MUVE Game Project

Requirements

In this assignment you will work on a team to design an educational game or simulation that could be implemented in a Multi-User Virtual Environment. This semester, the MUVE of choice is Second Life.

Broadly speaking, your task is to describe the design of an experience that teaches something and which takes advantage of the affordances of Second Life while working around its limitations. More specifically, your project must:

1. teach something other than the mechanics of Second Life itself. It has to be about something in Real Life.
2. make meaningful use of at least one of the affordances of Second Life, including avatar appearance, object construction, buildings and furniture, participation among distant players, or scripted objects and behaviors.
3. deliver educational benefits that outweigh the cognitive load required for participants to learn to use the SL interface.
4. be scaled such that you could at least partially implement it if you had another month to work on it without a multi-zillion dollar budget. (If you get excited by your idea, it could segue into an e-game project for this course.)

Possible Project Types

The possibilities include, but are not limited to, the following:

Transplanted Role Plays. Role playing simulations have been an integral part of the teacher/trainer tool kit for decades. Can you take an existing role play and move it into SL in a way that goes beyond what's possible in a face to face situation (without losing the immediacy and emotional impact of face to face interaction)?

Interactive Exhibits. Can you design a virtual exhibit that uses SL's scripting language in a way that learners interact with? Projects like this must show an advantage over simply putting up a web page with interaction based in Flash, most likely by requiring avatar to avatar interaction as part of the design. (You don't need to actually script the exhibit, but you need to show that Second Life is capable of doing what you propose.)

Language Practice. Since Second Life can bring together language learners with native speakers of the target language, can you design an environment that allows interaction and feedback between learners as they practice speaking, listening, reading and writing? Your design should include an environment stocked with things to talk about. (e.g., LanguageLab.com).

WebQuests. The WebQuest model has lots of fans around the world. Can you take an existing WebQuest (as Cathy Arreguin and Peggy Ward did for Meet the Immigrants) and map it onto Second Life in a way that actually improves it?

Historical Recreations. Create an environment in which participants get a clear sense of what some different time and place was like. Include pre-designed live interactions as appropriate as well as period buildings and clothing.

See the SL Educational Uses page for more ideas. Be aware, though, that some of the examples go well beyond the scope appropriate for this project or depend on casual or spontaneous interactions that cannot be designed ahead of time.

Documentation

Using the template provided, turn in a web document with...

• The name of the game or simulation
• Educational objective of the game
• Time required
• A summary description of similar games already in existence
• Appropriate grade level and/or other learner description
• The rules, roles, props and other virtual accoutrements needed
• A description of how you took principles of motivation into account in the design
• Screen dumps showing a representative sampling of phases of the game/simulation/experience.

Use CPR: Second Life as a high quality example to guide you. (NOTE...CPR: Second Life was actually developed as a final project for the course over a longer period of time than this assignment will take. Your documentation need not be so fully fleshed out, or contain any sections not included in the template.)

Evaluation Criteria

In keeping with the multifaceted nature of game design, I'll be looking at your games with an evaluation rubric which focuses on the degree to which you took advantage of Second Life's unique qualities and on your description of the play by play.

Due Date

On November 5, 2007, we'll have a showcase and celebration and you'll turn in your design document for grading. This product and presentation count for 25% of your course grade.

Your work in progress and final version can all be completed as wikipages. Or, if you like, you can post them on a separate web site. Just turn in the URL.

Here are the projects for 2007.