Exploratory Learning Through
Educational Simulation & Games

Overall Course Themes

This course deals with aspects of the design process that are sometimes neglected. To design an instructional game well, you must be both systematic and intuitive, analytic and artistic. In mastering the ISD process, you've learned to handle the cognitive side of instruction (which, almost by definition, is the most important). In EDTEC 670, you'll also learn to deal with the affective side of instruction. Throughout the course we'll be addressing the questions: What makes some activities interesting or fun? How can we maximize enjoyment without sacrificing instructional quality? It's a difficult and fascinating challenge for any instructional designer.

A second major theme of the course involves the design of simulations. The questions that will dominate the second half of the course are these: How do we represent reality in a simulation? How do we balance simplicity, efficiency, and playability against realism, richness and complexity? These, too, are challenging design tasks.

Objectives

Upon completing this course, you'll be able to:

1. Analyze interview data and extract patterns and principles that describe the conditions that lead to interest and enjoyment in learning environments.
   
2. Use, where appropriate, selected psychological theories and models to describe motivational and affective aspects of instruction. The models will include the following: Csikszentmihalyi's flow model; Keller's ARCS model; Malone & Lepper's intrinsic motivation taxonomy.
3. Conduct formative testing of a game and infer connections between elements of the game design and their emotional effect on the player.
   
4. Describe and explain selected issues, concepts and principles involved in the design and use of educational simulations and games.
   
5. Design, develop and publish an educational board game that is flexible and effective, and document its rules, physical attributes, context of use, rationale, and variations.
6. Create face-to-face simulations, role plays and other activities designed to build social cohesion among learners and convey understanding of complex content.
   
7. Design and document a computer-based educational simulation-game, using flowcharts, maps, and equations as appropriate as well as the motivational principles at work in the design.
   
8. Reflect on and explain the design processes you use in creating motivating educational products.

Course Schedule

Much of the work of the class will be done on your own schedule, either solo or in small groups. Unless otherwise noted below, both sections meets synchronously on Blackboard at Mondays at 4pm. Additional meeting times may be scheduled with subsets of the class later in the semester.

Sessions begin with pre-recorded presentations under the Lecture menu item. Interactive sessions and their archives will be found by clicking on the Wimba Classroom link in the menu bar.

Week	Date	Topics	Tasks BEFORE Class
1	Aug 31	Course Overview and Introduction Learning, Motivation & Fun	Just be there
	Sept 7	Labor Day - No Meeting
2	Sept 14	Finding patterns in the learning, motivation & fun data	Read Chapters 1 - 5 Complete your two entries to the LMF database Register for Wikispaces. Request to join 670.wikispaces.com. Edit your personal page. Register for Edublogs. Post your username to the comments section.
3	Sept 21	Designing Your Own Board Game Example: Scramble for Africa	Read Chapters 6 - 9
4	Sept 28	Board Design II Team Formation	Read Chapters 10 - 13 Read 2 reviews on Scott's site Explore: Cardboard Cognition Post a board game idea to the Bb forum Download the templates from TheGameCrafter Due: September Blog Entry Submit your Board Game Idea
5	Oct 5	Board game team meetings with instructors to be scheduled NO CLASS SESSION	Read: Chapter 14 Read: Making Learning Fun Read: Conditions of Flow Due: Analysis of LMF stories (posted to wiki) Meet with your board game team at least once
6	Oct 12	Motivational Analysis of computer-based games	Read: Chapters 15 - 17 Read: Use of the ARCS Model Due: Draft of Design Document down to and including Content Analysis
7	Oct 19	Guest Interview: JT Smith, The Game Crafter Playtesting your board game Playtesting Rubric	Read: Chapters 24 - 25 Due: Continue fleshing out the rest of your design document
8	Oct 26	Serious Games Exploration	Read: Chapters 18 - 23 Due: October Blog Entry Due: Playable Board Game PrototypeA
9	Nov 2	Designing role-plays and interpersonal activities	Due-ish: Board Game Final Design Document
10	Nov 9	Online competitions eGame Project Selection	Read: Chapters 26 - 29 Optional Reading: Survey of Game Engines - Mark DeLoura Educational Games: How Attitudes & Markets Influence Design - Sylvia Martinez
11	Nov 16	Jesse Schell visit Group meetings with instructors	Meet with your egame team Prepare for Jesse Schell's visit by reading these pieces: 2003 Interview Things I Finished (Blog) 2008 Interview (15 minute podcast)
12	Nov 23	Faculty furlough day: no class	Due: eGame Analysis (overview, objective, scope, learners, context, competing products) Read: Chapters 30 - 33
		Thanksgiving	Re-acquaint yourself with your family
13	Nov 30	Publishing and marketing games Group meetings with instructor	Due: November Blog Entry
14	Dec 7	Peer feedback on eGame designs and discussion of blog entries	Due: Participation Due: Draft eGame Design Document
15	Dec 14	eGame Presentations	Due: eGame Design Document

Readings

There is one required book for the course which may be ordered from Amazon by clicking on the link below.

• Schell, J. (2008).The art of game design: A book of lenses. San Francisco: Morgan Kaufmann.

An additional set of readings is available through SDSU Electronic Course Reserves. It includes the following articles:

• Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The psychology of optimal experience. New York: Harper & Row.
  Chapter 4: The conditions of flow
• Keller, J. M., & Suzuki, K. (1988). Use of the ARCS motivation model in courseware design. In D. H. Jonassen (Ed.). Instructional designs for microcomputer courseware. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
• Malone, T. W., & Lepper, M. R. (1987). Making learning fun: A taxonomy of intrinsic motivations for learning. In R. E. Snow & M. J. Farr (Eds.). Aptitude, learning and instruction. Volume 3: Conative and affective process analysis. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

In addition to the readings, you'll be making use of Cardboard Cognition, a resource created by previous generations of EDTEC 670 students. Cardboard Cognition is a compendium of dozens of educational card and board game designs.

Tools

The final deliverable for your egame project will be primarily a design document, not a working game. To test your interface ideas and illustrate your design, though, you will learn to use specialized software tools and, depending on the project you choose, learn to work within the strengths and limitations of a single tool.

Some possible platforms that e-games will be designed for:

All project documentation will be presented in the form of web pages and shared via the course web site.

Grading

Your final grade will be determined by your performance on the design of a board game, an interpersonal learning activity and an egame; an analysis of data about learning and fun; and your contributions to the class forums and group blog.

There will be several e-game project opportunities to choose from. Each will involve the development of a computer-based prototype and a written analysis of its design from both instructional and motivational vantage points.

Discussion contributions will be graded individually. All three design projects will be team efforts. Each individual on the team will be graded separately, though the overall performance of the team will have an influence over individual grades. It behooves you, therefore, to put some energy into team building in order to maximize everyone's success. The projects will be weighted as follows:

This is a graduate level course. Grading performance in an amorphous area like game design is not easy, but not impossible either. Please keep in mind the following definitions of grading standards from the SDSU Graduate Catalog:

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