Serious Gordon: Using Serious Games To Teach Kitchen Food Safety

1
Serious GordonUsing Serious Games To Teach
Kitchen Food Safety
Brian Mac Namee, Pauline Rooney, Patrick
Lindstrom, Andrew Ritchie, Frances Boylan Greg
Burke
2
Contents

• Presentation outline
• Serious games digital game based learning
• Food safety in the kitchen
• The development of Serious Gordon
• Serious Gordon demo
• Evaluation
• Where next?

3
Serious Games Digital Game-Based Learning
the key is not to privilege one arena over the
other but to find the synergy between pedagogy
and engagement -Robert van Eck
4
The Food Safety Authority

• EU regulations on food hygiene now state
• that food handlers are supervised and
  instructed and or trained in food hygiene matters
  commensurate with their work activity.

Guide to Food Safety Training Level 1 -
Induction Skills and Level 2 - Additional Skills
for Food and Non-Food Handlers (Food Service,
Retail and Manufacturing Sectors), Food Safety
Authority of Ireland. (2006)
5
Kitchen Food Safety Competencies

1. Wear and maintain uniform/protective clothing
   hygienically
2. Maintain a high standard of hand-washing
3. Maintain a high standard of personal hygiene
4. Demonstrate correct hygiene practice if suffering
   from ailments/illnesses that may affect the
   safety of food
5. Avoid unhygienic practices in a food operation
6. Demonstrate safe food handling practices
7. Maintain staff facilities in a hygienic condition
8. Obey food safety signs
9. Keep work areas clean

6
Developing Serious Gordon

• Key features of the development of Serious
  Gordon
• A multi-disciplinary team
• The expected learning outcomes for the game
  matched the competencies outlined by the food
  safety authority
• A storyboard was developed to map out how the
  game would proceed
• Developers built proof of concept demos for each
  game sequence
• A script editor and a voice actor were hired

7
The Source Engine

• The Source engine provides a comprehensive suite
  of tools
• Additional functionality was added to the engine

8
DEMO
9
Screenshots
10
Screenshots (cont)
11
Screenshots (cont)
12
Evaluation

• Informal evaluations have taken place
• Participants were quizzed on kitchen food safety
  before and after playing Serious Gordon
• People who took part in the experiment tended to
  fare better in the second quiz than the first
• We need to do much better!

13
Lessons Learned

• There were some interesting lessons learned over
  the course of the project
• Artists are required for a serious game
  development project
• Professional voice actors and script writers are
  worth the expense
• Proof of concept demos are invaluable
• Expected learning outcomes should be defined in
  detail as early as possible

14
Future Work Questions Raised

• There are some obvious pieces of work that need
  to be done now
• Improve the look of the game
• Get Faceposer to work
• Undertake a rigorous evaluation
• There are also a number of interesting questions
  that arose from the project
• Is some kind of NPC AI editor required to make
  this serious game development viable?
• How does fun versus learning balance?
• Single player or multi-player?

15
Questions

• ?