Richard Levy, PhD, Faculty of Environmental Design, University of Calgary, Canada, [e-mail]

1
Knight Elimars Last Joust A Virtual Environment
Game for Promoting Literacy Across the Curriculum

• Richard Levy, PhD, Faculty of Environmental
  Design, University of Calgary, Canada,
  rmlevy_at_ucalgary.ca
• Herbert Wideman, PhD, Institute for Research on
  Learning Technologies York University, Canada,
  herb_at_yorku.ca
• Ronald Owston, PhD, Professor of Education
  Director of the Institute for Research on
• Learning Technologies York University, Canada,
  rowston_at_edu.yorku.ca
• Annika Orich, Germanic, Slavic East Asian
  Studies University of Calgary, Canada,
  aorich_at_ucalgary.ca
•  

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Role Playing and Immersive Environments in
Teaching

• Educational Value of Playing Games
• Serious Games (Stone 2002 Becta 2001,
  Kirriemuir McFarlane 2003 Shaffer, Squire,
  Halverson, Gee 2004
• Develop new skills and knowledge
• Motivate students
• The value of immersions (Littlewood 2004)
• The Role of active participation
• Social interaction
• Problem solving
• Opportunities for exploration
• Competition

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Learning Objectives and Immersive Environments

• Learning Objectives
• the learning goal must be important
• the learning goal must be difficult
• the learning goal must be plausible and enhanced
  by the use of VR ( Johnson, Hoher, Ohlosson
  Gillingham 1999 )
• Role of the teachers
• Active participation
• Introduction of the problem
• Leading discussion

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Learning Objectives and Immersive Environments

• Game Development Principles
• Virtual environments (VEs) should be designed
  for collaborative learning (Johnson et. al.
  1999)
• VE should support wandering or walking through
  the space (Johnson et. al. 1999)
• There should be a metaphorical reference to some
  aspect of the physical world to enable students
  to interact in a real-life setting (Li Maher
  2000)
• Audio, text, video, object behavior, and
  navigation should support different learning
  styles (Li Maher 2000)
• The virtual world experience should be critical
  to the problem-solving task

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Role Playing in Virtual Environments

• Knight Elimars Last Joust A Virtual Environment
  Game for Promoting Literacy
• Instruction must be guided by the principle that
  learners use language as a means to an end
  (Lee, 2000)
• Task-based instruction is central to the game
• The game needs to be learner-centeredness (Swan
  2005 Willis 1996 Skehan 1998 Willis 2003)
• In playing the game, the mastery of language is
  critical for successfully meeting the games
  challenges
• learning language is not the explicit goal of the
  game from the players perspectiverather it is a
  means to a desired end

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Knight Elimars Last JoustA Virtual Environment
Game for Promoting Literacy

• Context
• Curriculum Medieval Studies is a unit of study
  in the Ontario, Canada
• Game Objective Treasure Hunt
• Students assume a virtual character and are asked
  to solve a mystery about a knights armor that
  has gone missing using a sequence of oral and
  written clues.
• Solving a riddle provides the clue to finding the
  next clue

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Knight Elimars Last JoustA Virtual Environment
Game for Promoting Literacy

• Scene The game begins inside a medieval chapel
  in the historic part of an Austrian City
• Word and number problems
• Architectural scenes set the stage for
  interaction
• Clues
• Chest
• Stain Glass
• Monk

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Knight Elimars Last JoustA Virtual Environment
Game for Promoting Literacy

• Scene The game begins inside a medieval chapel
  in the historic part of an Austrian City
• Word and number problems
• Architectural scenes set the stage for
  interaction
• Clues
• Statue
• Keys
• Golden Knight

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Knight Elimars Last JoustA Virtual Environment
Game for Promoting Literacy

• Workbook
• Promotes interaction between students the
  workbook serves as the medium for documenting and
  solving problems, encouraging social interaction
  between the pairs of students playing the game
• Language skills in solving the games mystery
  students learn about synonyms, anagrams,
  crosswords, and simple number problems
• Math skills in solving some of the clues
  students will perform mathematical calculations,
  like that of the area of a square, and must
  consider the logic of a chessboard
• Writing skills - recording clues and events
• Introduce European culture and literature -
  during the course of the game students are
  introduced to medieval myths and stories,
  architecture, poetry, and medieval texts
• Provides teachers with an easily accessible work
  Workbook is a record of student performance
  during the course of this exercise
• Simplifies improvements to the game - fewer
  resources were required to create the actual VE.
  Changes to the story line can be easily
  accommodated by merely changing audio tracks,
  characters and clues

