I'm just about to start working on the examination project for my teaching degree.
My goal is to investigate the usage of computer games/programs in the English-teaching classroom, and if possible design my own pedagogical game.
I think people have had similar projects before. Any thoughts on this? Are you familiar with any ongoing research when it comes to computer-aided teaching? Do you use any programs/games in school? Do they work well, and if they don't, what improvements would you like to see?
What would the ultimate 'edutainment' software look like?
Thoughts and opinions are appreciated :)
Demo available here:
http://www.andail.com/capricorn.rar (http://www.andail.com/capricorn.rar)
I've had some experience writing educational software as a hobby, as well as seeing several edutainment games in action. In my experience computer-aided teaching works fine, like a program that asks you math problems and tells you how many you did correctly - but on the other hand, educational games work barely if at all along children of eight years and up. To young kids, it's probably helpful; semi-older kids tend to consider it lame and/or not learn much. I am unaware of any succesful edutainment games, although I know several that tried.
theres and energy conservation game here which kinda fun :
http://www.doodoo.ru/modules/FlashGames/flashgames/adventure/00watt/preloader_e.swf
Lately with doing flash stuff, its worrying how many people can't get there heads round point and click cursor actions, so it might be one thing to consider if you do decide to make something, because big instructions don't help!
Well, no-one really wants to play an educational game at home, but at school, it's surprising how much rather they play than listen to teachers mumble and read books. There were quite a few of language ones in the internet while I was that age, we used to do them. Well they were always easy, like move the correct word to the picture and you have all sorts of fruits there. Or crossword puzzles or that stuff. But what they use in schools nowadays... They don't really use computers. Except for writing stuff, at least here. computers are mainly used for research etc. still...
My kids love all the Flash games (some of which are educational) that you get at nickjr.com, bbc.co.uk/cbeebies and http://disney.go.com/playhouse/today/index.html (in fact, you can see their home page at http://www.little-flower.co.uk/games.html)
For kids under 5, their first games are really just teaching them to use a mouse, but then they move to matching games, etc.
Depends on your age targets really. When I was younger I remember a game called the Zoombinis, or something. Little blackcurrants who went off and had adventures.
It was fun and educational, with a series of maths and logic puzzles that were quite amusing to play through. I think its secret was the charm of the characters and also the fact that it felt like a normal game. It didn't pose you with a question directly, it allowed you to work your way through it and it was later that you realised what you had done. Somewhat like being taught how to integrate an equation and then hearing the word 'calculus'.
A few comments:
- AGS is definitely useful in creating educational games, though due to their limited requirements I honestly think most engines are capable. Personally, however, I find AGS easy to use which means production would be focussed on the important parts (Educational issues) rather than technical. You'd probably need a good artwork foundation though, since I think the main problem is keeping a child's attention which I can imagine being easier by using Flash to create effective animations.
- Just today I've finished my IT helpdesk simulation, "Techs", as part of my final year project for uni. It's a serious simulation intended to educate amateur IT support workers.Send me a PM and I can show you the report or just the research if you would like.
- Speaking of the research, I asked here for "Serious usages of AGS" a few weeks ago and one game recommended to me was a French language project that "CP" was developing but she gave up on it. It was certainly interesting to read about though.
- Another bit of research that springs to mind is a chapter in "Game Design" by Bob Bates (2004) where he analyses all of the gaming genres, one of which is children's games. It's worth a read if you can find it, or try another book if you can.
- Oh, and one memory I have as a child is that using loads of colour is fantastic. I can't remember anything about Disney's Sleeping Beauty (Or was it Cinderalla?) except that the fairy godmothers had very bright individual clothing. I think people underestimate how primary colours can make a huge difference with children who are naturally still adapting to the spectrum. :)
The "twist" with this project is that we want an older, more mature audience. We want to create a game that can be enjoyed by people who play regular games.
Most educational software out there is aimed at kids, presenting tasks like "click on the cow", and if you click the right animal, you'll hear a "moo" soundbit.
The other problem is that most products on the market are mostly about just transfering ordinary exercises to the computer screen. It's the same old fill-in-the-blanks, only presented on the monitor. We want a more interactive, immersive, plot-based "game".
