Player agency in interactive narrative: audience, actor & author

The question motivating this review paper is, how can computer-based interactive narrative be used as a constructivist learn- ing activity? The paper proposes that player agency can be used to link interactive narrative to learner agency in constructivist theory, and to classify approaches to interactive narrative. The traditional question driving research in interactive narrative is, ‘how can an in- teractive narrative deal with a high degree of player agency, while maintaining a coherent and well-formed narrative?’ This question derives from an Aristotelian approach to interactive narrative that, as the question shows, is inherently antagonistic to player agency. Within this approach, player agency must be restricted and manip- ulated to maintain the narrative. Two alternative approaches based on Brecht’s Epic Theatre and Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed are reviewed. If a Boalian approach to interactive narrative is taken the conflict between narrative and player agency dissolves. The question that emerges from this approach is quite different from the traditional question above, and presents a more useful approach to applying in- teractive narrative as a constructivist learning activity

Mazetec: A Scenario-Based Learning Platform

This work presents Mazetec, a scenario-based learning platform for delivering non-linear scenarios format asynchronously. It enables subject matter experts to create interactive, state-dependent case studies or courses with branching logic for online learning and knowledge testing. Mazetec is a complex web application designed to deliver decision-based or case-based educational scenarios and simulations in a time-limited, non-linear format. There are many e-learning systems in the open source and commercial markets, but while these systems may have similar functions, we have found none that are both domain independent and able to deliver state-dependent content asynchronous and non-linearly. Mazetec can serve as a standalone training system or serve as a supplementary activity provider to an existing course in an organization\u27s existing learning management system (LMS)

Intelligent Tutoring System Authoring Tools for Non-Programmers

An intelligent tutoring system (ITS) is a software application that tries to replicate the performance of a human tutor by supporting the theory of learning by doing . ITSs have been shown to improve the performance of a student in wide range of domains. Despite their benefits, ITSs have not seen widespread use due to the complexity involved in their development. Developing an ITS from scratch requires expertise in several fields including computer science, cognitive psychology and artificial intelligence. In order to decrease the skill threshold required to build ITSs, several authoring tools have been developed. In this thesis, I document several contributions to the field of intelligent tutoring in the form of extensions to an existing ITS authoring tool, research studies on authoring tool paradigms and the design of authoring tools for non-programmers in two complex domains - natural language processing and 3D game environments. The Extensible Problem Specific Tutor (xPST) is an authoring tool that helps rapidly develop model-tracing like tutors on existing interfaces such as webpages. xPST\u27s language was made more expressive with the introduction of new checktypes required for answer checking in problems belonging to domains such as geometry and statistics. A web-based authoring (WAT) tool was developed for the purpose of tutor management and deployment and to promote non-programmer authoring of ITSs. The WAT was used in a comparison study between two authoring tool paradigms - GUI based and text based, in two different problem domains - statistics and geometry. User-programming of natural language processing (NLP) in ITSs is not common with authoring toolkits. Existing NLP techniques do not offer sufficient power to non-programmers and the NLP is left to expert developers or machine learning algorithms. We attempted to address this challenge by developing a domain-independent authoring tool, ConceptGrid that is intended to help non-programmers develop ITSs that perform natural language processing. ConceptGrid has been integrated into xPST. When templates created using ConceptGrid were tested, they approached the accuracy of human instructors in scoring student responses. 3D game environments belong to another domain for which authoring tools are uncommon. Authoring game-based tutors is challenging due to the inherent domain complexity and dynamic nature of the environment. We attempt to address this challenge through the design of authoring tool that is intended to help non-programmers develop game-based ITSs

Authoring Effective Embedded Tutors: An Overview of the Extensible Problem Specific Tutor (xPST) System

The Extensible Problem Specific Tutor (xPST) allows authors who are not cognitive scientists and not programmers to quickly create an intelligent tutoring system that provides instruction akin to a model-tracing tutor. Furthermore, this instruction is overlaid on existing software, so that the learner’s interface does not have to be made from scratch. The xPST architecture allows for extending its capabilities by the addition of plug-ins that communicate with additional third-party software. After reviewing this general architecture, we describe three major implementations that we have created using the xPST system, each using different third-party software as the learner’s interface. We have conducted three evaluations of authors using xPST to create tutoring content, and these are considered in turn. These evaluations show that xPST authors can quickly learn the system, and can efficiently produce successful embedded instruction

Student participation in serious games design

Serious games can be defined simply as games with an educational intent. These games are regularly positioned within a curriculum as simple teaching agents and often lack meaningful participation from learners in their development. In 1992, Roger Hart proposed a model for the roles children play in participatory projects with adults. ‘Hart’s Ladder’ presents eight levels of children’s participation moving from tokenistic manipulation of children at the base of this ladder to ‘citizenship’ at the top where children can initiate and share activities with adults. This research contributes to knowledge on methods of integrating serious games into formal educational settings by investigating how children, as participants, can work with their educators, as facilitators, to create serious games for use by their peers. Exploratory field studies have worked with secondary school children (11-16 years) to evaluate the hypothesis that higher levels of participation of children in making serious games will produce more effective educational artefacts. Educational artefacts are context specific to each study but encompass the product and accreditation of the process by participants, facilitators and all stakeholders involved

Building Artificially Intelligent Learning Games

The idea of digital game-based learning (DGBL) is gaining acceptance among researchers, game designers, educators, parents, and students alike. Building new educational games that meet educational goals without sacrificing what makes games engaging remains largely unrealized, however. If we are to build the next generation of learning games, we must recognize that while digital games might be new, the theory and technologies we need to create DGBL has been evolving in multiple disciplines for the last 30 years. This chapter will describe an approach, based on theories and technologies in education, instructional design, artificial intelligence, and cognitive psychology, that will help us build intelligent learning games (ILGs)

A General Framework for Digital Game-Based Training Systems

This dissertation introduces a general framework for developing digital game-based training systems. The framework addresses all aspects of education. In that sense, it involves both teacher and student as game players. A visual review log supports teacher-student-communication. Based on the general framework, a novel digital game-based training system for crime scene investigation training called OpenCrimeScene has been developed and implemented.Diese Dissertation führt ein allgemeines Architekturmodell für die Entwicklung von computerspielbasierten Trainingssystemen ein. Das Architekturmodell spricht alle Aspekte der Ausbildung an. In diesem Sinne bezieht es Lehrer und Schüler als Spieler ein. Ein grafisches Bewertungsprotokoll unterstützt die Lehrer-Schüler-Kommunikation. Basierend auf dem allgemeinen Architekturmodell wurde ein neues computerspielbasiertes Trainingssystem zur Tatortsicherung entwickelt und implementiert

Modeling educational quizzes as board games

In last decades, online computer games are used for e-learning purposes with significant success which determines steadily increasing interest in game development. Board games are special group of computer games where figures are manipulated on a surface according predefined rules. The paper presents a new, formalized model of traditional quizzes, puzzles and quests as multimedia board games created for facilitating the construction process of games of such types. By several examples authors show the model is quite general in order to support not only quiz, puzzle and quest presentation but also any instructional set of teaching activities presented as a race game. An adaptive game control strategy is proposed where dices are used for random selection of complexity of next questions. The model is going to be used as a basic paradigm for construction of a software platform for multimedia game development for adaptive education