Computers in Secondary Schools: Educational Games

This entry introduces educational games in secondary schools. Educational games include three main types of educational activities with a playful learning intention supported by digital technologies: educational serious games, educational gamification, and learning through game creation. Educational serious games are digital games that support learning objectives. Gamification is defined as the use of "game design elements and game thinking in a non-gaming context" (Deterding et al. 2011, p. 13). Educational gamification is not developed through a digital game but includes game elements for supporting the learning objectives. Learning through game creation is focused on the process of designing and creating a prototype of a game to support a learning process related to the game creation process or the knowledge mobilized through the game creation process. Four modalities of educational games in secondary education are introduced in this entry to describe educational games in secondary education: educational purpose of entertainment games, serious games, gamification, and game design

The Exemplary WPI PAX Booth 2018

The purpose of this Interactive Qualifying Project is to do all the logistical and physical legwork necessary in order to successfully design, set up, and run a booth that showcases student-made games, as well as WPIs Interactive Media and Game Development major, at PAX East 2018. These tasks included, but were not limited to, designing the physical layout of the booth, designing t-shirts and buttons for both volunteer uniforms and giveaways at PAX, working with WPIs marketing team to gather the necessary materials for advertisement of the program, and selecting student volunteers to do art demonstrations and show off games at the booth throughout PAX. We managed to run the booth very successfully and we gave out a large quantity of marketing material to prospective students

Applying Psychological Theory to in-game moral behaviors through the development of a purpose-made game

A number of video games involve moral narratives or require the players to make moral decisions. Research from psychologists has helped to understand the effects that video game content can have on how individuals think, feel and behave. Recent research has examined the role of morality in video games, yet there are many inconsistencies in the findings that could be due to the use of commercial video games for research purposes, which contain biases such as familiarity with the game and favorite characters. By developing a bespoke game designed specifically for the purpose of exploring morality, these potential biases can be reduced. Before designing the game, morality in existing video games is critically analyzed, using theories from moral psychology. From this, a game was developed to measure behavioral outcomes through which moral decisions are made; with the aim to address biases that are inherent in commercial games. Then, the resultant game was used to investigate how participants make moral choices in video games

Combined Method for Evaluating Accessibility in Serious Games

Nowadays, one of the learning resources in the educational area are serious games, also called training games; they are games designed with a different purpose than fun, whose main objective is to reinforce the new concepts more creatively. However, not all existing serious games are accessible in a way that allows access to a more significant number of users. Therefore, this research proposes to apply a combined method to evaluate accessibility in serious games, considering the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1. As a case study, we evaluated the accessibility of 82 serious games developed by Physical Education Technology Interactive Simulations at the University of Colorado. We propose to replicate this combined method for users with various types of disabilities, considering the various accessibility barriers. As future work, we suggest generating an accessibility heuristic evaluation focused on serious games, based on the accessibility issues identified. Finally, we believe it is essential to strengthen accessibility policies in each country, as well as implement best practices that generate innovation by incorporating diversity in building and designing more inclusive serious games.This research was funded by Universidad de Las Américas-Ecuador, as part of an internal research project FGE.PAV.19.11

Evolving interesting maps for a first person shooter

We address the problem of automatically designing maps for first-person shooter (FPS) games. An efficient solution to this procedural content generation (PCG) problem could allow the design of FPS games of lower development cost with near-infinite replay value and capability to adapt to the skills and preferences of individual players. We propose a search-based solution, where maps are evolved to optimize a fitness function that is based on the players’ average fighting time. For that purpose, four different map representations are tested and compared. Results obtained showcase the clear advantage of some representations in generating interesting FPS maps and demonstrate the promise of the approach followed for automatic level design in that game genre.peer-reviewe

Peningkatan Aktivitas Belajar Siswa Menggunakan Model Kooperatif Teams Games Tournament di Sekolah Dasar

The purpose of this study was to describe the increase in student learning activities by using a model of cooperative teams tournament games in the subject of Social Sciences VC class 18 Pontianak West Elementary School . The method used is descriptive method to form a Class Action Research . Subjects were subject teachers and students of Social Sciences VC classes totaling 36 people . Data collection techniques namely direct observation techniques with a data collection tool that teachers\u27 evaluation sheets designing learning ability , the ability of teachers to implement learning and pieces of student learning activities . This study was done 2 cycles . The results showed an increase in the ability of teachers in designing and implementing a model of cooperative learning teams using tournament games . With an average score on the ability of teachers to design learning in the first cycle and then cycle II 3.30 3.70 . On the ability of teachers to implement learning in the first cycle after cycle II 3.31 3.78 . While the increase in the average percentage of student learning activities in the first cycle of physical activity 58.80 % , 28.70 % mental activity and emotional activity of 69.45 % , then in the second cycle of physical activity 82.21 % , 65.74 % mental activity and emotional activity of 91.65