I taught young kids for a few weeks once and my main task was to introduce them to the "click the cow" games you speak of Andail. Although it was extremely boring for me, every single one of them loved it and they were extremely attentive. So that goes to show junior computer aided teaching is a big hit. For older people I'd imagine something similar would still be great fun, but of course, you'd need to up the anti and make it more appealing for that age range.
An educational adventure game could be very interesting, especially if it's focussed on English. Everyone watches Romeo & Juliet the play but how much better would it have been to PLAY Romeo & Juliet. Okay I haven't really thought of the logistics behind it, but it could be interesting with puzzles like speaking the right Shakespearean to progress the story and what not.
Therefore I think the ultimate edutainment software would in fact be an adventure game, afterall they're designed for "learning". It could simply be a puzzle game but with adventure elements thrown in. To be honest though, with any kind of educational game you can't go wrong, and the cirriculum system is bound to love you for it. I don't know whether you yourself would get marked on it but if you did you'd wouldn't be short of an "A". I know this, and so do others here. You can produce relatively inane crap, but include some key teaching points & you'll be slammed a high grade. Awesome :)
Nobody remembers EcoQuest 1 & 2? I suppose it was aimed at children, and while it may have been fun for me to play when I did, none of the information stuck with me. Does that mean that it didn't work? Dunno...
Other than that, there was some sort of rabbit (Robert Rabbit?) English learning game that my parents bought me, which I remember enjoying immensely.
Any enjoyable adventure game would be a good game to learn English in. It seems that many on this forum learnt English through adventure games. If you are talking about teaching adults, there shouldn't be much of a problem with the adventure part of it. I dunno about the effectiveness if you went about making "The Quest for the Missing Participle", but I suppose you could make it heavy on the dialogue, with advancement in the story depending on how the player interprets what the NPCs say, and include such things as teaching of homonyms (like the Xanth game), etc. That probably wouldn't be considered "edutainment", though.
It would probably all be a little corny, though. I don't think I've ever seen a "serious" edutainment game. Maybe a game where the player starts off in some strange place, not knowing a word of english, and having to learn it to cope.
EDIT: I still have the CD for this game "I.M.Meen" where you could choose this boy or girl to play as, and you had to navigate through these dungeons in First Person mode, with a wand and tomatoes to explode your enemies (no blood, this was a kid's game), and then you'd come to these "vaults" that you had to open to proceed to the next level. They had this scroll on the door with bad grammar that you had to fix. It was fun, but the vaults part just seemed put on and distracting, despite the excitement of whatever treasure there might have been inside.
The Castle of Dr. Brain! I think he had an Island too -THOSE were fun games, and we were allowed to play them in my grade 6 class if we were done all of our work (i.e. keep the nerds busy so the teacher stays sane).
The problem is with puzzle type games is that they are appealing only to those who like solving them. One of the best ways to enhance your English vocabulary is to do crossword puzzles, but I've never met a struggling student yet who could stand the sight of them. Same thing with computer games: at the tutoring centre I work at the kids who need to work on phonics most will only randomly click at the phonics game we have on the computer until it gets them -eventually- to the "game" section. Self-motivated learners will solve mysteries, but passive learners will either be intimidated or attempt to cope without learning anything (even expending 10 times the effort learning the content would have required).
.....unless you trick them.
Don't get me wrong, there's no substitute for human-on-human instruction, but there must be a thousand parables out there of wise men teaching valuable lessons to everyone from impetuous youths to self-involved kings through trickery. For example, I was thinking the other day of designing a "Shooter" game for struggling pre-teen male readers where the bad guys all had words across their shirts and you could only shoot the guy who finished your sentence correctly. Young boys -at least the ones I work with- seem addicted to shooting games but will do back-flips not to read. Would they be motivated to read if they could shoot things in the process? I wonder....
It depends on the students level, really.
Mature students could enjoy a game based on authentic texts: puzzles based on books they read or on films they see, quests where they'll need to interpete the clues correctly (double meaning or different uses of prepositions)... I'm working on a mystery story solved using ten specific internet pages people will get redirected to (within the same, controlled website, of course, since it's for students)
For kids, familiar grammar and vocabulary exercises are more beneficial, though.
PS. cp didn't abandon the french project. Yet. :-\
Latest news: My tutor wants the prototype of the game to be finished in two weeks, just so we can have plenty of time to evaluate it.
