Finding

Educational Computer

Games

Carol Luckhardt Redfield, Ph.D.

CS+CIS Graduate Program Director

St. Mary’s University

San Antonio, Texas

What’s in a Game?

• An interactive activity with (fun+)

– Environment

– Player(s) • Willingly play by the rules

– Rules • Well-defined

– Goals • Clear, compelling (survival)

– Feedback/payoff • Usually immediate

• Games give us

– Unnecessary obstacles that we

voluntarily tackle – even pay for

• More money than movies

– $25+ billion/year

• We play computer games

– 3 billion hours/week

– Kids will play 10,000 hours total

– WoW (World of Warcraft)

• Who knows someone who plays?

• 6 million years worth of play

Educational Uses of Games

• Games have been used for learning for ages and for all ages

– Board games, cards, songs (Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes), jacks, …

• Some games are even made for learning – Some computer-based training systems made gamish

– Educational computer games

• Some games used for learning anyway – Rollercoaster Tycoon

– Jeopardy

– Who Wants to be a Millionaire types

• A game is considered educational – when one of the goals or purposes or uses is to teach or

train or practice

• Anyone played an educational computer game? What? – (Reader Rabbit, Math Blasters, Sim City, Magic School Bus, …)

• There is even a relatively new term given to games in teaching and learning …

Gamificiation - gaming for instruction and

motivate with data

• Bringing what works

about gaming to

instruction (such as fun!)

– Use games to help fulfill

learning objectives

– Make parts of courses

game-like or gamish

– Make a game that is

instructional in the

activities and goals

– Environment • Computer and classroom

– Players • The students

– Rules • Defined by the instructor

– Goals • Whatever you define

– Feedback/payoff • Immediate and for the course

• Points, ribbons, badges, trophies

• Failing is ok; just retry

Educational Computer Game Efforts • Serious Games Summit

– www.seriousgamessummit.com/

– Now part of Game Developers Conference

(www.gdconf.com)

• www.GamesForChange.org

• www.RealityIsBroken.org

– Jane McGonigal

– http://www.ted.com/talks/jane_mcgonigal_gaming_can_make_a_

better_world.html

• Karl Kapp, The Gamification of Learning and Instruction

• International Journal of Gaming and Computer-

Mediated Simulations

– Handbook of Research on Effective Electronic

Gaming in Education

• CUNY Games Festival, of course

• Some companies are using for training -

Xerox – management training example www.informationweek.com/7-examples-put-gamification-to-work/d/d-id/1104211?

IBM

training

kudos

progress bar

badges

levels

Learning Adobe Photoshop –

missions, awards, points

SalesForce training – goals, feedback, rewards

Leaderboard – (but make it collaborative competition)

Ford of Canada – personalized training for service

T-Mobile employee training

LiveOps cloud services,

for sales agents –

points

goals

badges

Some company results from Bunchball

There are also software games

with learning involved --

SELT - Saudi English Language Tutor –

CBT with speech recognition, end gamish

1997, Dr. Physio at Mei Tech. -

alter health behavior of

middle school kids

Some student-made

educational games

with a storyline

World of Derivatives Luis Sanchez & Chris Von Allmen

Game on History of English (senior project)

• In 2010, Aaron Trevino played and reviewed 350 games

– PC, Playstation, Xbox, GameCube, DS, online

– all genres and ESRB ratings • Best potential for educational use (scale on cognitive viability)

– Role-playing games scored 8.15 out of 10 – MMORPG scored 7.78 out of 10

• Potential Benefits – reflexes most common: 66% of 350 games – planning & strategy: 20%

• At least one anomaly in each genre •Must look at games on a case-by-case basis •Potential for almost any game to have some

educational value (Kapp, Nathan: – thinking outside the box, analyzing problems,

resource management, collaboration/negotiation )

Augmenting physical therapy

utilizing the Nintendo Wii™ • In 2009, Steven Miller, sent out 100 survey requests

– Received 70+ surveys back!

