1. Clark, D. B., Nelson, B., Slack, K., Martinez-Garza, M., & D’Angelo, C. M. (2011). Games and sims bridging intuitive and formal understandings of physics. Talk commissioned by the Gordon Research Conference on Visualization, Smithfield, Rhode Island.
2. SURGE games and simsbridging intuitive and formal understandings of physics Douglas Clark, Brian Nelson, Kent Slack, Mario Martinez-Garza, & Cynthia D’Angelo
3. digital simulations? computational models of real or hypothesized situations or phenomena that allow users to explore the implications of manipulating or modifying parameters within the models
4. digital games? definitions of games focus on rules, choices, play, and systems for tracking progress or success digital games involve: digital models that allow users to make interesting choices with meaningful implications an overarching set of explicit goals with accompanying systems for measuring progress subjective opportunities for play and engagement
12. good digital games help people construct productive mental models for operating on the underlying simulations
13. affordances good digital games can provide: engagement / approachable entry context / identification point of view / pathway stakes / investment monitoring / feedback / pacing / gatekeeping
14.
15. competition between learning goals and game design goals (e.g., visual complexity, competing mechanics, surface vs. core features) Learning Goals Tech Game Design
16. “game” = the software “Game” = community, practices, artifacts, and interactions around the game (Gee, 2007)
17. "conceptually-embedded" games = science processes embedded within the game world "conceptually-integrated" games = science concepts integrated directly into core mechanics of game environment (Clark & Martinez-Garza, in press)
18. Vygotsky’s “spontaneous” and “scientific” concepts different ways of knowing physics can be used to bootstrap one another
19. What design principles for digital games will support the development of intuitive understanding (“spontaneous” concepts”) and help bridge these concepts with instructed “scientific” concepts?
21. students made progress on challenging items based on the FCI(but effect sizes and power modest) (Learning and Affective Outcomes discussed in Clark, Nelson, Chang, Martinez-Garza, Slack, & D’Angelo, in press)
23. equitable outcomes boys replay levels somewhat more frequently. no significant gender differences in learning outcomes learning outcomes not correlated with reported gaming habits. similarities between countries in affective and learning outcomes.
24. visualizing gameplay data commercial game design knows the value of gameplay data frequency of death by location in cp_dustbowl(Team Fortress 2)
25. Heat map of player locations every 5 seconds(Halo 3)
32. what next? how can we provide players with access to these visualizations of their gameplay data to scaffold learning? what types of visualizations would be diagnostically useful for teachers?
33. SURGE design Learning Goals engagement / approachable entry context / identification point of view / pathway stakes / investment monitoring / feedback / pacing / gatekeeping Tech Game Design
35. players need to learn and use physics principles and representations to succeed in the game subsequent levels aggregate concepts and representations
37. support articulation of intuitive and formal ideas prediction through navigation interface planned real-time explanation through dialog standard game dialog text selection iconic of sentence fragment construction
41. focus on “just-in-time” feedback and signaling (Cuing and Visual Signaling work discussed in Slack, Nelson, Clark, Martinez-Garza, & D’Angelo, in preparation)
42. support broad challenge curve Engaged Dejected Bored keep people from falling off with “just in time” support minimize costs of failureand experimentation encourage improved performance through non-game mechanic influencing incentives game increases difficulty correlated to performance multiple paths or solutions of varying difficulty and reward
55. plan STUDENT PORTAL TEACHER / RESEARCHER PORTAL XML CATALOG FILE SURGE FLASH PLAYER WISE ENVIRONMENT XML DATA FILE XML DATA FILE XML DATA FILE XML DATA FILE XML DATA FILE XML DATA FILE schools bandwidth < 200 kb player & small xml files processing power simple flash administrative privileges for installation none Firewalls port 80 development bottlenecks multiple programmers simultaneously yes non-programmers design and revise yes WISE DATABASE
connects well with Richard Lowe’s emphasis on the composition processes
Richard Lowe’s focus on scaffolding composition
with Cohen’s d = 0.1541 and 0.344, respectively.
connects well with Richard Lowe’s emphasis on the composition processes
Torque marble blastMolecular workbench marble blast but move to wallsUnity marble blast kept walls because collisions were considered interesting part of game play and useful learningFlash / gravitee
avoid twitch and support strategy -- no tight mazes -- more conceptual -- this wan’tengouh -- prediciton and explanaiton came out as suggestions from science ed but journal seems not gamelike -- now we are doing pred in navigationa and exp in game dialog
challenges as players import game templates and expectations [impulse engine hard long key presses]
Cutscenes, Static Fuzzies, Scores and Medals -- people blew right past, got low scores and continuedgate at end people very frustrated no progress wo mastery but much frustrationgate at each point people saw connection but issuesgate at each point and Orange Just-in-Time help
Exploding no stabilize -- people careening madly much frustration and despairunlimited stabilize -- no frustration, no learning, and no sense of cheatinglimited stabilize –
Initialassumption was that medals and score would allow advanced players to engage in challenge. Many didn’t care about medal or score though in particular and 1st plan had fixed path and medals to encourage replay and challenge for more advanced playwanted to see how fast they could get to the end. They then went back and created their own challenges. such as how fast could they travel. Because we were still in the marble blast template, though players needed to floow the same path. Current plan a few simple goals that everyone must complete with multiple opportunities for bonus goals. Open path. Also working to take CAT and HMM tech to adjust difficulty based on previous medals -- if you have all golds, getting another will be harder.
Initialassumption was that medals and score would allow advanced players to engage in challenge. Many didn’t care about medal or score though in particular and 1st plan had fixed path and medals to encourage replay and challenge for more advanced playwanted to see how fast they could get to the end. They then went back and created their own challenges. such as how fast could they travel. Because we were still in the marble blast template, though players needed to floow the same path. Current plan a few simple goals that everyone must complete with multiple opportunities for bonus goals. Open path. Also working to take CAT and HMM tech to adjust difficulty based on previous medals -- if you have all golds, getting another will be harder.