#1: How to use this Blog

I've recently had several fantastic conversations about video games and education.  Ed Prather and Dan Loranz planted an idea for a game in my head that's been stewing for a month and then I got to throw ideas around at FFPER with Joe Redish, Ruth Chabay, Elizabeth Gire and Ian Beatty.

At Ian's suggestion, I created this blog to start up a PER/video game community to get us to put down ideas and help each other flesh them out with the ultimate goal of collaboration on projects.

Everyone I talked to was very excited about the untapped potential of video games in education.  There are many aspects of video games that would appeal to us education researchers (e.g. student-centered learning, group work).  In a well designed video game, players are taught the rules of the world and are confronted with increasingly complex problems to solve as they learn more of the game's rules.

This is a starting point for the various discussions need to have in order to figure out what kind of projects we are interested in developing in the future. We need to talk about the existing work on learning and gaming (such as work by James Paul Gee), how to incorporate what we've learned through Physics and Astronomy education research into games, and much more.

Here is how you contribute:

1. Write your own post with your ideas on some other aspect of gaming & education.
2. Comment and offer suggestions on the existing posts.

Let's start a discussion!

Sébastien

#2: A Game Idea

I'd like to outline a game that was first suggested to me by Ed & Dan.

Game Outline
It is a single-player game for an Astro 101 class.  You play a character that has to master astronomy skills in order to solve problems and overcome obstacles to be able to advance to the next area where you learn new concepts and master new skills.  The game follows a storyline that starts with introductory concepts in a primitive village setting. As you progress and the concepts gets more advanced you would move on to a more advanced setting and solve more advanced problems (eventually the fate of the universe will be at stake). 

Progression
All video games have progression.  You start as a character with limited abilities, you solve problems and are rewarded with new abilities that allow you to solve more complex problems.  For example:  in World of Warcraft a mage starts as a level 1 able to cast only one spell and completes quest to gain experience to learn new spells, and acquire new equipment which allows them to solve more advanced problems.  When they reach level 85 they have reached a high level of mastery for a mage but most problems are now only solvable in groups. Group work is something I'd definitely like to work into the game but may start with single player modules.

Example Modules

1. An 'early game' example: Imagine a module designed to teach motion of the Sun, Moon and stars in the sky. Your character lives on an island and you need to be able to navigate between several local islands to complete quests to save your people. You would be able to explore the island and encounter people who teach new abilities the help you discover concepts and develop skills
2. A 'late game' example:  One discussion I had with Ian involved a module that involved learning about gravity.  If you've completed enough gravity-related 'quests' you learn the ability to temporarily change the force of gravity of a star or planet. This has great potential for problems where you have to use this ability to guide an asteroid's path through a solar system by tweaking the gravity of planets and/or the star.

Variations
This is the basic idea and I can imagine many additions and/or variations:

1. A multi-player version of this game where you have to work in groups to solve certain problems, 
2. Modularity instead of a set storyline. We develop modules for every conceivable astronomy subject and the professor chooses the modules they want for their class

Any thoughts?