The GAMES idea is to create multiplayer, educational, simulated worlds (sometimes called synthetic or virtual worlds); then to populate those worlds with authentic simulated artifacts (objects, devices, agents, and so forth); and then to open that world to learners for exploration, discovery, problem solving, and learning.
When playing in GAMES, a human learner is immersed in a Reality-Oriented Learning Experience (ROLE).
The players in a ROLE-based environment actively participate in a sustained problem-solving simulation. To succeed in these virtual worlds, and to effectively play the GAMES, a learner will necessarily master the concepts and skills required to play their part in the ROLE-based environment.
ROLE-based learning is learning-by-doing, but not the mere goal oriented "doing" of a task. ROLE-based learning is learning-by-doing within the structure and context of playing a role. Rather than simply teaching goal-based behavior and task-oriented skills, ROLE-based learning teaches a way of practice --- where you do not just learn the law, but how to "think like a lawyer".
By putting a student in a world that
"sufficiently" models the domain you are trying to teach,
- as the student learns about that world
- and their role in it
- they learn about the domain.
In order for this to work, the simulated world must be predictable, compelling and engaging, reactive to the students actions, and sensitive to the student's needs. The simulated world is:
- Predictable
- because it make sense in terms of the real world -- in other words, the simulation is "sufficiently authentic"
- Compelling and Engaging
- because a comic-like graphical interface (the MOOPort) presents the virtual world.
- Reactive
- because the game is built on an existing architecture for realtime multiplayer games (MUDs), using the most flexible implementation (Pavel Curtis's LambdaMOO, from Xerox PARC).
- Sensitive
- because there is a Proactive Tutor in the simulated world, watching the players' actions and informing them when they do something questionable.
History
The NDSU GAMES Project is a logical successor to the long defunct GAMES project at Northwestern University's Institute for the Learning Sciences. That project, cancelled in 1994, resulted in single prototype, the Sell Game, that was only informally tested and was never released. Virtually none of that ill-fated project's management and design priorities survive in the NDSU GAMES project.
Implementation Plans
This functionality is to be supported by a library called GameCore.
GameCore is a library of portable C++ objects for supporting the fundamental
functionality of every game the GAMES project might want to produce.
Currently those functions are:
With this library, we plan to build a multitude of future games, including a
GameBuilder.
GAMES Documents:
