LudoScience

Informations

Support : Références scientifiques
Author(s) : Tran CHI DUNG, Sébastien George
Editor : 4th Europeen Conference on Games Based Learning ECGBL 2010, Copenhagen, Denmark, 21-22 October 2010, pp. 393-402
Date : 2010
Lang :

Description

Serious games (SGs), the confluence of e-learning and videogames, have been developing very fast these past years. Indeed, SGs combine aspects of tutoring, teaching, training, communication and information, with entertainment elements derived from videogames, in order to capture people's attention for purposes that go beyond pure entertainment. However, the creation of a SG for educational purposes and professional training is a very time-consuming and expensive process. The challenge is to combine learning objectives and fun characteristics with an acceptable budget and time. For these reasons, we propose an interactive authoring environment, called EDoS (Environment for the Design of Serious Games), designed to assist SG authoring team. The EDoS is based on three models: (1) a formal domain-specific model of pedagogical objectives (competencies, knowledge, and behaviours) at which a SG aims; (2) IMS-LD-SG, an extension of the IMS-LD specification made specifically for SGs and (3) a task model formalized with CTT (Concurrent Task Trees) used to formalize Human-Computer Interactions sequences for screens of the game. The first model is the base of any SG design. Once pedagogical objectives are specified, the SG scenario must be elaborated very precisely to achieve them. The second model IMS-LD-SG is used for this purpose. A SG scenario is structured into logical chains and organizations, at different levels (play, modules, acts, activities) with which the users (learners or staff such as teachers, tutors, etc.) must interact in order to achieve their learning or assistance objectives. During the whole scenario elaborating process, these elements must be clearly defined and linked with the pedagogical objectives of the first model and also with gaming activities. These gaming elements and fun characteristics (amusing interactions, actions of characters, attractive competition, adventure, etc.) are specified by the CTT task model. The process of designing a SG is long and complicated and EDoS is developed to help the authoring team accomplish it. Indeed, it allows designing a SG through several steps, from formalizing the pedagogical objectives to elaborating a multi-level scenario and modelling Human Computer Interactions (HCI) sequences, in a structural and formal way. Moreover, EDoS also allows reusing resources (web applications, mini-games or components) of different suppliers. The outcome of EDoS is a structured scenario which will be automatically executed by an engine in the next phase of our production chain model. The EDoS provides SG designers with a method to create SGs faster and more efficiently, in a well organized process. 

 

References (1):

 

 

Alvarez,  J.  (2008) Serious  games,  Advergaming,  edugaming,  training  and  more,  IDATE  2008,  BP 4167, 34092 Montpellier Cedex 5, France.

Keywords : Serious games, Scenario design, Authoring environment, e-learning, Pedagogical objective

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