School learning is a difficult, time-consuming process requiring deliberate effort and commitment. Schools expect children to learn a great many things about hundreds of topics traditionally categorized by subject areas. But why are certain things taught in schools and not others? Why do we expect all students to know the same things about so many topics? Why isn't it acceptable for one student to concentrate more on mathematics and another on social studies? And why do these subjects have to be taught separately? There are questions, usually unspoken, that teachers and students often confront. After all, if it wasn't important to know, it wouldn't be in the curriculum, right? An interesting question that can trap many teachers in a circular argument - if it is in the curriculum, it must be important to know and only important things to know are in the curriculum. Students look to teachers not only for guidance on how to learn, but also for reasons why to learn. It's hard to explain to a fifth grader why they have to learn about Roman numerals. Explaining that you need to learn how to add fractions because "someday you will need to know this when you get a job" carries little weight with most children. They see school as their job. The best reason they know of to try to learn these things today is that there will be a price to pay if they don't - a poor score on the next test.
But many students do not care about things like test scores, Roman numerals, or even books that adults call literature. Those who do care often do so simply to please the teacher or their parents. While many children have difficulty in school due to physical or learning disabilities that are beyond their control, others do poorly because they do not take school work seriously. As a result, schools label these children, normal in every other way, as "at risk," "underachievers," "problem students," "disruptive," etc. Perhaps most disturbing is the conflict that arises between children who are and are not successful at school. Knowing the answers and pleasing the teacher risks the loss of standing and position among one's peers. School ought not to be this way. Hard work and creative ideas should enhance, not threaten, one's self-esteem and social standing.
Children's lack of motivation to "achieve" stems from them not seeing school tasks as authentic and meaningful. When you put yourself in their position it is easy to agree with them. How authentic is getting a score of 80% or 90% correct on a test? How meaningful are answers to questions that the teacher already knows? An authentic, meaningful task is one that matters to a person at this moment. It is a problem or situation that has a purpose or goal that impacts one's life now, not later. It probably does not have a ready-made answer or solution, but instead demands much effort and hard work. What tasks or situations do elementary and middle children find authentic and meaningful? While there are undoubtedly many things to include on this list, we have chosen to focus on one - games.
The purpose of project KID DESIGNER is to enhance the natural tendency of children to explore their environment through play. We view play as a lifelong learning process, one that should not be neglected as we grow older (Pellegrini, 1995; Rieber, 1996; Rieber, Smith & Noah, in press). In this project, children have designed their own educational computer games that embed content from subjects they are studying at school. Rather than considering a game as a mere entertaining diversion for children, we consider games, and especially the act of game design, to involve sophisticated intellectual skills. Game design is a difficult problem-solving process requiring great effort and creativity. Having children design and play games to learn about subjects in school is simply asking them to call upon the same strategies that they naturally use to learn about the world outside of school.
A premise of this project is that the creative investment one takes in the design process leads directly to intellectual "ownership" of the game's content. Rather than viewing the subject matter taught in school as disconnected and unrelated to anything more meaningful than passing an approaching test, what Perkins (1986) calls "truth mongering," game design provides students with a relevant context for adapting content for a useful purpose. This is similar to the not so surprising phenomenon that if you want to learn something well, teach it. Teaching is but one form of design. Similarly, game design appears to be an activity that requires active engagement, reflective thought, and deliberate effort in order to transform content into game material.
In this paper we describe the theoretical assumptions upon which Project KID DESIGNER is based and the procedures we have followed. Most important, we also provide an overview of the games produced by children to date and consider what these games represent in terms of learning, children's values, and the collaborative design process between and among the children and adults who have participated. Fortunately, the web based format of this article allows you, the reader, to actually play the games the children designed.
This project has been influenced by several theoretical frameworks - psychological, epistemological, and social. The project is constructivist in nature, a term used metaphorically (and often times haphazardly) in education to refer to learning as a process where individuals construct their own knowledge through meaningful interactions with the world. Learning is considered an active, controllable process that builds upon a student's prior knowledge and is grounded in meaningful, social contexts (Hooper & Rieber, 1995). This view is contrasted with "transmission models" of education which view learning as passing knowledge from one person (e.g. teacher) to another (e.g. student) (Grabinger, 1996). Modern interpretations of constructivism have been influenced by the work of Piaget, Vygotsky, and Dewey (see Duffy & Cunningham, 1996, for a review). Play and imitation are central to Piaget's notion of equilibration, a process based on the tension of living in an ever-changing environment while seeking an ordered, balanced world (Piaget, 1970). Play supports the assimilation of new ideas into a person's existing knowledge structures, whereas imitation supports accommodation, a process which expands a person's cognition as they build new knowledge structures which do not fit already existing structures (see Phillips, 1981, for a good review of Piaget's theory).