– Over 25 games used

– Reported improvement in physiological responses

• Oxygen consumption, energy expenditure, +

Video games used in

rehabilitation clinics • Wii Sports™

– Tennis

– Bowling

– Boxing

– Golf (rare)

• Wii Fit™ – Table tilt

– Bubble balance

– Tightrope tension

– Torso & waist twist

– Hula hoop game

– Ski slalom

– Ski jump

– Jogging

• We Ski & Snowboard™

• Wii Music™

• Link’s Crossbow Training™

• Blazing Angels™

• Shaun White: Snowboarding Road Trip™

• Smarty Pants™

• Big Beach Sports™

• BOOM BLOX™

• Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games

• Wii Play™

• Wii Sports Resort™

• DECA Sports™ (a.k.a. Sports Island)

• EA SPORTS Active™

• Samba De Amigo™

• Carnival Games™

• Cooking Mama: Cook Off™

• WarioWare: Smooth Moves™

• Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree™

• SSX Blur™

• We Ski™ (a.k.a. Family Ski)

• Rayman Raving Rabbids 2™

• Trauma Center: Second Opinion™

• Trauma Center: New Blood™

• Super Monkey Ball Banana Blitz

• Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader? Make the Grade™

• Cranium Kabookii™

Algebra - Math Skills MT0401 with some educational game links in BB

(searched for algebra games at www.wingz2fly.com - later)

• 1st week 1. books, overview, pre-tests 2. number systems (R.1)

• 2nd week 3. sets, operations (R.2, R.3) 4. order of operations, expressions (R.4, R.5)

• 3rd week 5. linear equations (1.1, 1.2) 6. linear inequalities (1.3, 1.4)

• 4th week 7. absolute value (1.5, 1.6, review for 1) 8. TEST on R+1 (100 points)

• 5th week 9. graphs (2.1, 2.2) 10. functions (2.3, 2.4)

• 6th week 11. slopes (3.1, 3.2) 12. lines (3.3, 3.4)

• 7th week 13. models, review (3.5, reviews 2+3) 14. TEST on 2+3 (100 points)

• 8th week 15. polynomials (5.1, 5.2) 16. GCF+LCM (5.3, 5.4);

• 9th week 17. factoring polynomials (5.5, 5.6) 18. more factoring (5.7, 5.8);

• 10th week 19. rational expressions (6.1, 6.2) 20. rational equations (6.3, 6.4)

• 11th week no class Tue 21. rational inequalities (6.5, 6.6)

• 12th week 22. review (reviews for 5+6) 23. TEST on 5+6 (100 points)

• 13th week 24. roots, exponents (7.1, 7.2) 25 radical expressions (7.3, 7.4)

• 14th week paper due; 26. review (review for 7) no class Thu

• 15th week 27. cool formulas (8.2,10.1 9.2,9.3) 28. TEST on 7 (50 points)

• 16th week 29. review; evaluations 30. Euler’s formula eiθ = cosθ + i sinθ)

Using Educational Computer Games in a Class http://bb.stmarytx.edu - 3 Fall semesters

Games in MT0401 Student Usage (35 students – 2 sections; extra credit)

• From accessing statistics in BB and

what students said,

– About 1/2 of the students played the games

– Most liked game types

• Jeopardy

• Who Wants to be a Millionaire

– At least one student played more than 10 games

• The best student in the class played and said,

– “I liked to do the games before a test to review”

http://www.math-play.com/Exponents-Jeopardy/Exponents-Jeopardy.html

www.math-play.com/Algebraic-Expressions-

Millionaire/algebraic-expressions-

millionaire.html

You can learn from computer games!

• Only a few effectiveness studies have been done on

most COTS computer-tutors and games – Reader Rabbit by the Learning Company

– Maestro, ISIS, Word Problem Tutor by TutorTek

– Physicus – one day study

– Wii Bowling – helped novice & expert bowlers

– SPARX – manage depression symptoms

• Many internally developed games for research

• Other studies show playing video games can help – Make decisions faster, hand-eye coordination, track more things