Now, everyone here knows that two weeks is not much time to get a game done, so I'm pretty much working 24/7 atm. Luckily, I'm far from a perfectionist, and I can produce both graphics and code quite quickly.
Here's a taste of what it will look like graphic-wise (I'm so far recycling an old player character):
(http://www.andail.com/ags/deck1.png)
(http://www.andail.com/ags/salon1.png)
(http://www.andail.com/ags/underdeck.png)
I would appreciate input now, ideas of good puzzles that can stimulate the player's English aquisition etc.
Reading all the research literature for the thesis is draining my creative side, so I haven't had much time to ponder over the "plot" of the game.
Perhaps you could have a puzzle(s) where there is some character(s) who had instructions from the captain of the ship and misheard them and you have to work out what the captain really wanted: e.g.
A deckhand is struggling to control a huge bear that he thought the captain wanted, but he actually wanted a beer
The cook is brining the captain a sherry when he wanted a cherry
etc. See common scandinavian mispronunciations at: http://www.btinternet.com/~ted.power/l1swedish.html
I think the problem with educational games is that they are trying so hard to be educational. Even SSH's idea which I find quite innovative is still taking the magic out of the gaming by trying so hard to teach. The same goes for Baron's idea about shooting people with words on them. I find the idea very abstract and constructed, that would never happen in reality! Why not go for an intriguing spy story instead, with the thrill of the story keeping the player at it, learning because they want to know what happens next? By all means, involve elements of shooting, but I actually think the point and click genre could be really good for teaching purposes!
For a game trying to teach someone English, I would suggest making a proper game, with a proper plot and make it interesting and enjoyable as a game without trying to emphasize any grammar or spelling tasks. An effort can be made to make the langauge used in the game to reflect a certain level of English, the intended level of the player. Then add an easy to use interface (As easy as hovering the pointer over a word perhaps) for occasionally looking up translations for words you do not understand. I think just being exposed to the language in an entertaining and appealing way is the right way! You learn much from seing a word you don't know in a context that makes you realize what the word means.
I know you asked for specific plot elements Andail. I'm not going to give any, as I have no ideas. Sorry! I just wanted to share my opinions...
Mätzyboy pretty much said what I was intending to say. I think it's not necessary to put too much thought into the educational doodads in a game aiming for language acquisition. The whole medium of adventure games, even without that intent, is incredibly well-suited to that purpose anyway. Without exaggeration, I think my playing games like Monkey Island and Beneath a Steel Sky in my youth has no small part in contributing to the English language abilities I possess today. I still remember vividly when I learned the meaning of the word "ladder": in the beginning of Final Fantasy VII. Why this particular situation has remained so clear in my memory is a mystery to me.
Anyway, my point is that none of those games tried to be educational in any way. They were just great games with a lot of text in them. In a game with the specific goal of being educational, you should make sure that the language is suitably difficult, but that's about all you really need to do. I know this isn't what you want to hear, but: if you ask me, any puzzles and any plot will do.
I think that many did as many:
I learned english by playing rpgs and adventure games. If the story is complelling enough, and the artwork and finally game is as great as it should be (judging fomr you Petter!) then the studnet will bst his ass to know what on earth is that "pirate" saying. What are these strange sentecnes that no one understands...
English (I find) is a simple thing to teach in a computer game, cause it is integraded with the game it self. IOt's not maths, where it needs to go along with a puzzle or something. Fidn the most useful, incomprihensible lines nad words you cna think of and use them!
I still remember Alone in the Dark I (Lavecroft) where I learned quite a bit of english with those damn books! ;)
The artwork, knowing you, looks a little fast made... It is consisntent and works, but having seen more of your art, I can't say I wasn't expectin gosmething more from it. Still I know of deadlines, so I'll just sya that it works! Simply it works!
Good luck!
And of course what matzyboy and eldkatt say...