Piaget's theories are often criticized for neglecting the social aspects of learning. Vygotsky's work is often presented in contrast to Piaget's, though their approaches are far more complementary than adversarial (see Fowler, 1994, and von Glasersfeld, 1993). In fact, we have found it useful to blend Piaget's idea of how an individual constructs understanding with Vygotsky's ideas of social learning, such as Vygotsky's construct of the zone of proximal development (ZPD) (Vygotsky, 1978). According to Vygotsky (1978), ZPD "is the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers" (p. 86). This implies that individuals on the threshold of learning may be unable to do so without the aid or support from others. The extent to which one's knowledge can exist apart from its social context is a constant source of controversy (see Garrison, 1995).
The educational philosophy of John Dewey has also influenced us, especially his progressive views of democratic forms of education (Dewey, 1916). Students should have a say in what they learn and how they learn, what Papert (1993) refers to as the "right to intellectual self-determination" (p. 5). This does not mean that education should be a "free for all" without purpose, goals, or expectations. Indeed, these expectations come from both sides of a student's desk. In a democratic learning environment, students do not decide for themselves what will be learned, but rather have varying degrees of choices in negotiation with the teacher. As students show they can make choices responsibly, they are given even more latitude. Likewise, it is reasonable for students to expect school to be a place where they will be engaged in meaningful activities that connect to their lives in honest ways. It is not reasonable for school to ask students to postpone relevance to some distant, future time. School is not preparation for life, but a part of life itself.
Democratic ideals are rarely practiced by schools. As Glickman (1996, p. 11) notes, "The contradiction is that the public school is the only institution with an explicit democratic purpose, yet it shows in its everyday educative actions and decision making among adults and students that democracy is not a practiced belief. .... Instead, one finds most schools composed of advisory groups or site-based councils of positional authority making decisions for everyone else." Even the term "progressive" has been a source of misunderstanding. As Garrison (1995, p. 731) notes, "...what Dewey meant by progressivism is that progressive societies grow while other kinds merely reproduce themselves." While Dewey's relevance to current educational problems should not be overdone (Paringer, 1990), his fundamental ideas of learning through democratic and social means seem as true today as they were at the beginning of the twentieth century.
The inherent technological grounding of this project is most directly related to a particular instantiation of constructivism referred to as constructionism, a word coined by Seymour Papert (1991) to suggest another metaphor, that of "learning by building":
The act of learning by building is both a personal and social act. On one hand, transforming one's understanding of a domain into an artifact suitable for public display is evidence of an individual's cognitive processing. However, building something also provides the opportunity to get (and anticipate) feedback from one's peers, teachers, and parents, thus promoting relevancy before, during, and after the construction process. The range of things that one can build and put on public display is large. Traditional artifacts have included over the years such things as essays, term papers, and papier-mâché models. More recent examples include multimedia reports and presentations. However, as more children produce computer-based multimedia projects, there has been a tendency to shift the focus toward the technology itself (the graphics, sounds, and animations of the project) and away from the design process, leading educators and parents alike to justly wonder what do children learn from these projects (Troutner, 1996).
A possible answer comes from Perkins (1986, p. 5) who suggests a model of "learning by designing" based on four questions: 1) What is its purpose? (i.e. what is it for?) 2) What is its structure? (i.e. what are its parts, what is it made of?) 3) What are model cases of it? (i.e. what are some good examples?) and 4) What are arguments that explain and evaluate it? (i.e. how does it work? how good a job does it do?). With these four questions, the depth and utility of learning can both be directed and evaluated. Perkins asserts that if a person is unable to answer all four questions for something they have learned, then that knowledge has limited use or application (also called "inert knowledge," a term first coined by Whitehead, 1929). Interestingly, the four questions apply equally well to everyday objects (e.g., screwdrivers) and also school knowledge (e.g. the Pythagorean theorem). Schools typically focus most attention on question two, the structure of content, but rarely ask students to understand the purpose of knowledge, nor ask them to evaluate the usefulness of knowledge. This might be one reason why students have such a difficult time with history. Memorizing names, places, and events without knowing their relationship to other historical events, let alone to people's lives today, leads to decontextualized "factlets." We contend that to produce a good game, one must be able to answer all four questions.
Children learn in the context of authentic settings drawing information from their lived and often shared experiences. Many of these experiences occur outside the walls of the K-12 school and serve as powerful mediators for learning, much more so than contrived activities that accompany text and workbooks. As Brown, Collins and Duguid (1989) assert, "any method that tries to teach abstract concepts independently of authentic situations, overlooks the ways understanding is developed through continued situated use" (p.33). Children learn from their interactions with the world and from activities that are both challenging and personally meaningful. One way in which children participate in challenging, meaningful and enjoyable activities is in the playing of games. In engaging ways, games provide children with opportunities to learn skills and processes that schools identify as essential. Beyond the subject matter, many states (such as Georgia) have curriculum standards that include the development of problem solving skills, working with and respecting the views and ideas of others, and effectively communicating ideas (see http://doc.gac.peachnet.edu for more information on Georgia's standards). These skills and abilities are all essential in the process of game design.
