Student game development: Framing digital literacy for 21 (synopsis)

Computers & Education, 2021

Background: This exploratory study engaged teams of elementary and middle school students in the collaborative design of digital games. Game design is theoretically examined in this study as a form of knowledge-creating learning that is characterized by collaborative efforts to advance a shared object of activity, i.e., the game being designed. Using mixed methods, we examined how students experienced the game design project and how the project fostered connected learning, that is, integration of students' personal interests and supportive peer relations with their schoolwork, and how their self-assessed digital competences developed. Methods: The digital competences of 98 comprehensive school students across Finland were traced using pre-and post-questionnaires. The post-questionnaire also included validated measures on connected learning. Quantitative methods were used to analyze structured measures, and qualitative methods were used to analyze open-ended measures. Findings: Students experienced game design as an inspiring, challenging activity. Game design engaged student teams in sustained, collaborative efforts to create shared digital artifacts. Their efforts involved a great deal of mutual support and knowledge sharing. Participation also improved students' self-reported technical and artistic digital competences. The game design project fostered informal, interest-driven, sociodigital participation; inspired learning engagement; and improved schoolwork practices. Contribution: The game design project appeared to be a pedagogically meaningful way of engaging students in knowledge-creating learning and of connecting students' formal and informal learning. The project sparked students' motivation to learn, fostered digital competences, and enriched the learning environment.

Computers & Education, 2009

This study examined computer game development as a pedagogical activity to motivate and engage stu-22 dents in curriculum-related literacy activities. We hypothesized that as a consequence, students would 23 improve their traditional reading and writing skills as well as develop new digital literacy skills. Eighteen 24 classes of grade 4 students were assigned to either an experimental or control group. Both groups studied 25 the same curriculum unit over a 10 week period, however, in addition the experimental group developed 26 computer games related to the unit using a game development shell. An analysis of pre-and post-unit 27 scores on two standardized literacy test batteries revealed that the experimental students performed sig-28 nificantly better on one of the subtests, a measure of Logical Sentence construction (p = .002). Field notes 29 and teacher interview data indicated that game development helped improve student content retention, 30 ability to compare and contrast information presented, utilize more and different kinds of research mate-31 rials including digital resources, editing skills, and develop an insight into questioning skills. 32

In a time when massive online courses are providing stereotypic learning content with auto‐ assessment the need to stimulate creative learning is stronger than ever. If all assignments are of the closed typed with solutions that fit auto‐correction students will never use their creativity. The stimulating use of games and game‐based learning in educational contexts has been widely discussed in research during the last decade. There are also studies indicating that excessive playing might be a passivating obstacle for students. The aim of this study is to describe and discuss how game‐based learning might be used as a catalyst for creative learning with open ended project assignments with constructionism as the didactic idea. The research setup is a case study strategy consisting of three separate units. Each unit is a programming course where the author is the subject matter expert, course designer and the main teacher. Data has been collected in a combination of evaluation questionnaires, group discussions and analyses of games created by students in the three courses. Most ideas presented in this paper have also been discussed with teaching assistants and research colleagues. Findings indicate that open ended assignments where students design, implement and test digital games could kick‐start creativity at the same time as students will increase their programming skills. However, the recommendation is not to go for open ended assignments only, but rather a mix with some introductory exercises where games, or other software solutions, are built with more strict and formal instructions. From a teachers' perspective it is not necessary to build games in each and every course, what is important is rather to stimulate and encourage creativity in course assignments.

2016

Exposing middle school students to computer science through game design appears to be a promising means to mitigate the computer science pipeline challenge. Particularly when game design is integrated into already-existing middle school courses, either with an academic or a technology skills focus, there is a high potential for exposure, often reaching hundreds of students per school per year. In contrast to after-school programs, students taking these classes are usually not self selected, creating an important opportunity to vastly broaden participation in computing activities and to include more female and underrepresented students. Research suggests that exposure to short game design activities is effective in motivating large percentages of students in a wide variety of demographic groups. The Scalable Game Design project has trained middle school

2011

This study used technology-rich ethnography (TRE) to examine the use of game development in a high school computer programming class for the development of 21st century skills. High school students created games for elementary school students while obtaining formative feedback from their younger clients. Our experience suggests that in the teaching of computer science in high schools, the development of games that include common game features such as dynamic feedback systems, backstory, levels, cheats, and compelling graphics challenges students and engages them in learning. Incorporating real client feedback is also useful for improving their work and connecting it to the "real" world. This article reports findings from the second year of a research project with a high school computer programming class. The authors argue that such approaches that leverage video games, design, programming, authenticity, and cooperation mobilize multiple 21st century skills that must be nurtured among contemporary young people so that they may grow to be part of a productive citizenry.

