Friday, July 22, 2011

Physics Video Game: Ludwig

I found an interesting game called Ludwig. It's still in beta testing and aims to teach physics, specifically energy.   Click on the Watch Video button or download the demo (PC only), its pretty interesting.

I point this one out because of its similarities with the game idea we discussed. There are a few features in the game that I like, though I don't necessary like the way they were implemented:

  • There is a concept map you can refer to that grows as you discover new concepts.
  • There is a laboratory where you can start to run experiments once you've found the correct items
  • There is a storyline that, in theory, requires you to learn about concepts of energy in order to progess
From what I've seen the game so far however, it looks like all you have to do is find the right materials and combine them and you can progress, there doesn't seem to be any real learning. You can basically get pretty far by walking around, picking up everything you find and testing to see if it will fix the task assigned to you.

Sébastien


Ian: this game was made using Unity, the 3D engine we had talked about at FFPER.

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1 comment:

  1. IanAugust 11, 2011 at 7:08 AM

    Interesting.

    Your comments raise an issue I've been thinking about: If learning progress is to be measured by game progress, we need to be pretty careful that students actually have to learn what we want them to learn in order to progress. That is, they must actually generalize and form abstracted, conceptual knowledge with the appropriate linkages to mathematical and graphical representations, rather than just learn by trial-and-error how to move through the world…

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