrooms (5-18 years) in the United Kingdom (UK). The research, funded by Horizon 2020, is part of a wider European project; No-one Left Behind. In the UK the project has introduced game making into disciplines such as Religious Education, Science and History. Data indicates that although not all students found this a positive experience, computational thinking skills have increased, and students, disaffected with their learning, have re-engaged with learning, increasing their persistence and resulting in a deeper understanding of subject knowledge. In addition initial results suggest that game making has the potential to increase engagement with classroom learning and lead to increased learner satisfaction within lessons. Non-computing teachers have gained in confidence in developing game creation in their subject discipline, increasing their awareness of computational thinking. Barriers identified include teacher familiarity with programming as a means to teach non-STEM subject knowledge, a potential to decrease knowledge acquisition during the process of familiarisation with the teaching tool and a need for software developers to consider design for children with SEND. The project is changing the learning environment and emerging pedagogy has been identified which will be shared in this paper. As a result of the study lesson resources have been created for teachers to use across disciplines which are now available via the project URL; these will be shared in this paper.
This paper is a review of a three-cycle, design-based research study that explored the relationship between the pedagogical research and the actual implementation of a game design project using Microsoft PowerPoint. Much of the initial literature on using homemade PowerPoint games showed no significant improvement in test scores when students created these low-tech games, despite the fact that the game project was grounded in sound pedagogical strategies. After each iteration changes were made to better reflect the recommendations from the literature, and at the end of the study, students creating games were performing statistically higher on tests than their counterparts who did not create games. Limitations of the study are discussed, as well as ideas for future research in the area of student-generated games as an instructional approach.