Designing and deploying games for learning

a workshop at the 1st World Conference for Fun 'n Games 

June 26, 2006, 10am-5pm, Preston, England.

Call for submissions

Submission Deadline: 17h00 GMT, 22 May 2006

Early Registration Deadline: 25 May 2006 (Free for conference attendees, £60 for workshop only).

Introduction

Design is of central importance in the process of developing any technology-enhanced learning resource. This is particularly true when considering game development. However, the design process is difficult: in order to develop pedagogically sound and innovative games, expertise is required from many different participants including researchers, teachers, students and game developers.

This workshop is intended as an interactive forum in which to discuss the important issues and challenges that arise when attempting to capture the knowledge sharing process involved in the design and development of game environments for learning. It will offer new perspectives on the range of expertise required for undertaking this process, based primarily on the work of the ongoing Learning patterns for the design and deployment of mathematical games project. The workshop will focus on motivating the use of a design pattern approach, drawing on the project's literature review, typologies, and evolving sets of case studies and patterns. To this end participants will engage in the hands-on development of design patterns, facilitated by experts in the field. The aim is to disseminate the use of patterns as an enabling tool for sharing good practice through pattern-specific communication and knowledge sharing.

Expected outcomes

• Participants will gain both a theoretical perspective and a pragmatic understanding of how to apply design patterns in their own work.
• Participants will network with colleagues with common interests from a diverse range of fields, and will have a chance to form new work relationships.
• An edited video of the workshop highlights will be made available from http://www.lkl.ac.uk/video, and from the learning patterns site.
• The patterns developed throughout the day will be made available and continuously refined through the learning patterns site.

Format

The workgroup will run for six hours and is expected to attract between twenty to thirty participants. We will initiate the discussions by short presentations from participants and organisers. After that, we will split into small groups of participants from mixed backgrounds. The goal is to have participants examine critically the process of distilling design patterns as an enabling tool for communication and knowledge sharing.

The groupwork will be divided into two main sessions: brainstorming and hands-on experimentation. In the brainstorming session, each group will provide cases of their design and development processes. Each group will work these into a typology, mapping out major issues of interest and concern to them. As such, each typology will identify critical aspects of the knowledge sharing process. After lunch, the hands-on experimentation session will concentrate on the development of a small set of design patterns, which participants feel would help them in their own practices.

The day will end with a assembly session where each group will provide feedback on what they achieved and present their patterns. Ample time will be allocated for inter-group discussion and sharing of ideas. Overall, the guiding factors are creativity, interaction and discussion.

The workshop will be supported by a web site, where the outcomes will be published and participants will have an opportunity to further develop designs, products and connections established on the day. A video of the workshop highlights will be made available.

Registration

• What is your background, and how does it reflect on the workshop themes?
• What do you expect to gain from this workshop?
• A proposed small case study to discuss at the workshop. This could be either a particular game, a process for designing games, or a situation in which games are used.

Organizers

Niall Winters, RCUK Academic Fellow at the London Knowledge Lab, University of London. Co-director of the Learning Patterns project. His current research interests include mobile and ubiquitous learning, mathematics education, and theorizing the process of developing learning software environments. Niall holds PhD in Computer Science from the University of Dublin, Trinity College.

Facilitators

Staffan Björk, Associate Professor, Göteborg University and Senior Research, Interactive Institute, Sweden. Staffan is co-author with Jussi Holopainen, of the recent book Patterns in Games Design.

Michele Cerulli, Research Fellow, Istituto per le Tecnologie Didattiche, Italy. His research concerns the theory of instrumentation of semiotic mediation, semiotics in education and the use of technology enhanced learning in mathematics education.

Mark Childs, Academic Development Adviser, Centre for Academic Practice at the University of Warwick. Works on a range of education and professional development projects. He is also researching the creation of presence in online, virtual and videoconference teaching.

Chronis Kynigos, Associate Professor, University of Athens and Director of the Educational Technology Lab, Greece. For over a decade, he has been engaged in research on the design and implementation of technology-based innovation in schools.