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2006 Campus Technology Innovators: Gaming
7/22/2006
Lim rolled out Flash Learning Games Generator 2 on campus, to support gaming and simulations in both campus-based and online courses. The generator helps Southern Adventist instructors create games in their disciplines without the need for technical or programming skills. Educators can spend their time solely on content generation and produce games in a matter of minutes. A variety of gaming objects allows them to provide students the same interactive content in several different gaming formats, so that the students themselves can choose how they will learn.
The games have become immensely popular with students,who even collaborate while interacting with the games. “They get others to play with them, or encourage each other to try them out,” says Lim.
How They Did It
The project was driven by the Office of Online Learning, working closely with faculty. The learning game objects were built using Adobe’s Flash. The learning game generators were created with PHP, for web-based deployment, and in Microsoft’s Visual Studio .NET, for standalone PDA deployment. Flash was selected as the gaming platform for its ubiquity, animation power, and robust scripting.
The game objects are designed to get students “hooked” on interacting with difficult learning content. Multiple levels of content randomization provide what students perceive as “fresh” content, providing concept reinforcement with less apparent redundancy. Students often want to play again and again, moving from one challenge to another. There is adequate content in the data bank to support hours of playing.
Lim takes advantage of a monthly technology faculty showcase to spread the word on campus about the learning game generator. He comments,“The faculty have exceeded my expectations in the way they embrace technology. There’s nothing like a faculty member to influence another faculty member.”
Next Steps
Currently, Lim is completing the rollout of the PDA version of the game generator. “The PDA/mobile game engine will have a farreaching impact due to its portability, mobility, and ubiquity,” he says.
Beyond that, Lim is working to identify more gaming objects. He explains, “Educators should have hundreds of gaming objects available to them that are intuitive to learning. And in the future, game pedagogy, popularity rankings, and usage statistics should be included with each game object.”
Lim is also planning to use WebCT’s PowerLinks to integrate with the school’s WebCT course management system. With an integrated question bank, future content creators who use the CMS will only have to enter the data once.
Advice
Lim’s advice for learning game developers is to focus on developing reusable game objects so that they can benefit a wider spectrum of faculty. He notes, “Content is king: If students don’t learn much, games have very little value.”
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