LEARNINGconnections
Multidisciplinary 29, 33, 35 • Science 31, 38 • Language Arts 37
Designing and Evaluating
Educational Video Games
By Len Annetta
to schools through HIFIVES ,
Highly Interactive Fun Internet
Virtual Environments in Science
( http://ced.ncsu.edu/hifives/). In
these environments, teams of students
assume the roles of characters in a
game, exploring a virtual world and
collaborating to solve challenges. This
approach takes the problem- based
learning teaching strategy and brings
it to life.
For example, one of the games challenges students to combine analytical
skills with biological concepts to solve
themurderofanEgyptianph araoh.
Theplayersmustfindthephara oh”’s
tombandanalyzetheshro udof
the mummifiedcorpse. U pon
discovering ancient bloo d
samples,studentscanan alyze
the DNA and test the re sults
against possible suspec ts to
find the pharaoh”s murderer.
As today”s games align
closely with customary
entertainment (i.e.,
movies and television), we find
the genre of entertainment
marketed at teens needs
tobetheplotof K–12game
design. For example, the
popularity of CSI, science fiction,
and psychological thrillers are
storylines that tend to engage
thispopulation.
Working in the College of
Education at North Carolina
State University (NCSU),
I have found that many practicing
teachers realize that children today
are different. “They are not doing the
things we used to do when we were
young,” the teachers would say, targeting video games as mindless distractions hour after hour when their
students get home from school.
With end-of-grade, “back to basics,”
multiple-choicetestingforthemasses
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andmec hanicalinstru ctionmetho d s ,
there is g rowing concern that
children are not learning to are not learning to
problem solve as much as they solve as much as they
aremast eringmemoriza tion
ofisolatedfactsinorderto
answerquestionsonth e
tests.Yetwhenth e yget
homefro mschoo
l,chil-dren eag erly devour new
informat ionandconcepts
while im mersed in video
games. I n what has
become kn own as a “
stealth-learning ” environment,
children are developing are developing
skills tha t connect and
manipulate information in the information in the
virtual w orlds of these games.
Instea doftryi tryi n gtofight
whatchi ldrenobviouslyen j oy,
theenticementofvideog a mes
can be u sed to enhance K– 12
educatio n. We are introducing
virtual le arning environments
project
to explore
the use of
virtual game
environments
to enhance K– 12
learning and to enable teachers and
students to design
and evaluate educational video games.
Using an interface
wrapped around the
source code for the popular game
Half-Life 2, we’ve created a platform
where teachers and students can
choose from about 15 different game
maps (such as the desert, the tundra,
the moon, and so on) and then can
use “drag and drop” tools to develop
their own games without actually
having to write computer code. After
all, who better to design a game that
precisely fits the lesson plan than the
teacher? These games align with the
state science and mathematics curriculum objectives set forth by the N.C.
Department of Public Instruction.
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T eachers Design Games
According to Curriculum
U sing a National Science Foun-
d ation grant, we have a four-year
Thirteen North Carolina teachers
of grades 5–9 have completed training at NCSU, created games for their
students, and brought their students in
to give their input to make the games
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