GC: Palestine First step towards next generation of educational games?

PhD Simon Egenfeldt-NielsenCEO Serious Games Interactive

3. December 2007, Lyon

“…develop games which contain advanced content, operate according to sound pedagogical principles, enable classroom customisation, and create real excitement within the core game market”

- Henry Jenkins

Background and team

SGI was founded in 2006 in Copenhagen, Denmark

The company focuses on developing serious games for educational institutions

We develop high-quality games that contain an inseparable combination of “playing”, “learning” and “story-telling”.

This is done by a unique cross-disciplinary team with strong roots in research

SGI has been steadily growing and employs 10 people today (CEO, Commercial Director, Producer, Game Director, Lead Programmer, Programmer, Lead 3D animator, 3D artist, Character artist, Tester)

Our company

Background and team

Commercial titlesGlobal Conflicts: Palestine (complete)Global Conflicts: Latin America (concept)

Client projectsBolivia Brænder (complete)Mayas Eventyr (complete)Darwin (concept)

Our company

QuestionsEducational Games

How many play computer games?How many play educational computer games?

In UK, Canada & US - 70% want to, only 30% do it.

WHY?

Low quality in existing titles & few to choose from.

History of learning games...Educational Games

Educational media and computer-assisted-instruction shape edutainment.Simulations lives in its own niche.

The Oregon Trail (1973)Where in the world is Carmen San Diego (1985)Hidden Agenda (1987)Mathblaster (1985)Crystal Rain Forrest (1992)

Innovative titles lies some time back.

Current educational games

QuickTime™ and aTIFF (Uncompressed) decompressorare needed to see this picture.

•Making History: The Calm & The Storm (WW2)•Global Conflicts: Palestine (Middle east conflict)•Bolivia Brænder (oprør & gældsslaver)•Food Force (World hunger & crisis)

Educational Games

Der kræves QuickTime™ og et TIFF (ukomprimeret)-komprimeringsværktøj,

for at man kan se dette billede.

There is a real need for titles with potential.

Making History Food Force Global Conflicts: PalestineBolivia Brænder

Trailer Latin

This is not about edutainmentLittle intrinsic motivation: Extrinsic motivation through rewards, rather than intrinsic motivation.

No integrated learning experience: Lacks integration of the learning experience with playing experience - learning subordinated play experience.

Drill-and-practice learning principles: Rely on drill-and-practice rather than understanding – training above learning.

No teacher presence: No demands on teachers or parents.

Simple gameplay: Built on a simple gameplay from classic titles.

Small budgets: Produced on limited budgets with limited technology.

Educational Games

Edutainment has problems

Most of what goes under the name "edutainment" reminds me of George Bernard Shaw's response to a famous beauty who speculated on the marvelous child they could have together: "With your brains and my looks ..." He retorted, "But what if the child had my looks and your brains?"

(Papert, 1998: 88)

Educational Games

Same topic different kind of game

French revolution

Quiz show: The player must get all the answers right and compete with other students.

Treasure hunt: The player must explore different web-sites and sources in competition with students to answer the most questions.

Virtual explorer: The player explores a virtual universe with different sources, people and methods for solving different missions by understanding what going on.

Edutainment

Next-gen(Serious Games)

Educational Games

What are we talking about...

”Educational games are fundamentally different than the prevalent instructional paradigm. They are based on challenge, reward, learning through doing and guided discovery, in contrast to ”tell and test” methods of traditional instruction.”

-Report of the Federation of American Scientiest, ”Educational Games 2006”

Educational Games

”I learned more history from this game in one day than I have learned from the teaching the last 6 months”

Oliver Hansen, Student, 16 years

Primary target group

Subjects:

What is the product

Danish 8th graders using the game early 2006.

Global Conflicts: Palestine target students of 13-19 years

Primary: Citizensship & History Secondary: Media, religion, ethics,

geography & communication

(Small TV2 movie)

Seconday target groupWhat is the product

Serious gamers taking on the challenge.

Global Conflicts: Palestine target mature people with an

interest and engagement in current issues

Der kræves QuickTime™ og et TIFF (ukomprimeret)-komprimeringsværktøj,

for at man kan se dette billede.

• Watch documentaries & debate programs• Consider themselves knowledgable• Often females above 30 years• Have an above average education• Have an above average income• Use IT but not necessarily gamers

f

Welcome to the reality

Material from Global Conflicts: Palestine online learning resource.

