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关于开展游戏设计课程需知的数个要点

作者:Jason Tomassini

在SXSW会议及此前的教育会议上,教育游戏成为教育领域备受关注的创新内容。无论是通过游戏帮助学生学习,还是通过游戏设计课程教授科学、技术、工程学和数学知识,教育者似乎都达成这样的共识:游戏是促使学生融入他们原本不感兴趣话题的最高效方式。

但令我颇为遗憾的是,会议谈论的话题仅局限于“游戏是优秀的学习工具”或者“游戏在课堂的最佳运用方式”。

令人欣慰的是,会上有个座谈小组成员阵容强大,是由K-12教育热门游戏设计课程及一家全球热门在线游戏公司的代表构成。他们的普遍共识是,游戏是向更感兴趣于《侠盗猎车手》,而不是下个牛顿定律的学生教授计算机编程、编程逻辑,甚至是设计知识的最佳方式。

educational gaming from cockroachesladybugs.blogspot.com

educational gaming from cockroachesladybugs.blogspot.com

但关于如何创造可行游戏设计课程及测试最终结果,座谈会成员给出如下建议。

* 首先,尽早启动自己的游戏设计课程。要尽可能早着手项目。若学生高中才接触游戏设计,那你就错过最佳教授时间。这一座谈会的成员包括来自Agent Sheets、超微半导体设备公司Changing the Game计划、女性组织Girlstart及三家大型游戏设计方案供应商的代表。他们主要为中学生或年轻更小的族群提供服务。Girlstart常务董事Tamara Hudgins建议设计针对6岁学生的游戏设计课程。

* 哥伦比亚大学媒介研究副教授David Gerding表示,“游戏通常从用户模型着手。我们需要教授孩子将其看作针对他人的服务,而不仅仅是瞄准自己。通过询问:‘我要如何帮你?’学生会从解决问题的角度看待游戏,而不仅仅出于娱乐。”

* 游戏设计无需是有关技术知识的课程。Zynga执行制作人Virginia McArthur表示,他们所有的游戏都是从宽泛的纸上模型入手,随后才运用技术或软件工具。她表示,“只有确定内容富有趣味,我们才会转移到计算机设备。”

* 现代电子游戏无论看起来多么复杂,其实都是基于非常简单的构思。McArthur表示,剪刀石头布模式可以是一款游戏的基础元素。她表示,学生首先把握“核心理念,然后基于此创建内容”非常重要。

* 收集数据和结果。要获得管理员的支持,追踪学生的分布情况及进步数据非常重要。例如,Girlstart在德克萨斯州共有1.45万少女用户。McArthur表示,其中2/3是少数民族,70%属于“濒危”群体。Agent Sheets创始人Alexander Reppening表示,虽然公司提供的是无需编程知识的拖放软件,但这促使用户所在地区的高中计算机科学课程注册人数出现明显提高。(本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,拒绝任何不保留版权的转载,如需转载请联系:游戏邦

Live From SXSW: Best Practices for Game-Design Curriculum

By Jason Tomassini

Over the course of the South by Southwest Interactive Conference (SXSW), and the education conference that preceded it (you can find the rest of our SXSW coverage here), in Austin, Texas, educational gaming is emerging as the most-discussed innovation in education. Whether using games to help students learn, or using game-design curriculum to teach science, technology, engineering, and math, educators seemed to have reached a consensus that games are an effective way to engage students in a topic they aren’t immediately interested in.

But I’ve been disappointed to see few of those discussions expand beyond, “Games are a good tool for learning” to “Here’s how games can be best used in classroom.”

Thankfully, one panel on Tuesday featured a strong roster of representatives from the most popular game design programs in K-12 education and one of the most popular online game companies in the world. The general consensus is that game design is an effective way to teach computer programming, engineering logic, and even design to students who are more interested in creating the next Grand Theft Auto than the next Newton’s Law.

But here are some suggestions from the panelists on how to create a game-design program that actually works and how to test its results.

* First, start your game-design programs earlier. Way earlier. If students are first being introduced to game design in high school, you missed the best time to reach them. The panel included representatives from Agent Sheets, Advanced Micro Devices’ Changing the Game, and the all-girl Girlstart, three of the biggest game-design program providers in the country. All offer services to students in middle school or younger. Tamara Hudgins, the executive director of Girlstart, suggested game-design programs for students as young as six.

* “Games usually are approached from a consumer model. We have to teach kids to think of it as the service to others. It’s not just for you,” said David Gerding, an associate professor in media at Columbia College in Chicago. By asking, “How can I help you?” Gerding says, students will approach games from a problem-solving standpoint, not just entertainment.

* Game design doesn’t even have to be a lesson in technology. Virginia McArthur, an executive producer at Zynga, the online gaming empire responsible for Farmville and Words With Friends (don’t act like you’ve never heard of them), said all of their games start with extensive paper modeling, before any technology or software is used. “We don’t go to the computer until we decide it’s fun,” she said.

* And no matter how complex modern video games seem, all of them start with very simple concepts. The framework for Rock, Paper, Scissors, McArthur says, can be the foundation for a game. It’s important for students to first come up with a “core concept, and then build off of it,” she said.

* Get data and get results. To win over reluctant administrators, it’s important to track demographic and future progress data on students. Girlstart, for instance, is used by 14,500 girls in Texas. Two-thirds are minorities and 70 percent are considered “at-risk,” McArthur said. Despite offering a drag-and-drop software that doesn’t require programming, Agent Sheets has caused an increase in high school computer science enrollment in its customer districts, said Alexander Reppening, its founder.

Stuff to think about before you send your kid to therapy for wanting to make the next Grand Theft Auto.(Source:edweek


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