Revista Lusofona de Educação, 2018

The mindset, behavior, and attitude of students in game development, project-based learning (PBL) B.Sc.'s towards the creative processes has proven to be a barrier with regards to the need to increase of the creativity of the student's project proposals. While it is true that a systematic use of Design Thinking (DT) throughout the curriculum would certainly improve the situation, a different approach is clearly needed, most likely an approach that combines DT with gamification, and that makes optimal use of project-based learning (PBL) using agile methods. In order to refine and clarify our possible contribution on the conjunction of such perspectives, we conducted an initial literature review that validated our objectives. Complementarily, we also defined a roadmap to transform such intentions into practical actions towards the creation of a new game development model based on DT principles. This whole definition is based on IDEAS(R)EVOLUTION methodology, which gives structure for the research on the long run.

Proceedings of the …, 2008

This session will explore different approaches to the use of computer game design in formal/informal learning environments. Game design is becoming a popular strategy for enhancing young people's interest and skills with computer technology, and for purposes ranging from deepening their understanding of scientific principles to fostering critical media literacy. The participants will present research findings that highlight similarities and differences in tools, pedagogies, purposes, and outcomes of game design activities. Game design is often presumed to be appealing to learners who ordinarily might not be motivated to learn through traditional instruction, and we will give particular attention to the significance of race, class, and gender in student engagement and learning through design.

Proceedings of the 2011 conference on Information technology education, 2011

As a part of an NSF-funded project to enhance computational thinking in undergraduate general education courses, activities and assessments were developed for a game design course taught at DePaul University. The focus of the course is on game analysis and design, but the course textbook uses an approach that is heavily grounded in computational thinking principles. We describe the course activities and assignments and discuss an initial assessment of those materials. Our results show that there is a gap in difficulty between several of the activities and indicate that the materials developed help students to better learn the computational thinking concepts in the course.

International Journal of Simulation: Systems, Science & Technology, 2019

Video games have been long established to be an effective educational tool to engage learners in the process of active learning. However, few studies have been performed to investigate the outcomes of employing game development, rather than video games per se, in the classroom. This posed a large gap in the existing body of literature of integrating the game industry into the education sector. Thus, this study served to address this gap, and argued that game development could serve as a pedagogical methodology much like video games for introducing related Information and Communications Technology (ICT) skills such as programming and multimedia topics, among other things. Conducted over three consecutive trimesters, this study explores game development as an educational tool in promoting the development of related ICT literacy skills among freshmen students in addition to the learning acquisition of the game development itself. More specifically, this exploratory-descriptive study sought to investigate how game development fits within the realm of learning ICT topics, and which of the following do freshmen find essential in developing their own original 2D web game. The findings show that game development, when used as a pedagogical methodology, poses the same potential just like any other educational tool used in a learning environment. While it warrants for more validation, the results of this study should be enough to give educational leaders and educators something to consider as to whether integrating game development in learning ICT concepts is worth the try or not.

2020 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE), 2020

Research and full paper. Digital games are increasingly a part of our daily lives and are already considered teaching and learning tools. However, its production and documentation is a very complicated task that requires programming skills and knowledge from different areas. This has hampered the development of games in the classroom environment. On the other hand, some teachers have proposed this activity to enable their students to learn school content in a more meaningful way and, consequently, improve learning rates. An alternative for the adoption of game-based learning is an unplugged approach for creating games based on natural language, in which students learn the fundamentals of computing in a playful way and without the use of computers. In this context, this article presents an approach that proposes the creation of games in an unplugged way by using texts produced by students, thus favoring the development of computational thinking and reading and writing skills in the c...