• One long-term study on COTS game – Math Blaster Algebra

– HS algebra students did significantly

better by playing – during class, summer

Where can we find some games? • Best Buy, Amazon.com, GameStop +

– Learning Company, Knowledge Adventure, Broderbund

Where to find some educational games handout – sites below and www.wingz2fly.com

www.coolmath-games.com

www.e-learningforkids.org

www.educationarcade.org

www.education4kids.com

www.funbrain.com

www.funschool.com

www.games2train.com

www.gamesforchange.com/play

www.hippocampus.org

www.howstuffworks.com

www.internet4classrooms.com

www.kidsclick.com

www.kidsgames.com

www.learninggamesforkids.com

www.mission-us.org

www.nobelprize.org/educational

www.softschools.com

www.gamesforchange.com/play

www.multiplication.com/interactive_games.htm

www.epistemicgames.org/eg/category/games

career choices - www.mytycoon.org

change the world - www.urgentevoke.com

civics - www.icivics.org/games

Darfur - www.darfurisdying.com

donating - www.akoha.com

flooding - www.playgen.com/floodsim

laboratory safety - www.starlite.nih.gov

poverty - www.povertyisnotagame.com

planet responsibility - www.MiniMonos.com

soccer -

www.breakawaygame.com/play.php?lang=EN

immigration laws -

http://www.icivics.org/games/immigration-nation

responsibility - http://atlantis.crlt.indiana.edu

sustainable city www.enercities.eu

*** NEW *** Searchable site -

www.LearningWorksForKids.com

Survey by Gaither & Redfield (2006+)

www.wingz2fly.com/wp/search - started with over 500 games

Most

common

game types –

elementary,

problem

solving and

language

arts

Search for Math (used for Math Skills class)

Since 2006; now over 1500 games

COTS Educational Computer Games

Searches for ‘computer’ and for ‘engineering’

Detail

for

each

game

TryEngineering.com – Simple Machines http://www.edheads.org/activities/simple-machines/index.shtml

Find 10

simple

machines.

Search for a topic; play student games www.wingz2fly.com/wp/search

What

topic

do you

want

to see?

Could develop your own with tools • Adobe Authorware, Director;

• Older authoring for education – Quest – Allen Communications

– CBT Express, Jamba, IconAuthor - Aimtech

– Designers Edge

• HTML + Web scripting (Dreamweaver)

• Flash

• Programming languages – Visual Basic, C++, Java, Toolbook, Hypercard

• Mediator 9 by MatchWare

• Game development – Gamemaker, XNA, Activate, Unity 3D, Torque

• (and need to do the graphics)

If can’t find one, make one -

tutoring strategies with gaming fun

Typical Lesson Presentation - use multimedia – graphics, animation, hypertext

• Title, (login,) credits

• Show objectives

• Show or test for prerequisites

• PRESENT appropriate material

• Assess learning

• Give feedback

• User ADDIE process to develop • Analyze, design, develop, implement, evaluate

• What can students - find, match, collect to help learning

• Give - points, level-up, badges, trophies - awards

Consider when designing

• Objective – behavior, skill or knowledge acquired

• Requirements specification – what is needed?

• Hardware and software available

• Data and instructional material available

• Events of instruction (Gagne) – Gain attention

– Give direction, objectives

– Have student recall prerequisite material

– Present information

– Get and give feedback

– Summary

• Develop storyboards – draft screen, user actions

Educational Computer Gaming Certificate

Graduate – 12 credit hours/4 courses, in class or hybrid

• If you want to make educational computer games, come

do the Educational Computer Gaming graduate

certificate at St. Mary’s University –

• www.stmarytx.edu/gaming – Texas Public Radio

– Fox News

– Marianist - www.marianist.com/?p=13461

– SA Business Journal - www.bizjournals.com/sanantonio/news/2013/03/22/st-

marys-launches-certificate-in.html

• Ranked in top 25 graduate game design programs – www.princetonreview.com/top-graduate-schools-for-video-game-design.aspx

– KSAT News March 12, 2014 - http://www.ksat.com/news/st-marys-video-game-program-ranked-no-25-in-

nation/24947498

– Univision - http://univision41.univision.com/videos/video/2014-05-12/san-antonio-en-el-top

– NerdScholar - http://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/nerdscholar/2014/nerdscholar-favorites-game-design-

programs/

– SA Business Journal – http://www.bizjournals.com/sanantonio/news/2014/03/12/st-mary-s-ranks-high-on-

video-game-design-programs.html

Carol Redfield

CRedfield@stmarytx.edu

Do searchs; play some games