Welcome to Global Conflicts: Palestine

In-game shots from the game Global Conflicts: Palestine

Checkpoint!

Feel and understand the tense atmosphere and problems of the conflict of Palestine

Build trust by understanding and exploring different perspectives to get people’s personal story

Breath-taking engagement with people, you, the journalist, makes your mark on the media coverage

Students explore and learn from detailed and scary environment - they see the inside of the conflict

Trailer Palestine

Freelance journalist

Get the best article

Find informants

Gain their trust

Get their story

Dig out best quotes

Put together article

Highest journalist level

GameplayWhat is Global Conflicts: Palestine

You

Goal

Means

Winning

Teaching form

Teacher talks

Play Game

PlenumGroup

discussions

Read topic overview Overview of theme

Teacher’s manual Topics overview Curriculum mapping

Explore perspectives Experience issues Mission sheets

Discuss experiences Write article Worksheets Online companion

Debriefing Evaluation

What is the product

http://learning.seriousgames.dk/

d

Teacher manual

Mission sheets

Topics overview

Worksheets

ddd simple tests

In-depth online learning companion w. integrated webshop for digital distribution

Background for students: Timeline, documents, encyclopedia & links:

Specific themes: Work questions, small tests, links, video & pictures

Meet and discuss with other students: Forum & newsletter

Educational layers

Israeli-Palestinian conflict (Content): Experience everyday life in the conflict through real personal accounts on the conflic’ts core issues.

Human rights, terrorism & media’s role (Themes): In the game there will be regular references to human rights, terrorism, and the media.

Source criticism & writing article (Skills/Methods): Students have to be aware of the right angle, the agenda of sources, and article writing.

Perspective-taking, critical thinking & bias awareness (Competences): A variety of perspectives on the same events and issues, which force students to shift between perspectives while thinking critically of bias.

Empirical study

Blended learning experience

Experiential: The games provides a virtual tour to the

conflict with concrete experiences that provide a strong

starting point for learning about the topic. Learning styles: Dynamic feedback, interaction that

makes a difference, multimodal encoding, mistakes are

safe to make & you are presented with challneges.

What is Global Conflicts: Palestine

Different rooms for learning styles

Group work

Reflectiveobservation

Activeexperimentation

GC: Palestine

Lecture Abstractconcepts

Concreteexperiences

•Kolb’s cycle covered with different teaching forms in the course.

• The teacher is crucial to facilitate a full learning experience.

Empirical study

Qualitative feedback (students)

“Global Conflicts: Palestine is a fun and different way to receive learning” (Female student, 18 years)

“You had a greater desire to learn about the topic from Global Conflicts: Palestine” (Male student, 16 years)

”You learn a lot about how Israelis and Palestinians respectively look at the conflict, because you talk to

different persons... I think it is good that the stories derive from reality, providing the stories with a realistic tone.”

(Female student, 18 years)

Empirical study

Qualitative feedback (teachers)Customers

"By playing the game, the students reached a higher level of understanding on the issues of the conflict, than I could have

accomplished in a traditional way, so it has my highest recommendations.”(Danish 8th grade teacher)

"They are VERY interested and are highly motivated to it themselves.The parents say: Wish we had that form of

teaching in school!” (Danish high school teacher

"I used the game with our 11th grade World Cultures students - I have never seen the computer lab so quiet! All of the

students were seriously engaged and many expressed that they really enjoyed it” (US high school teacher

Students want more...Empirical study

90% students find it to be an interesting course

88% students find it to be an interesting educational material

59 % students find they learned more

90% students wants to try a similar course again

Sample: 51 Danish High school low-middle class students after a one-week course (similar results for 8th graders).

Other support for effiency

More motivated & engaged Activity perceived as more challenging Rention is often better

Most research say you learn from games - at least the same as

other teaching methods. Below overview of studies that support

learning from games

Yes Maybe No

20 1 2

Media coverage

Closing

”... Global Conflicts er en pioner, der forkaster computerspillets rigide krav om lutter underholdning for øjnene og erstatter dem med et lærerigt engagement for hjernen. Spilmediet er blevet skolemodent, for Global Conflicts viser, at spil har potentialet til at være dette århundredes lærebog, fordi de i kraft af deres interaktivitet kan levendegøre verdens problemstillinger som intet andet medie.”

- Review Politiken

Trailer GC:LA

Closing

Buy the private or educational package online at

www.globalconflicts.eu

Contact: sen@seriousgames.dk

Company www.seriousgames.dk

Trailer GC:LA