Not surprisingly, one common thread among children of various ages, genders, and backgrounds is the enjoyment of games. We found this to be true of all the elementary school students with whom we have worked. In our discussions about games and game playing with these students, they appeared almost alarmed that we were conducting a "formal" class discussion about what they undoubtedly considered "play." Certainly, to children of this age play is a meaningful pursuit. Games which they play or invent create an authentic and real experience into which they, generally, become immersed.
Although games have a long history in education (Dempsey, Lucassen, Gilley & Rasmussen, 1993-1994; Randel, Morris, Wetzel & Whitehill, 1992), they are, unfortunately, often associated with entertainment either as a diversion from school work or as a reward for when the work is done. The motivational appeal of games is well known (Malone & Lepper, 1987). However, limiting the discussion to motivation is apt to designate the role of games as a form of educational "sugar coating" - making the hard work of mathematics or language arts easier to "swallow." We take games much more seriously as we consider both their motivational and cognitive elements. Whereas most children play prepackaged games in school given to them by teachers, we are interested instead on the process of game design itself and how it can enhance learning.
Schools typically rely on extrinsic motivation, or incentives externally provided (such as grades, praise, and even threats of punishment). In contrast, intrinsic motivation is based on a person's own curiosity, interests, and values (Deci, 1985; Lepper, Keavney & Drake, 1996; Lepper & Malone, 1987). Perkins (1986) notes that it "seems much easier to undermine than to amplify" activities which are intrinsically motivating (p. 116). Intrinsic motivation characterizes students engaged in meaningful pursuits. Perkins lists five factors known to foster intrinsic motivation among students: 1) the project itself has intrinsic worth; 2) the students are personally in control of the project; 3) the project stimulates a sense of competence; 4) the students work under "optimal challenge" (the task is not too difficult or too easy); and 5) the activity in and of itself is enjoyable.
Project KID DESIGNER encompasses all five factors. The students were freed from the fear of evaluation of their project. They worked to satisfy their own criteria of what was good and what was not so good in their game design. As we will discuss in more depth later, the students themselves were empowered in this game design process. They readily accepted the responsibility and the ownership of the project. The students' confidence in their own ideas and abilities grew as the project unfolded. Through this stretching of their abilities, we believe that most students were "optimally challenged" by the game design project. Certainly, the students found the process enjoyable.
Much of the work carried out in this project reflected aspects of Csikszentmihalyi's (1990) "Flow Theory." Simply defined, "flow" is the state in which we are so involved in something that nothing else matters. Csikszentmihalyi theorizes that experiencing flow activities, activities in which we are challenged, focused, and intrinsically motivated, pushes us to the extent of our present abilities and helps redefine us as more complex individuals. Additionally, these optimal experiences improve the quality of our life. Cultures, historically, have designed and played games to reflect the society's structure and roles; games provide practice for people to deal with conflicts typical to that culture in a nonthreatening way (Blanchard & Cheska, 1985; Roberts, Arth & Bush, 1959). We maintain that when designing games (and especially computer games) students construct their own "flow" experience. This was true for the children and adults who participated.
The project has been conducted in four separate classrooms over the past three years. The project has been carried out with limited availability of computer hardware and software and under the typical constraints of public schools - compatibility and consistency with the existing curriculum, limited time, and the need to manage the project carefully so as not to disrupt the rest of the school day. The classes that have participated to date have varied widely. We label these classes 1, 2, 3, and 4 in the following sections to more clearly distinguish them (and to show the order in which they participated). Class 1 participated in January, 1994. It was small, consisting of only ten fourth grade students who had been labeled as academically "at risk." This class normally met in a computer lab. Class 2 involved the same teacher and school, but with different students a year later (February, 1995). Class 3 involved a different school and teacher. In contrast to the previous two classes, Class 3 was large, consisting of 34 fifth grade students, and only had access to the one computer permanently installed in the classroom. Class 4 participated in May, 1997 (same school as Class 3, but a different teacher). Class 4 was also large, consisting of 27 fifth grade students, and the teacher could only schedule limited time per week in the school's computer lab.
Each game was designed by a team of students with an adult assigned to support them and facilitate the design process. The actual programming of the games was done by the University of Georgia personnel using Authorware, a multimedia authoring tool by Macromedia. The project followed five design stages: 1) Orientation; 2) Identification of game design teams and brainstorming; 3) Generating a project idea; 4) Preliminary design; and 5) Final Design Stage. These design phases were followed in varying degrees of formality and the time taken to complete all the stages ranged from four consecutive school days to two months.
