Instructional Technology
Conference 2005
Proposal #8
Title: “Playing Academic Contents In Multiple Gaming Formats”
Name: Dan Lim, Ph.D., Professor
Audience Level: All
Audience: Faculty, Administrators, IT directors, Instructional Technologists, etc
Length: One hour.
Abstract:
If academic contents are boring or difficult, the Multiple Academic Gaming Formats will help many students “immerse” in those contents without them realizing it. Playing the same academic contents in multiple gaming formats increases the duration of exposure and further reinforces the retention that has already taken place. Currently, the Multiple Academic Gaming Formats consists of three Flash learning game objects (Challenge, Category, and Knowledge Squares) in which the same gaming contents can be played interchangeably. Being the most popular format, the Flash Challenge Game (http://flashgames.umn.edu) is now being used by educators from 20 colleges and universities. More game formats will be added to increase gaming options.
Description:
The purpose of this presentation is to help conference attendees learn some pedagogical perspectives of academic gaming, design and development of interactive gaming contents, and how to integrate them into the curriculum. Academic gaming encourages self-learning as it motivates students to interact with new contents in a fun learning environment. It engages student for a sustainable period because a balanced level of difficulty in a hierarchical format. The combination of new and repeated questions randomly selected at each level from a central question bank keeps student playing and coming back for more. The easy to difficulty progression throughout the game helps students build on what they know. The fact that students play these academic games during breaks and meal times indicates that the games appear to be pretty compelling. The reinforcement students experience in these games helps them retain knowledge and information without overt memorization.
The earliest of the three gaming formats, the Challenge Game, allows student to play 16 levels with the help of three lifelines: “Student”, “Class”, and “Instructor”. The reliability of the lifelines are 50%, 75%, and 100% respectively (Subtle connotation that instructor is most authoritative). Five questions are randomly selected at each level. Questions selected for the first four levels are generally fairly easy. Those selected for the last four levels are progressively much harder. A Flash game generator was created to allow educators from around the country to upload gaming contents to the database from which the Flash game object retrieved the respective gaming contents. Since 2002, some 20 colleges and universities are now currently using the Flash Game Challenge Generator (see http://flashgames.umn.edu created by the presenter).
What is new about this academic gaming is that the same contents can be played in other gaming formats. The same 80 questions from the Challenge Game may be played in the Category Game (JeopardyTM-like) and the Knowledge Squares (like Tic-Tac-Toe) format. If academic contents are boring or difficult, the Multiple Academic Gaming Formats will help many students “immerse” in those contents without them realizing it.
Being able to play boring or difficult contents in a Flash gaming format is itself a pleasurable way to learn. Letting students play the same contents in more than one gaming format is even more compelling. Playing additional gaming formats increases the period of exposure interacting with the same contents, further reinforces the retention that has already taken place.
Toward the end of the presentation, the presenter will provide a glimpse of the future work of this project: Expanding the Multiple Academic Gaming Format into 10 or more popular game concepts. Educators will have more options in integrating academic gaming into the curriculum, increasing the motivation for student learning.
Session Type: Lecture/Presentation
Contact information/affiliation:
Dan Lim, Ph.D., Professor
Director, Office of Online Learning & Faculty Development
Southern Adventist University
dlim@southern.edu
423.236.2085
www.danlim.com
Equipment: Internet Connectivity to demonstrate online Flash games