This case study documents the manner by which participatory design can be used to evolve the design of a game for teaching basic mathematical competencies.
In this case study, teachers engaged the expertise of a software house to create a base design for a game to teach 11 and 12 year olds basic mathematical skills like for example, multiplication and division. The initial design put forward was to create a travel game consisting of a number of locations which a player could travel through. On entering a location, a player would have to solve some mathematical problem related to that location. This enabled him to gain resources to enable him to carry on his journey. The teachers initially proposed the idea that the landscape of the game should reflect the historical evolution of mathematics from Egypt through to Greece to China. To evolve the design of the game students were engaged in a number of brainstorming sessions. These were designed to throw light on what interesting subjects or objects to include in the travel game. For this, students were asked to draw the ideas that they liked from the initial brainstorming session on paper and try to connect them to the teaching of maths. Further sessions were established to develop these ideas further. For this students were subdivided into groups of four. The following is a description of a game design evolved by a group of four boys.This game design was judged to be the most complete and well developed by the boys' peers and teachers. The boys started out by subdividing a piece of paper into four squares. Each square represented a different period or age in time. The idea was that one would travel through each age in a time machine. Each boy was assigned a particular age to develop. The four ages proposed were 'Future', 'Middle Age', "Western Age' and 'Cave-man Age'. In every age the aim was to locate a piece of the time clock. By collecting all four pieces of the clock, one could travel back to the present and finish the game. The game was designed as a multi-player game. In order to gain possession of each piece of the travel clock, one had to co-ordinate, negotiate with other players within the game. The boys storyboarded the game and presented it to their peers. Despite being voted the most complete, interesting and well developed game, the developers chose to implement the initial contextualisation proposed by the teachers that of the historical evolution of mathematics. This was because of time constraints and because no member of the development was present during the brainstorming sessions thus, had no idea of the overwhelming preference for a different game setting.
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