Orientation
Each of the five classes began the project with a class discussion on the topic of games. Students were asked to tell about games they liked and why they liked them. In each of the classes, the discussion flowed easily and all students were enthusiastic about contributing. This was a topic they knew something about. It seemed as though no one had ever asked them to talk about games, despite the amount of time they devoted to game playing.
Each orientation was concluded with one more question posed to the students: What makes a game fun? As any professional designer will tell you, this is not a trivial question. The answer involves a complex set of psychological and cultural variables. All students recognized the fundamental importance of the question - games are only worth playing if they are fun. They talked about games they consider fun now and also those they used to enjoy, such as games they played when they were younger. It did not take long for students to focus on the role of challenge, that a good game was hard, but not too hard and also that challenge is a dynamic variable in that it can change even while you are playing the game. As previously mentioned, optimization of challenge is a fundamental characteristic of intrinsic motivation (Keller & Suzuki, 1988; Malone & Lepper, 1987). This complex idea was well understood by all the students, at least tacitly. The orientation ended with students asked to think about games, especially good games, and how they might design their own games incorporating topics they were studying in school.
Although we expected the students to be very familiar with computer games, we were nonetheless struck by how pervasive computer games were in the lives of these children. These students were used to sophisticated 3-D graphics, sounds, and high energy scenarios. This was a technology with which all seemed to have experience. Interestingly, only with Class 4 did attention turn during the orientation discussion to the topic of violence in computer games. We were surprised by the matter of factness students spoke of about violence. One boy, though perhaps hoping for attention, boasted that "killing people [during computer games] relaxed him."
Identification of game design teams and brainstorming
Two teams were formed in Classes 1 and 2 and four teams were formed in Class 4. In contrast, all students in Class 3 acted as one team (this turned out to be problematic, as will be discussed later). The way each team was formed varied from class to class. Classes 1 and 2 were generally determined by the teacher according to where students sat in class, resulting in two teams for each class. The students in Class 4 were permitted to divide themselves into teams and they appeared to do so according to their already established peer groups sharply divided by gender. The result was four teams: two teams of all boys and two teams of all girls. Interestingly, existing social tensions surfaced in Class 4 undoubtedly due to the way teams were formed. For example, the teacher reported that originally there was just one team of girls (by chance, approximately two thirds of the class was male), but this team soon divided into two separate teams due to existing social friction. There was also one boy who seemed to be an outcast, apparently having been ostracized by his peers long before the project began. As a result, there was much tension and antagonism between he and his teammates from the start. (See footnote 1.)
Once formed, the next step for every team was to meet and begin brainstorming possible game ideas, facilitated by an adult. Classes 1 and 2 were directed to design a game that was relevant to the science unit just completed (the laws of motion for Class 1 and understanding plants for Class 2). Classes 3 and 4 were not restricted in what content of the game covered in any way, though it was required that the game had to be considered educational - designing a game for entertainment purposes only was not allowed.
It became clear during the brainstorming that all students valued good ideas and it was interesting to watch how different ideas were evaluated by team members. Most teams had no difficulty in identifying a game topic quickly, probably because they had already spent considerable time thinking about it since the orientation session. The children also seemed a little surprised that their ideas were not being judged by the adults as good or bad, but that they were left to make the final decision. Negotiation did take place, but only in terms of what was possible from the programming standpoint. Many teams had ideas that originated from the computer games they had already played. For example, more than one team had wanted 3-D effects in their games and we had to sheepishly explain that our programming skills were not at that level.
Generating a project idea
Based on the brainstorming sessions, each team had to reach consensus on the general idea for their game. Students engaged in what Perkins (1986) would call problem finding. They were not trying to solve a problem given to them, but rather to create a new design. "Problem finding constitutes a crucial aspect of thinking characteristically neglected in instruction" (Perkins, 1986, p. 209). Students seemed to enjoy and be comfortable with the brainstorming process. Again, good ideas were recognized as so by team members. However, this stage was clearly most successful when a team consisted of 4-5 members. A team of this size generated sufficient ideas to keep the process moving, but not so many as to be overwhelming or confusing. This was the problem with Class 3 and resulted in many students in the class losing interest in the project undoubtedly because they did not feel part of the process (as it turned out, a small core of students took over most of the actual designing, although over half of the class still contributed in various ways).
Preliminary design
At this stage, it was important for the team not only to reach consensus over the general structure and purpose of the game, but also to effectively communicate this structure to the adult programmers. A prototyping process was used where a working model of the game was developed as soon as the fundamental game structure was established, even though few game elements had yet to be developed (e.g. graphics for the game objects). For example, if the design called for players to answer questions to progress through the game, the game prototype would have a "placeholder" for where the question would go. This allowed the students to see and play their game as it was being developed. The game prototype also provided the relevancy and authenticity for doing the actual development in the next design phase.
