educational card design advantages, limitations, examples, & options
TRANSCRIPT
Educational Card Design
Advantages, Limitations, Examples, & Options
Strengths of Card Games
Compact Playable anywhere Mastered quickly Played quickly Good for reinforcing facts,
classification, simple relationships
Limitations of Card Games
Can’t be used for higher level objectives
If not designed carefully, could be played for fun without learning
Producing more than one deck takes careful planning (use of database or page layout program) and tedious assembly
Example: Krill
Used to teach ocean food chains
Simple relationships: what it eats, and what eats it
The Algebra Game Rummy-like game
in which combinations of equations and their graphs are matched and discarded.
http://www.mathstudio.com/product.htm
Mental Disorder
Educational satire of the mental health profession.
Players “diagnose” each other.
http://www.mentaldisorder.com/
Problems & Programmers
http://www.ics.uci.edu/~andre/research/publications.html#ICSE2003-2
Compost Gin
http://www.stanslaughter.com/compost/cpstgin.html
Planetaire
Rummy-like game that can also be played like solitaire.
http://www.homestargames.com/product.htm
Nanofictionary
Players combine and recombine Settings, Characters, Problems and Resolutions to create the best story they can, while other players mix things up with wacky Action cards.
http://www.wunderland.com/LooneyLabs/Nanofictionary/Index.html
Example: Triangle
Object: to put down triads of cards that represent sides and angles of triangles
Native American Rummy
Each card represents an historically important Native American.
Categories of Card Games
Bridge/Whist Poker/Rummy Happy Families/Snap Patience Solitaire
Bridge/Whist
Emphasis on winning tricks Suits have relative strengths Sometimes involves pairs as partners Sometimes involves bidding
It’s not easy to create educational games in this format!
Poker/Rummy
Emphasis on building a pattern of cards and discarding them
Patterns can be based on suits or ranks or both (e.g., three of a kind, flush, straight)
Applicable to wide range of content involving categories and ranking within categories
Happy Families/Snap
Mostly children’s games Simple relationships (e.g.
greater than) Sometimes involves element of
speed
Typical educational use: drilling simple relationships
Patience/Solitaire
Players start with a pattern of cards and work to an end state with a different pattern
Could be used educationally to represent complex interrelationships among elements
Melding Content & Game Structures
Ranks Differences in power, size, etc.
Suits Categories
Trump More potent category
Card to avoid Undesirable element
Wild card Outlier
Groupings(e.g. face cards)
Natural groupings(e.g., noble gases)
Educational Card Design
Advantages, Limitations, Examples, & Options