Educational Game Design and its attributes that helps learning

Rationale Educational games, as an well-accepted effective method in education and training has been discussed a lot in the realm of games and learning in general, but little is known about what components of these games (i.e., game attributes) influence learning outcomes. Researcher in pedagogy has taken much effort in developing and analyzing workable metal models which can help people learn, however, they are not the real practitioner of game design which limits their knowing of the design context as well as conveying the knowledge to the design process. On the other hand, the primary problem that game designers encounter is that they have little theory on which to base the efforts. There are little definitions and frameworks indicating what a game is, or why people play games, or what makes a game great... Game designers are seeking to establish their principles of aesthetics, a framework for criticism, and a model for solidifying the value and contribution in specific field, such as education. The purpose of this article aims at helping designers to better understand the educational context and fit their work into a more concrete situation for creating values.

Outline (proposed)

Cognitive learning process and its attributes related to educational game
                     i.        Cognitive model
                    ii.        Engagement and addiction (argument: goal of playing games)
                   iii.        Attention and affect
                   iv.        Intrinsic/extrinsic motivation (interest vs. rewards)
                    v.        Combination of content and media (real-world experience and gaming behavior)

Relation between educational outcome and the involvement of game as educational tool.
                     i.        acquisition of specific skills
                    ii.        conceptual knowledge developing
                   iii.        forming learning strategy
                   iv.        self-efficacy and self-regulation

Game attributes that impact on learning: “distracting” or “engaging”
                     i.        Animation
                    ii.        Character sheet
                   iii.        Real-world simulating content
                   iv.        Story telling

Educational game design practice :
                     i.        Game design for teaching programming in intro-level
                    ii.        Educational game for music education.
                   iii.        Educational game with classroom setting
Cost and benefit of educational game design

Reference:

Gee, J. P. (2004). What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy. New York: Palgrave MacMillan. Chap. 3 & 5. Focus on how the principles are illustrated. Prensky, M. (2001). Digital Game-Based Learning. St. Paul, MN: Paragon House. Section “Putting the game and learning together” (pp. 164-173). Habgood, M. P. J., Ainsworth, S. E., & Benford, S. (2005). Endogenous fantasy and learning in digital games. Simulation and Gaming, 36(4), 1-16. K. A. Wilson, W. L. Bedwell, E. H. Lazzara, E. Salas, C. S. Burke, J. L. Estock, K. L. Orvis, and C. Conkey.( 2009).Relationships Between Game Attributes and Learning Outcomes: Review and Research Proposals Simulation Gaming, 40(2): 217 - 266. Baker, R.S.J.d., Habgood, M.P.J., Ainsworth, S.E., Corbett, A.T. (2007) Modeling the Acquisition of Fluent Skill in Educational Action Games. Proceedings of User Modeling 2007, 17-26. Squire, K., & Barab, S. (2004). Replaying history: engaging urban underserved students in learning world history through computer simulation games. In Proceedings of the 6th international conference on Learning sciences (pp. 505-512).Santa Monica, CA: International Society of the Learning Sciences William D. Russell, Mark Newton.Short-Term Psychological Effects of Interactive Video Game Technology: Exercise on Mood and Attention Kelleher, C. Alice: Using 3D Gaming Technology to Draw Students into Computer Science. 2006 Game Design and Technology Workshop and Conference, pages 16-20 Michael Eagle, Tiffany Barnes. (2009). Experimental evaluation of an educational game for improved learning in introductory computing. Proceedings of the 40th ACM technical symposium on Computer science education. Shalom M. Fisch. (2005).Making educational computer games "educational".Proceedings of the 2005 conference on Interaction design and children. Guillaume Denis, Pierre Jouvelot.(2005).Motivation-driven educational game design: applying best practices to music education. Proceedings of the 2005 ACM SIGCHI International Conference on Advances in computer entertainment technology. Patrick McCue.(2005).The crucial role of animated children's educational games. ACM SIGGRAPH 2005 Educators program.