It's worth noting that the design of the games show an astonishing complexity. Most adults get quite confused when they read the directions to many of the games, not because the directions are poorly written, but because understanding the rules is quite a challenge. For example, here are the directions to "Maze of the Minotaur":
It's interesting to note that several of the other games use "money" as rewards: the lesson of the "value of a buck" has not been lost on these students.
Final design stage
This stage involved constructing or developing all of the game elements contained in the preliminary design. Students were responsible to generate all the game graphics (using KidPix or HyperStudio, depending on the class), write game directions, and whatever else was included in the preliminary design (e.g. game questions). Students found that this phase required hard work and deliberate effort on their part. For example, writing game directions is more difficult than it sounds. Though students could easily talk about the rules of the game and how it was supposed to work, transforming these rules into written form took considerable effort. Again, the authenticity of the task - all the students understood that games require directions - meant that the teacher did not need to invent a rationale for the writing. Writing game directions also turned out to be an excellent language arts activity for the students.
As another example, the preliminary game design of both teams in Class 2 called for questions about the parts of a plant and how plants grow, but at this stage they actually had to write the questions. Interestingly, research shows that having students generate their own questions is an excellent learning strategy (see Wong, 1985), but convincing students that they should invest such effort can be a challenge for a teacher. In this project, the students themselves decided they needed the questions and although they found writing questions difficult, they understood and accepted the task as important. Interestingly, the two teams in Class 2 decided to share questions, thus cutting the work load effectively in half - a creative, collaborative idea.
These design phases were followed in varying degrees of formality and the time taken to complete all the stages differed from four consecutive school days to two months. For example, the project was conducted the most formally with Class 1 and was essentially completed over the span of only four consecutive school days (more planning was done simply because this was the first class to participate in the project). Class 2 had the benefit of playing the games produced by Class 1. Therefore, they had a much clearer sense of the intended goals and outcomes. The project lasted for about three weeks with Class 2, but with about the same amount of class time formally devoted to the design process. The design process for Class 3 lasted for about two months and was the most difficult game design to manage simply because it was very difficult to reach consensus with so many students and so many ideas.
Having learned some valuable lessons from the first three classes, we used the design phases much more effectively with class 4. Not surprisingly, the children in all of the classes naturally wanted to use the computers as much as possible, even though many aspects of game design could be done well with paper and pencil (such as writing game directions, game questions, or sketching game graphics). They simply wanted to use the computer, partly due to its novelty and partly due to the feeling of being directly involved in creating computer games. This class had access to HyperStudio, another multimedia authoring tool, in their school's computer lab. Therefore, we constructed a "Game Designer Stack" (see Figure 1) using HyperStudio to give students simple word processing and graphics tools set in the context of game design. Not only did they enjoy using the stack, it also clearly organized the game design process for them (it's important to note that these students had never used HyperStudio before, but quickly mastered the tool sufficiently to use this stack). The stack also made it much easier for us, as the programmers, to collect and manage the various game elements constructed by the students. Each student also had his/her own disk containing the game designer stack, thereby giving each student physical ownership of their contribution to the game project.
As shown in Figure 2, a total of nine games have been produced through the collaborative efforts of the four classes and adult facilitators. It is not feasible to describe any of the games in detail, rather we have chosen to briefly discuss some broad general outcomes. These outcomes are reflected in the games themselves and the events that surrounded the development cycle (i.e. the process where the game designs were built into working prototypes, and then refined in the final version). First, the games reflect one representation of how students perceive domain knowledge in a school's curriculum. Two, the game design and development process illustrate the act of collaboration between the students and also between the students and adults. Three, the project demonstrates an example of what students do when they are empowered with decision-making responsibilities.
It is reasonable to ask at what point did the children's input end and the adults' begin. Throughout the project, our goal was only to facilitate the children's ideas. However, compromises had to be negotiated as the games went into development. This is why we chose to use a rapid prototyping approach. It is difficult to know if a game design is appropriate until the game is played, even in crude form. This prototyping process allowed rich discussions to take place between the students and the adults. Students probably first recognized how seriously their ideas were being taken when they saw the first working prototype. Seeing and playing this first working example of their game provided real evidence that a group of adults valued their ideas enough to spend obvious and considerable time and effort to build the working prototype, followed by the students asked to critique the adult's work to ensure that the original design ideas were faithfully reproduced.
Student Perspectives on Embedding Content in a Game
One of the most important attributes of educational game design is how to embed content into the game fantasy. For example, Malone (1987) talks about a game's fantasy context to be either endogenous or exogenous to the educational content of a game. An exogenous fantasy is clearly separate from the content, such as popular "hang man" games. Any content can be superimposed on an exogenous fantasy and there is no mistaking the game from what is to be learned. Students play these games in spite of the educational value. In contrast, games with an endogenous fantasy blend or "weave" the educational content with the fantasy, such that it is not clear where to draw the line between learning and having fun. These are more difficult games to design. The children's game effectively show these two sorts of fantasy contexts. We have been quite impressed overall in creative fantasy contexts invented by the children for all of the games.
