Serious Gaming Doesn't Have to be Seriously Expensive
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My Presentation from the Thames Valley and Wessex Technology Enhanced Learning event - Serious Gaming Doesn't Have to be Seriously Expensive
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Serious Gaming Doesn't Have to be Seriously Expensive
- 29. Tools
- 34. What Did Learners Think? This Northford video is a good reminder to all YAS staff whether clinical or in support that our approach to others should be with respect. Overall a good tool to remind us of how the patient and others see us. The course is good and the person sitting at the pc can keep pace. Provokes opinion which generates discussion.
- 36. How much did it all cost? (Plus about £500)
- 37. Did anyone guess the celebrity narrator?
- 39. Top Tip 2: See what equipment you already have available
- 40. Top Tip 3: Do your homework
- 42. Top Tip 5: Dream Big - You Don’t Need a Hollywood Budget!
- 44. Top Tip 6: Have Fun!
Editor's Notes
- RICHARD: Ladies and Gentlemen - welcome to Northford! AUDIO: “Northford is a town on the beautiful Yorkshire coast with a population of more than 30,000. It is a seaside resort and a minor seaport on the North Sea. “ “Northford enjoys a healthy tourist trade especially during the summer months. Out of season tourism has increased over the last few years due to the growing number of sporting events and conferences held here.”
- AUDIO: “Some areas of Northford have been subject to constant redevelopment enticing higher earners to reside in the more exclusive and luxurious areas the town has to offer.” “In contrast, a 2011 government census identified some areas of Northford as the most deprived, dilapidated places across the UK desperate for regeneration. The number of violent crimes and robberies in this area is well above the average for the UK.” RICHARD: Does any of that sound familiar? Well, it should do! It’s a fictitious town but if you’ve ever been to Bridlington, Brighton or Brixham then some of those facts might sound familiar! By the way, does anyone recognise the voice of our narrator? More on that later – prize for anyone who can guess who it is! Introduce Richard
- About 2 years ago I got involved with a European project called WebWise. We teamed up with academics from across the EU including Greece, Germany, Italy and Slovenia to explore the use of social media, gaming and other web 2.0 technologies in education. This presentation is called “serious gaming doesn’t have to be seriously expensive” and let me tell you, the amount of money we got from the EU was peanuts – we didn’t cover costs!
- So, let’s take a step back – what is serious gaming? When you hear gaming you probably think of these type of characters. I’m probably showing my age by picking these fellas, but the point is many of the concepts used in games can also be translated into serious gaming. Let me give you an example – each of these games offers rewards as you progress through such as extra lives or mushrooms in the case of mario and luigi at the top there. These incentivise players to progress through the levels and complete the game and we can apply the same concepts to educational games.
- Back to our Northford project. At the beginning, our narrator told us a story about our fictitious Yorkshire town and that was one of the starting points for our serious game. The university of Cumbria have created a “virtual soap opera” set in a fictitious town called Stilwell. The concept is based on the use of storytelling to convey a message. Example of a character who was self-harming and how she was dealt with by the different agencies caring for her. The UK Police also use a similar fictitious town in their education and that’s where the idea started to evolve.
- We thought about how we could combine the storytelling with serious gaming. A lot of games use a map to present information, so this was an obvious starting point. Here’s a sketch of our town map before it was converted into an image like at the beginning of this presentation.
- We then started researching our characters and giving them backstories to make them believable. This is our lead character – our elderly lady (elsie now joan).
- We set about storyboarding a set of scenarios relating to patient care, dignity and respect around these characters. Finally putting my A-Level in art to good use at last!
- So, this is our town map and where users start (after a tutorial). As game progresses, new building are added to the map.
- Clicking on a house loads the character timeline. This is Simon, our cocky young paramedic who likes the ladies!
- We even created him a Fakebook page in the game to enhance the realism.
- Other characters also had fake social media channels like the slightly corrupt mayor of the town.
- The mayor also had a fake Twitter feed.
- Our Community Responder ran the allotment association in his timeline, so we created a fake website for it.
- As users progress, new buildings are added. These are our community buildings – tourist information, bank and a hospital. Each is interactive, so you click on them and it takes you to some further information relevant to the game.
- Here’s our hospital. It uses hotspots for users to interact with the characters.
- When hotspots are clicked, we added some fun bits like this.
- And also some more serious bits like this….
- We also had a museum which stored all our gamers trophies to reward them for achievements.
- Trophy cabinet in the museum
- Northford Newspaper office added.
- Does anyone remember SimCity and the newspaper headlines which appeared? Can you see where this is going?!
- Well, guess where we got our inspiration from! Click on the headline, loads a scenario involving all the characters. Who wants to see our video?
- VIDEO – Play Tongue in cheek.
- Barry reflection
- Joan - reflection
- PLAY VIDEO Paramedic reflection After the reflections, we asked users to write their own reflection of the scenario and characters behaviour.
- The Tools we used
- Filmed in our training school. Some old rugs and a couple of handheld video cameras did the job.
- Pretty forgiving of our non-BBC budget!
- What did the European Commission think? Loved it!
- A lot of blood, sweat and tears… Plus about 500 quid.
- Prize to give out.
- Ask around for volunteers. You’ll be surprised at the number of budding actors and actresses out there! One of our actors (a real life paramedic) has since appeared in the Inspector Lynley mysteries and Casualty.
- Cameras from the high street and even smartphones can provide excellent results. Don’t forget your props
- Detail – e.g. coloured gloves. A little research early on will help to make your characters, scenarios and the game much more believable when filmed and edited.
- Make sure that learners are provided with a (virtual) reward for completing tasks to encourage them to keep going!
- Dare to dream big – why not? Be ambitious. Just because you don’t have a Hollywood budget doesn’t mean that you can’t achieve amazing results on a shoestring. See this rural garden?
- …it was actually filmed on the street behind our training school in front of some disused garages!
- I won’t lie, it was actually an awful lot of fun!