A proposal for integrating Serious Games made with Unity3D into Moodle courses Frank Poschner, Dieter Wloka Presented at Moodlemoot Edinburgh 2014 www.moodlemoot.ie

1. Integrating Serious Games made with Unity3D
into Moodle courses
Frank Poschner
Department of Computer Engineering
Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
University of Kassel

2. Frank Poschner / Integrating Serious Games into Moodle courses
Agenda
• Serious Games – a short overview
• Motivation
• Technical background
• An approach for an integration
• User assessment
• Summary

3. Frank Poschner / Integrating Serious Games into Moodle courses
Explanation on Serious Games
• Games already exist for a very long time
• Reasons to play:
– Entertainment
– Profit
– Acquirement of skills
• Training games for consolidation of knowledge
• By having fun at games and repetition
→ easier gathering of knowledge

4. Frank Poschner / Integrating Serious Games into Moodle courses
Explanation on Serious Games
Learning Games, Serious Games:
– Games with serious background
– On the computer: simulators and computer games

5. Frank Poschner / Integrating Serious Games into Moodle courses
Explanation on Serious Games
• Fields of application:
– Medicine
– Health care
– Military applications
– Safety
• Different kinds of games
→ in our case: training in virtual environments

6. Frank Poschner / Integrating Serious Games into Moodle courses
Training simulations
• E.g. firefighters and cycling simulations

7. Frank Poschner / Integrating Serious Games into Moodle courses
Training simulations
• E.g. firefighters and cycling simulations

8. Frank Poschner / Integrating Serious Games into Moodle courses
Training simulations
• Motivation of firefighters:
– Saving time of presence
– Training of scenarios that would be difficult to train in reality
– Preparation of firefighter training on the computer
– Time-independent practice
• Communication and Cooperation via network
→ Decentralised learning

9. Frank Poschner / Integrating Serious Games into Moodle courses
Theory in Moodle
• Theoretical basis of fields of application
– Experts can define rules and exercises
– Knowledge provided by education or literature
• Example: Working rules for firefighters
– Theoretical content
– Tests with questions

10. Frank Poschner / Integrating Serious Games into Moodle courses
Theory in Moodle ( German example )

11. Frank Poschner / Integrating Serious Games into Moodle courses
Link to Moodle
• Features of Moodle are also useful for Serious Games:
– User profiles
– roles (teacher, student)
– Results and Grader report
– Etc.
→ Why not combining theory content and training
simulations in Moodle?

12. Frank Poschner / Integrating Serious Games into Moodle courses
Game development (Unity3D)
Elements of a game:
– 3D models
– Logic (scripts / programming)
– Avatars
– AI
– Physics, particle systems etc.
– Important: Export as web player application
→ for use in a browser

13. Frank Poschner / Integrating Serious Games into Moodle courses
Requirements
• Game can be started out of Moodle
• Game is treated like an activity or question type
• User date should be known in the game
• Storing the player's result in Moodle
• Teacher can review the results

14. Frank Poschner / Integrating Serious Games into Moodle courses
An approach for an integration
Using the SCORM (Sharable Content Object Reference Model)
– model for submitting the data
Specified by the ADL ( Advanced Distributed Learning) Initiative
Moodle Docs:
„SCORM (Sharable Content Object Reference Model) is a
collection of specifications that enable interoperability,
accessibility and reusability of web-based learning content.
SCORM content can be delivered to learners via any SCORM-
compliant Learning Management System (LMS) using the same
version of SCORM. “
Examples: Camtasia, iSpring

15. Frank Poschner / Integrating Serious Games into Moodle courses
SCORM overview

16. Frank Poschner / Integrating Serious Games into Moodle courses
SCORM and Unity3D
• Using the standard in the game's code
• Manager-entity collects data from the LMS or for sending it to
the LMS
– GetLearnerName()
– SetBookmark(location)
– SetNormalizedScore(score)
– SetSatisfaction(success)
• Awarding of points, aborting the game etc. must be included in
the game code

17. Frank Poschner / Integrating Serious Games into Moodle courses
SCORM and Moodle
• Teacher gets the game as a package
• Creates a new activity: SCORM package
• Some necessary settings have to be set

18. Frank Poschner / Integrating Serious Games into Moodle courses
Game communicating with LMS

19. Frank Poschner / Integrating Serious Games into Moodle courses
Assessment in / for Moodle
• Assessment: points-based in Moodle
• How to assess the player?
– Reached the goal: full score
→ only important to reach the goal
– Single actions correct
→ maximum reached when all actions were correct
– Wrong actions
• Abortion and new start in the game (points?)
• Abortion of the whole simulation
– Time-based (Abortion or less points)

20. Frank Poschner / Integrating Serious Games into Moodle courses
An example application

21. Frank Poschner / Integrating Serious Games into Moodle courses
An example application

22. Frank Poschner / Integrating Serious Games into Moodle courses
An example application

23. Frank Poschner / Integrating Serious Games into Moodle courses
Outlook
• Multiplayer for learning in groups
• Own question types for game packages
• Further evaluation functions for evaluating player behavior and
mapping in Moodle
→ GameAnalytics
• Teachers can create own scenarios and even own games
( modules )

24. Frank Poschner / Integrating Serious Games into Moodle courses
Contact
Thank you for your attention!
Frank Poschner
poschner@uni-kassel.de