An endogenous fantasy is well illustrated in "Space Race," a game designed to teach about Newton's laws of motion. The goal of the game is to drive a "rig" around a race course in outer space, trying to get to the finish line as quickly as possible. One important concept that the students embedded into this game was the concept of mass and its relationship to acceleration. This is the basis of Newton's second law, where the force is equal to mass times acceleration (i.e. F=ma). This relationship also means that an object's velocity changes proportionally (i.e. acceleration) to changes to the object's mass (assuming that the force remains the same). If you are driving the small rig (less mass), it is easy to maneuver the rig because it responds more quickly to the controls. However, the small rig can be defeated by a roaming "alien," should they happen to meet, and the game ends. If you choose to drive the "big" rig (more mass) it will be less maneuverable, but it will defeat the alien if they meet.
In contrast, an exogenous fantasy is illustrated in "Super Cross," a game designed to teach math facts. The goal of the game is to ride your motorcycle to the finish line of three individual motor cross courses, each more difficult than the previous. Along the way, you have to successfully navigate several jumps. If you are going too slow (making it easy to maneuver) when you encounter a jump, you have to answer correctly a randomly generated math problem to proceed. If your answer is incorrect, you go back to the beginning of the course. This game was considered to be one of the most successful as evidenced by the number of other students in the class who wanted to play the game (mostly boys). But most would have preferred that the game not contain the math facts. This game uses mathematics as a penalty and we wonder how deep that perception may go for school subjects in general.
Most of the remaining games use questions as the means to bring other educational content, such as history and science, into the games. Questions are a standard way students experience and test their understanding of subjects at school. Also, all of the games require some physical action or manipulation on the part of the player, clearly an influence of video games. However, this also gives the player some level of control. Students seem to enjoy the physical challenge of manipulating game objects. Mazes appear in a third of the games. Mazes are a favorite game structure for children and lead to a variety of interesting game ideas.
Are games that children designed actually liked by other children? This is an interesting question that we have not as yet investigated. This project has concerned solely the constructivist activity of building games as a route to learning and social interaction. If the games turn out to be interesting and fun to other children, there is a secondary bonus, albeit an "instructivist" one, in that children can learn from playing games other children designed.
Collaboration
As the students in groups worked together, we were able to make a number of observations about the groups' dynamics. First, the group members became quite adept at the negotiation of ideas, decisions and the division of tasks. In an all-girl group, members democratically discussed the details and changes that effected the visual layout of their game. As this occurred, all voices were recognized and respected and eventually consensus was reached. Second, informally and almost spontaneously, a natural leader emerged that helped the group proceed through the design process. Although all members of the group made contributions on some level, they often turned to and deferred to the lead child when final decisions needed to be made. For instance, when the group members needed to decide on the size of a playing piece, the programmer gave them several options from which to choose. Subsequent to a brief discussion at which no final decision was reached, the group turned to their informal leader and asked, "What do you think?" When she gave her opinion, the group agreed on her assessment and went with her choice. It was of great interest that the students in the group chose to turn to their student leader instead of the adult programmer.
The last observation made about the inter-group collaboration was that the group recognized many of the particular talents of the individual members and matched tasks appropriately with these individuals. This supports Dewey's (1929) notion that "true education comes through the stimulation of the child's powers by the demands of the social situations in which he finds himself" (p.3). An example of this occurred in a group in which riddles needed to be written to add challenge to the game. The group collectively turned to one group member and said, "You like riddles and are good at them, so maybe you should write some for our game." The riddle-proficient student agreed to the task. Later, the adult programmer learned that the group member appointed to write riddles was considered a low-achieving student. The group superseded this school information about the child and instead relied on their knowledge of her in social and informal settings as evidenced by the statement "You are good at riddles."
Beyond peer collaboration, each student group collaborated with us as the programmers for their design. Initially, we felt the students saw us as three teachers; we were there to "instruct" them in game design. However, we hoped that in this role, we could be, as Perkins (1986) describes, "models of ignorance" (p. 219). As part of their group, students would make suggestions about how the game should look or how the user interaction should work. We would discuss programming possibilities and even explore potential approaches that were beyond our experience. Some of the possibilities they liked, others they modified. So indeed, after several weeks of dialogue, the students came to see us not as adults who knew all the answers, but as adults who were often puzzled by design considerations, but willing collaborators in search for solutions.
As mentioned earlier, students find that there are often social risks associated to knowing the right answer to a school question. Balancing success at school with peer relationships is a delicate matter. At the end of the project in Class 4, we noticed what we feel is a significant event that turned "knowing the answer" into a valuable social commodity. One boy was playing and enjoying "Super Cross," but he clearly did not know his math facts. Rather than give up the chance to continue playing, he turned to a boy sitting nearby for answers to the math problems. In this situation, the boy with the answers became important to his friend because he knew the answer.
