Much has been written about the theoretical potential of
digital games to transform teaching and learning and to offer new forms of digital assessment; yet the education system in the United Kingdom
(UK) is arguably still focused exclusively on the assessment and reward
of individual effort and achievement. This can be at odds with the
requirements of twenty-first century working environments and in the
requirements for developing the personal employability characteristics of
students. Engaging students in authentic collaborative project work that
requires sophisticated and coordinated communication can present real
challenges.
Employers are increasingly demanding as prerequisite that graduates have
highly developed communication and collaborative team working skills for
opportunities in the digital industries such as Games Design, however
Games Design students are often quite isolated in their personal industry
related practice, working methods and their online lifestyles and lack
the "soft skills" which would enable them to work successfully within a
team. The authors elaborate on how Hull School of Art and Design has
attempted to address this problem through the implementation of an
Applied Game, the "Watercooler Game", for their Games Industry
undergraduates. They present their reflections on the rationale behind
the pedagogic approach, the decision to develop an applied game to
address their pedagogic challenges and their experience of working with a
commercial Games Developer in producing the game. Using a sophisticated
evaluation framework, devised as part of the EU Horizon 2020 funded
Realising an Applied Gaming Eco-system (RAGE) project, the authors
present the initial findings of their evaluation of game from a
multidimensional perspective. The pedagogic approach, the technical
approach adopted by the developers of the game (an open source asset
based approach) and the pedagogic efficacy of the game through evaluation
of the learning objectives achieved and how these finding may be
applicable in a wider educational context