Creativity in the cane fields: motivating and engaging IT students through games (original) (raw)
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The aim of this paper and the one which follows is to explore how the potential of computer games may be taken up in schools to support learning engagement among students. It is not the intention of the papers to dismiss existing classroom practices or overlook accounts of innovative practices in schools; the papers’ aim is to provide educators who are interested in exploring the use of computer games in schools with information and ideas about how these games may be effectively used to engage students in their learning. This paper questions whether the empowerment of students to create games for one another based on the school curriculum may address the insignificance of computer games in the sociocultural setting of the school. Both papers have been commissioned by Microsoft (Asia-Pacific) under the Partners-In-Learning Initiative. Under this initiative, Microsoft establishes partnerships with ministries of education, national and local government bodies, and other stakeholders to empower students and teachers to realize their full potential, mediated by information and communication technologies.
Games And Students: Creating Innovative Professionals
American Journal of Business Education, 2010
To create professionals for the future, who will be innovative and internationally competitive, we need to change the learning environment. The current traditional delivery systems of education do not develop the necessary interpersonal, analytical and creative skills to deal with the new knowledge economy. Baer (2005), in calling for a new model of learning, says this will require collaboration between educators and game designers to research how games are best aligned with the targeted learning environment and needs. The incorporation of games will require realistic assessment of the current structure of education so that "students' ability to participate in complex social practices; learn new knowledge and perform well in novel, changing situations needs to be considered valuable learning" (Squire and Jenkins, 2004, p.31). When games and simulations are combined with technology they can generate the environment within higher education that can produce the highly-skilled professionals which are required.
International Journal of Simulation: Systems, Science & Technology, 2019
Video games have been long established to be an effective educational tool to engage learners in the process of active learning. However, few studies have been performed to investigate the outcomes of employing game development, rather than video games per se, in the classroom. This posed a large gap in the existing body of literature of integrating the game industry into the education sector. Thus, this study served to address this gap, and argued that game development could serve as a pedagogical methodology much like video games for introducing related Information and Communications Technology (ICT) skills such as programming and multimedia topics, among other things. Conducted over three consecutive trimesters, this study explores game development as an educational tool in promoting the development of related ICT literacy skills among freshmen students in addition to the learning acquisition of the game development itself. More specifically, this exploratory-descriptive study sought to investigate how game development fits within the realm of learning ICT topics, and which of the following do freshmen find essential in developing their own original 2D web game. The findings show that game development, when used as a pedagogical methodology, poses the same potential just like any other educational tool used in a learning environment. While it warrants for more validation, the results of this study should be enough to give educational leaders and educators something to consider as to whether integrating game development in learning ICT concepts is worth the try or not.
Learn to design vs design to learn: enhancing educational opportunities using game technoloy
2007
Recognizing as children's input in game design and development process is critical, we applied cooperative inquiry experiences working with young children as game design partners. The computer-based games specifically were designed and developed for the acquisition of survival literacy by 12-14 year old intellectually disabled children. During the design and development game process, children learnt game design techniques without their acknowledgement. Importantly, the development process will be undertaken by the students with the minimum guidance of team members. The experiences, challenges and lesson learned through game design process are discussed.
Using Game Development as the Focus of Instruction
2013
In this paper, we report on a course offering in 2009 within the media arts area where the development of a Flash game was used as a group project for a cohort that included media arts and computing students. A previous offering of this course in this longitudinal study, identified through a factor analysis of questionnaire data, a metric referred to as Difficulty with the development. A disparity in this metric between student groups became evident and efforts have been employed in subsequent iterations of the course to appease these differences. A project based instructional methodology has been employed witin this course, and an authentic project sponsored by a credit union was used. Flash was used to develop the game and each group member was responsible the production of an equal section. Game structures like the representation of the game actions and associated scoring, were the responsibility of the whole group; students needed to be engaged with the whole process. Peer revie...
Engaging students with intellectual disabilities through location based games
Learning, is both an emotional and cognitive process and according to researchers and teachers worldwide, when players are engaged in activities that are intrinsically motivating, they are more prone to demonstrate deep learning [1]. Since 1981 when Malone used digital games as a medium in order to analyze intrinsic motivation, digital games have been reported to stimulate the students' interest, while motivating them to deploy control, curiosity and imagination [2] [3]. Studies within our research grouping have shown that Digital Games Based Learning (DGBL) can have a positive effect on some of the core development needs of people with Intellectual disabilities and associated sensory impairments [4], [5]
Inspiring the next generation of Software Developers through the Creative Games Approach
Many technologically oriented degree programs at universities in the EU and here in particular in German-speaking countries such as Germany and Austria have had and have problems to motivate students and especially females to take up studies focusing on science, mathematics, and computing. The strategies that were developed to encourage young people usually focus on students who are about to make their decisions on their future careers. Our research team is convinced that we have to start at a far earlier stage. This paper describes how the Creating Games Approach can help children (starting at the age of ten years) and again especially females to discover their talents for programming. The Creating Games Approach was developed to facilitate the acquisition of programming skills. It is suitable for children and especially for girls because is does not focus on programming itself or the programming language but on a product which becomes important to the learner. We thereby try to di...
Conjunctions. Transdisciplinary Journal of Cultural Participation, 2016
The paper deals with developing learning games in the area of informatics and society in an interdisciplinary collaboration of researchers, university students, and high school students in Vienna, Austria. In this project, we apply mixed methods to ensure meaningful results. Playing research and game analysis are supposed to prepare secondary school students for the task of designing and creating learning games in a participatory setting, using explorative design and design thinking. The students are supported in doing so by the academics. The researchers will also evaluate the outcomes. The paper presents the first examples of informatics and society learning games and use the following approaches to trigger learning experiences: humor and exaggeration, shift of perspective, the presentation of facts, and trial and error. These results from the early stages of the project are encouraging and hint at the possible success of playful participation in the field of game-based learning.