Often, there are students in classrooms who, for whatever reason, remain on the outside. As previously mentioned, we witnessed this situation with Class 4 during our initial visit, noticing that one boy was ostracized and teased by his classmates. During the various stages of the design process, his suggestions were often dismissed by the team. However, near the end of the project, he made a very clever design suggestion which the other team members greeted with comments which included "that's a great idea," and "yeah, let's do that." Certainly, there is no way to measure what this did to his self-esteem, his standing in the group, or his own feelings of contribution to the process. But, for at least one moment, this pariah was not treated as the outcast. A good idea, in the context of an activity valued by a social group, has a way of leveling the "playing field."
Empowerment
Lincoln (1995) believes that "children are the primary stakeholders in their own learning processes" (p.89). Children can become deeply invested in their learning when they feel empowered to choose what they learn and the ways in which they learn. By collaborating with children to create a game that uses their ideas, the teacher is given a peek into the ways the students think and insights into what kinds of things matter in their lives. As Lincoln (1995) states, "Children and adults combine power and create new forms of wisdom when they explore learning together" (p.89). The process of designing a game becomes synergistic in that adult and students create a product (the game) while engaging in a process that strengthens the cognitive and affective (e.g. self-esteem) skills of the students. In working with the students in Class 4, we noticed gains in their ability to collaborate and negotiate with each other and the adult facilitators, as well as their ability to hone their organizational skills. They also appeared to gain confidence in decision making about the games progress and they recognized the need to clearly articulate these details to each other and the adult programmer.
At first, the students seemed reluctant to give their own input and opinions. Perhaps they were looking for the "right" answer or were unaccustomed to having the freedom to express their ideas and have these ideas valued. After the group saw that their ideas were essential in order to construct the game, they became more open to contributing their ideas. The interchange between group members and the adult programmer became more interactive. They started to give themselves permission to be in charge. As Oldfather, Bonds and Bray (1994) point out, "We feel more strongly about giving children freedom and time for self-expression, and to let them experience what Oldfather (1993; Oldfather & McLaughlin, 1993) describes as 'sharing the ownership of knowing'. Children experience a greater sense of agency as they find that knowledge is not solely the domain of teachers or other adults, but that they can think, they can know they can experience, as Duckworth (1987) suggests, 'the having of wonderful ideas' " (p.12).
At times, the empowerment of the students created an internal struggle over values between the adults as programmers and the students as designers. The girls who designed the "Magic Carpet" game envisioned the prince saving the princess from the castle. They were asked to reconsider their vision of "who saves who," by asking if they thought about having the roles reversed - the princess saving the prince. The unanimous response was "No, that wouldn't be romantic." These students demonstrated definite ideas about gender roles and romance.
While we doubt that anyone will argue against helping whales avoid being caught in a fishing boat's net ("Ocean Exploration"), we wonder how many adults will object to the demonic tone of "Maze of the Minotaur." For example, in this game there is a devil-like monster that is "awakened" when the player strays off of the maze path. There is also a demonic voice that plays when the player is sent to the "dungeon." Interestingly, a boy was able to create this sound by recording his own voice and then replaying it back at 50% normal speed - a creative technique he learned on his own. In "Space Race" one needs to avoid the roaming "alien," thus giving in to the stereotype that "beings" not like us are to be feared and not trusted. The message is clearly "kill first and ask questions later," not unlike how the U.S. government treated Native Americans in the 19th century. One of the most interesting dilemmas occurred in the design of "Underwater Sea Quest" over the validity of the content. The content calls for a gravity-free, frictionless environment and ocean water does not meet these conditions. The children wanted to keep the context, and in our group discussions we compromised by having this game take place in a "special" ocean in which there was no friction or gravity. (See footnote 2.)
Undoubtedly, many will find other objectionable elements in the games or game elements that conflict with their values. But because the students were the designers, and our role was that of consultants/programmers, they retained control of the game's content (even when our values conflicted with theirs).
As previously mentioned, the project has been carried out within the typical constraints of a public school. Most notably these included limited time and limited availability of computer hardware and software. Despite these limitations, the project has provided convincing evidence to support the hypothesis that children, can, in fact, undertake complex design projects such as these when given appropriate support. Not only have the children proven to be capable designers, they have been willing and able to work collaboratively in groups that include their peers and adults. The students have shown the ability to grow intellectually and emotionally in this process. The students recognize when they and their ideas are being taken seriously by their friends and adults. Mutual respect is one result. While the project has not been easy to manage at times, we are slowly identifying obstacles and ways to overcome them. The design phases discussed here, the support tools generated thus far (e.g. HyperStudio Game Design Stack), and the inevitable improvement expected in authoring tools all suggest that computer game design is a learning environment worth considering. Games, electronic and otherwise, are a significant part of the children's lives and social interactions - to engage children in the topic of computer games and their design in a classroom is asking children about something they know a lot about and to show that their ideas carry value and worth.