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Knight Elimars Last JoustA Virtual Environment
Game for Promoting Literacy

• Subjects Private School, Calgary, AB
• 5th Graders Two classes (11 and 17 students)
• 4th Graders One class ( X students)
• Testing
• Day 1 Introduction
• Objectives
• Story line and biographies of the characters.
• Students as a group were introduced to the game
  by playing through a clue including solving a
  problem using a sample booklet.
• Reading selection was given to the students which
  would prepare them for the game
• Day 2 Game Play
• Before playing the game, students filled out a
  brief survey
• Age, gender,
• Video game play outside of class
• Practice test - navigating and controlling game
• Students played through the actual game in class
  in pairs
• A pre and post-test of terms was used to measure
  recall of terms used in the game.

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Student Responses

• Focus Group Session
• What do you remember of the virtual world?
• Do you think you learned something by playing
  this game? What did you learn?
• Was it difficult to play the game? If so, what
  was difficult about it?
• Was it very hard to switch between the virtual
  game and the booklet?
• Should be used in the classroom? Why or why not?
• Did you like playing the game? What did you like
  best, what the least?
• What would you add to the virtual environment?

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Research Questions

• Instruction Issues
• Can games motivate interest in reading and math?
• Can games improve recall?
• Game in the classroom
• What is the expectation of the students in using
  a virtual world in the classroom
• Are the expectations (production standards)
  lower for educational games than commercial games
• Graphics
• Audio
• Game play
• Do girls and boys have a different strategy when
  playing games?

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Initial Findings

• Recall by Question

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Initial Findings

• Game Play

    Male Female Male Female
Grade 4 Grade 4  No No Percent  Percent
  Once a day 8 4 100 73
  Once a week   4 0 0
  Once a month   3 0 0
  Total 8 11 100 73
Grade 5 Grade 5  
Once a day 9 4 56 29
  Once a week 7 6 44 43
  Once a month   2 0 14
  Once in the last year   2 0 14
  Total 16 14 100 100
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Initial Findings

• Motivation

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Initial Findings

• Attitudes towards the game
• Serious connoisseurs of games demand quality
• Graphics
• Animation
• Game Play
• What did you learn
• Parts pf the knights armor
• Medieval architecture
• It wasnt very educational because when you get
  to the age of 18, you wont really going to care
  if you are a golden knight? 

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Initial Findings

• Attitudes towards the game
• Dislikes
• Structure of booklet
• turning pages, students only write down what they
  need to solve the clue
• Missing clues, getting clues by accident (random
  walk)
• Characters talk fast

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Conclusions

• Learning Objectives
• Games can be used to motivate students,
• Games can reinforce recall
• Games can provide an opportunity to apply math
  and language skills acquired in class
• Games and Expectations
• Differences in attitudes and abilities can be
  seen in 4th vs. 5th grade students
• 5th graders are more experienced game players and
  expect a higher production values in any game
  they play.
• Boys were more likely to merely play the game
  without consulting the booklet
• Girls took a more measured approach.
• Future refinements
• Abbreviated book
• Second camera
• Ability to hear a clue twice after an elapsed
  period of time
• Provide a tangible benefit in playing the game by
  providing an opportunity to joust with your arch
  enemy at the end of the game after you have
  successfully found all of the armor.

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Knight Elimars Last Joust A Virtual Environment
Game for Promoting Literacy Across the Curriculum

• Richard Levy, PhD, Faculty of Environmental
  Design, University of Calgary, Canada,
  rmlevy_at_ucalgary.ca
• Herbert Wideman, PhD, Institute for Research on
  Learning Technologies York University, Canada,
  herb_at_yorku.ca
• Ronald Owston, PhD, Professor of Education
  Director of the Institute for Research on
• Learning Technologies York University, Canada,
  rowston_at_edu.yorku.ca
• Annika Orich, Germanic, Slavic East Asian
  Studies University of Calgary, Canada,
  aorich_at_ucalgary.ca
•