Report Date

14/06/07

Project Title

Game Authoring

School

Malin Bridge Primary

School Project Leader

John Chadbourne

CLC Project Leader

Sarah Peacock

Report Author

Sarah Peacock

Project Aims

Maths:

• To assess specific mathematical skills/knowledge by playing and or adapting a computer game (To use Mission maker as an assessment tool in Maths)

ICT

• Plan and create a game, using a sequence of instructions to control a range of characters in a variety of ways (NC Level 3)

Other

• Explore the potential for game authoring to contribute to development of pupils meta cognitive skills, problem solving and team work
• Teaching staff to gain knowledge and understanding of how computer game authoring and design can be used in the classroom

Project Synopsis

Pupils used Immersive's Beta of Mission Maker, 3D computer game authoring software to design and develop their own computer games.

The pupils began by exploring a pre made Maths game and solved mathematical problems:

Room1: Use decimal notation for tenths, hundredths and thousandths - partition, round and order decimals with up to three places and position them on the number line. (Counting and Understanding Number - Y6)

Room 2: Identify prime numbers less than 100 (Knowing and using number facts - Y5/6)

Room 3: Find percentages of numbers and quantities (e.g. 10% of £80 or 15% of 15kg) (Calculating - Y5/6)

Room 4: Calculate angles around a point (understanding shape - Y6)

Room 5: estimate the area of an irregular shape by counting squares (Measuring - Y6)

Pupils were then shown how to how to adapt two of the rooms in the game (Room 2 and Room 5) to incorporate their own maths problem. They were asked to think about what maths problem may be a good problem to incorporate into that room and how they might do that. They were provided with a planning sheet and worked in pairs to discuss this. They had to provide a suitable Maths problem, work out correct answers and provide incorrect answers.

Once they had planned it, they then worked together to build their room in the game to deliver the maths problem to the rest of the group.

Once they had built the rooms, they were encouraged to swap and play each other's games. Pairs were asked to note how they solved the mathematical problem.

Number of Students and Teachers involved

30 students 3 teachers (includes cover teachers)

(Plans to extend to another class in Y6)

How was the project run

I spent some time meeting with John Chadbourne, the School Project Leader and planning how my proposed project could be embedded in his planned schemes of work. The Maths and ICT week was identified as a good opportunity in which to trial this project. I then spent some time designing and building a template game for the pupils to play and use as a model for creating their own mathematical problems. I liaised with Richard Anderson at Wolverhampton CLC, the Mission Maker Online Community and the SYELP Content Team who are also exploring this area of games in education.

I also produced some pupil friendly handouts on how to play and adapt MM as well as devising planning sheets to capture their maths work.

I went into school for an hour-two hours a day over four days initially to lead the sessions with John Chadbourne's support (Maths).

Project Outcomes

• Pupil's planned and produced games incorporating mathematical problems.
• We were able to informally assess some mathematical skills/knowledge by observing and using pupil's notes as evidence of how they played and adapted a computer game
• We were able to explore the potential for game authoring to contribute to development of pupils meta cognitive skills, problem solving and team work
• Teaching staff involved gained some knowledge and understanding of how computer game authoring and design could be used in the classroom. Teaching staff demonstrated a positive interest in the activity and discussed its potential adaptation into other curriculum areas such as Literacy.

Lessons Learnt

Introduction:

This has been the culmination of a number of months work that began with an after school gaming club started in October 2005. We used Game Maker for the after school club and this was very successful with the students. I believe game maker is a great tool for developing student's ICT skills, logic, maths and planning. I was particularly keen to extend the potential of game authoring away from pure ICT and exploring the potential for embedding it (where appropriate, not forced) across the curriculum. For this purpose, I believe that the ICT has to be relatively 'transparent'. I therefore decided to use Immersive's Mission maker for this.

Immersive released the beta of Mission Maker in 2006 and the CLC took part in the trial. I initially trialled it on a very small scale with a group of year 6 pupils as a way of developing branching narratives in Literacy in May 2006. Some of the pupil's comments were interesting;

• "It's better because you can actually play the game rather than just imagining it.."
• "..You can do your own stuff and put what you imagined into it.."
•  "I liked it because in normal games you don't have that much control over the game.."

During the planning stage at Malin Bridge, observations of the pupil's paired discussions regarding the maths and problem solving demonstrated the following:

• High motivation - their discussion work was focused and on task as they had a goal in mind
• Learning through collaboration - they were able to discuss what they know about Maths and set about working out solutions together (planning work attached)

During playing the model Maths game, observations of the pupil's pair work demonstrated:

• High motivation - their discussion work was focused and on task as they had a goal in mind
• Learning through collaboration - they were able to discuss what they know about Maths and set about problem solving together
• Pupil's ‘coaching' each other in ICT skills - pupils worked extremely well together individuals even offered help with game play outside of their own pairs. This may have given status to pupils who do not have this academically but have talent in these areas.

During the game development stage, observations of the pupil's pair work demonstrated the same positive outcomes.

Sample of student comments and discussions:

"2/5? Is that less than a half?" Pair playing the shooting gallery designed by another student

"It's multiples of 13. They only had 169...It's 13 times 13. I know because we've done square numbers.."

"What is the perimeter of a square if it's 91 and 54?."

"Sarah and Helen got it (their set correct answer) wrong. They put multiples of 13. I shot 5 and it was right.." Student discussing another student pair's game. (Names changed to protect student's identity)

Some pupils had difficulty with the ICT side of programming it into the game although, on the whole, with practise they found it easier than I'd expected. Importantly, it didn't lead to reducing their motivation for the tasks. I believe this is reflective of the software and timescale available rather than game authoring itself.

Survey - Student Feedback

Students were asked for their feedback on the project via an online survey. These were very interesting:

‘Playing games is a great way to learn because it is fun, interesting and easy.'

Students had interesting ideas about where games could be used in the curriculum. Science, Literacy, History and PSHE were common suggestions.

When students were asked: Are there any other subjects in school that you think you could use playing games or making games in? If so, how?

Some of the answers were as follows:

‘science'

'literacy: acting out plays'

‘P.S.H.E! So you can express your feeling on the characters.'

‘History, you could recreate classic battles ...this would help people with their history ..'

Interestingly, 80% of students questioned said that the level of the ICT was appropriate for them.

Conclusions:

The authoring tool needs to be considered carefully just as the video editing tool needs to be considered carefully in film making. The ICT should be relatively transparent.

Mission Maker is a great tool - it enthuses pupils and staff - it has fantastic graphics and is quite versatile, yet manages to stay relatively easy to use for those with some technical know how. However, I feel that Immersive have pushed this down the ICT at Secondary level route (e.g. they are working with OCR iMedia and DiDA to develop support materials). It would have been good to see it developed for use across the curriculum - particularly in Literacy used alongside Kar2ouche.

I feel game authoring still has potential just as animation and video in the classroom has. Other software options should be explored for their potential in use in Literacy (Caspian Thinking Worlds, Alice, StageCast Creator).

I think this will become more important to schools as the new Literacy Framework is taken up. There is a chunk of work in Year 6 - Narrative 2 that focuses on non linear quest-type text adventures. It is suggested in the framework that they respond to and create their own versions of these.

There is great potential for exploring themes and texts through game authoring at a basic level - especially when combined with film making or animation.

The planning and storyboarding phase of the game design is paramount if embedding it in Literacy and other subjects. This is where a lot of the learning takes place. Resources need to be developed for this.