Andail, the graphics look great! Very suitable and fun, certainly in this resolution so no idea how they would look within AGS. Hopefully you'll be using a cursor that displays the hotspot text beside it ;) Cos if that isn't blatent teaching of English then I don't know what is!! Still, it's looking good. Surely then if most agree all you need is a good game to be a teacher - you could come up with some intruiging plot of mutiny or spying or what not. Your character looks like an undercover person! He looks like he should be on MS Encarta or something but he's sneaking into your educational software to see what info he can steal. :P
You could go for a simple story that the ships Captain has been found dead under mysterious circumstances, and using the clues you must find out who on board has killed him. To add to the acuisition perhaps he killed himself :p It could be good just to start with one very basic clue as to what you're supposed to do. For example you carry a striped sock from the murder-scene and if you walk around the ship, several screens away will be a man wearing on stripey sock the same as it and one odd sock. After questioning and learning more about him & his involvement (if any), you discover you need to find some other object and a person perhaps, simple stuff. But through this you learn you will have to play detective, and soon on you learn you have to force someone to walk the plank, and then eventually once you solve it you realise it's because there's a complete mechanichal fault with the ship that you have to fix :p lol
That kinda cluedo stuff is pretty cliche in edventures though I suppose. So perhaps you could make it about the Kracken instead and have the ship getting obliterated & whirlpools and stuff...but using mr poop-deck's mop-head you can save the day!!! That's more AGS-english than English, though :p
Really I think you of all people can think up some clever puzzles Andail! And an intriguing storyline, and easily too! ;)
I think that an old-school text adventure is even better for your needs because you also have to write.
If you are afraid that a fully textual adventure would scare the students maybe something like the interface of "Trilby's Notes" is the best:
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/games.php?action=detail&id=736
I wish I had a teacher like you in my school days.
Thanks for the input.
SSH; interestingly, I recently taught common Swedish-English pronunciations mistakes for a class during my practice. I will actually try to implement a puzzle like that.
Tartalo; I intend to use a text-box on a few occasions. It's rather tedious to work with text parsers, so I will keep it pretty limited...
Quote from: Andail on Wed 04/04/2007 11:57:54
SSH; interestingly, I recently taught common Swedish-English pronunciations mistakes for a class during my practice. I will actually try to implement a puzzle like that.
Glad I could help! I'll send you an invoice for my fee ;)
When I was younger I always liked the Spy fox games. They were pretty simple, cartoonish and funny. But schools seem to support them because Spy Fox used to be on the back of the Milk boxes at our school, So I would think that an Adventure game in itself would be pretty educational. It would help the kids think rather then fighting things, Which is what people want for there kids.
Just having the hotspot descriptions visible like the old LucasArts games would go a long way toward teaching English.
Allrightie, I decided to publish a demo of the game to get some proper beta-testing!
There is no introduction or instructions included in this version, but I figured you ags-people will pick it up as you go along :)
The pupils testing the game will have a thorough introduction as well as a dictionary available.
Please give c&c regarding the language and puzzle-design primarily, and don't focus so much on the graphics. I need special feedback on the grammar and vocabulary, seeing as this is meant to be educational...
File:
http://www.andail.com/capricorn.rar (http://www.andail.com/capricorn.rar)
Short background: You play some sort of diplomat who's sent to investigate why one of the admiral's ships has not yet departed. There are some problems aboard and you need to solve them!
It looks and plays very nicely, Andail. And even features the cheesy "guess the spelling mistake" puzzle! I'm sure it'll be great when its done. I found the
Spoiler
map of drawings
is there anything to do beyond that? :)
Thanks Mods!
Spoiler
The drawings are just meant to be hints unless you can't work out what the captain wanted from the sailor
So...any other person willing to try it out...SSH...anyone? It's a quick demo! Just give it a shot and see if you can spot any blatant errors.
I played it and I liked it. I didn't see any spelling or grammer errors, but I'm not the best person to comment on this. As for the puzzels, I think they are really easy, probably too easy, but that depends on how long the students it's intended for learn english.
I want to play the full game - and that's perhaps the best you can say about an educational game, besides the fact that I think the player can actually learn from this game.
Nice little game, Andail! The two main puzzles were clever ways of testing the player's English, with the second one not being too obvious about it.
The only possible mistake I noticed was when you first talk to the captain, you say:
"I'm sent by the admiral".
which should probably be:
"I've been sent by the admiral"
or
"I was sent by the admiral"
or
"The admiral sent me"
I like it because it feels more like a game than a grammar test. People will learn or refresh vocabulary without noticing it. Maybe you could add some extra story, the crew's backgrounds or the hero's opinion about them during the game (which will get you more words and phrases). Nice graphics, too.
Sorry I can't help with possible grammar mistakes, I'll leave that to the native speakers.