An obvious criticism of the project has been the reliance on university personnel to program the games based on the children's design ideas and the game objects that they constructed (i.e. graphics, directions, rules, etc.). It was never our intention to suggest that the project is at a stage to be readily implemented by teachers who do not have this support. Other projects, such as that conducted by those at the Media Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Harel, 1990; Kafai, 1994), have worked with schools who have dedicated large blocks of time to have students learn programming sufficiently to program their own games. We did not have this luxury, working instead with schools interested in the project to supplement, not supplant, the regular curriculum.
While the children who have participated in the project thus far could not have programmed the games to the degree we were able (at least not in the time allotted), this does not mean that other approaches should not be considered. The long history of children programming with Logo shows that children are more adept and more able to handle cognitive tasks than adults first suspect. Although we support the idea of children assuming more of the authoring/programming and giving them powerful computing tools, the real problem we foresee is time. Most schools are simply either not willing or able to dedicate the large blocks of time necessary to have children learn authoring tools sufficiently to program computer games. But authoring tools change quickly. Many of the multimedia authoring tools currently in use in many schools - HyperStudio, Digital Chisel, MicroWorlds Project Builder (i.e. Logo) - enable the design process much more effectively than the tools available even just ten years ago. We expect the next generation of authoring tools to be even more compatible with the interactive demands of computer gaming. For example, Cocoa (http://cocoa.apple.com/cocoa/home.html) (previously known as KidSim) is one tool currently available from Claris Corporation specifically meant for children to design rule-based programs such as simulations and games.
Even at this early stage, there are many practical aspects of the project that can be readily implemented by creative teachers open to constructionist principles. One idea is to have high school students already enrolled in multimedia design classes, common in many districts, collaborate with elementary and middle school classes. The high school students would handle the programming just as the university personnel did in this project. (If these campuses are not located near each other, making it difficult to collaborate in person, web-based approaches to collaborative design might be explored.) Of course, game design does not have to limited to the computer. Teachers may find their classes eager to engage in building games using the technology of paper, cardboard, markers, and glue. We admit, though, that much of the authenticity of this project has come from the children's desire to be part of the "inner culture" of computer games.
Finally, others will be wondering about other outcomes not mentioned here, such as whether or not the students learned more about math, science, history, language, or Greek mythology. While this is a reasonable question, it is a fairly uninteresting one given the state of the project. Play involves long-term consequences to learning and are not well evaluated on short-term measures (Glickman, 1984; Singer, 1995). However, we anticipate that the next stages of the project will begin investigating such questions. For now, the project has demonstrated that game design gives children an authentic, meaningful context to apply ideas from school subjects - they find designing a game to be a good use of the curriculum and it is a process that make sense to them. Likewise, the project has given us insights as to how children perceive and value school subjects.
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Author Note
We thank the students and faculty at County Line Elementary School, Winder, Georgia and Benton Elementary School, Nicholson, Georgia for cooperating with us on this project. We especially thank the cooperating teachers - Cindy Ellington, Holly Ward, and Amy Halley.
1. We never learned the full story about this boy or how he eventually became part of the team. We assumed that the teacher had a role in determining which team he joined.
2. Actually, the superfluidity of liquid helium seems to match these characteristics (based on the work of the late physicist and Nobel laureate Richard Feynman; see Gleick, 1992), so perhaps there is a precedent after all for such a "water world."
To play the following games, you must be using a Macintosh computer and have the correct Shockwave for Authorware plug-in installed for these games to work. You don't have Shockwave? No problem.......
free of charge from Macromedia. |
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Learn about Newton's laws of motion by driving a space rig.
Learn about Newton's laws of motion by trying to find treasure while swimming in a special ocean where there is no friction or gravity.
Learn all about plants by helping a whale stay clear of a fishing boat.
Learn all about plants by helping a herbivore eat plants as you go through a maze.
Learn math facts, Greek mythology, and answer riddles as you move your Greek hero through the Minotaur's maze. Be careful - don't awaken the monster.
Learn your math facts by riding a motorcyle over three different motorcross courses.
Ride a magic carpet in a beautiful castle to save the Princess while answering math facts.
Feed your cat by chasing mice (and a rat) while answering math facts.
Help Christopher Columbus and his crew get to the 20th century. Watch out for rocks and whales!
Instead of playing each individual game in shocked form, you can instead download a folder containing all of the games. All of these games are copyrighted, but permission is given to all elementary and middle school students and teachers to download these games free of charge. If you download and keep these games, send me an email note at LRIEBER@COE.UGA.EDU with the following information:
Of course, we would also like to get feedback from you as well.
To expand these files you will need Stuffit Expander, Stuffit Lite, or Stuffit
Deluxe. Shareware versions of these utilities can be found at Aladdin
Systems, Inc.