Connected Game Designs: Programming Game Controllers in Game Making for Learning Activities in Schools

• In Event: Connected Learning: Evidence in Support of an Emerging Model for Learning Across Settings Among Nondominant Youth

Abstract

Objectives
Game making can help youth to develop programming skills, explore systems thinking, consider the complexities of user interactions, and, have critical engagement with media (Burke & Kafai, in press; Hayes & Games, 2008). However, game making has largely been limited to the screen space, despite the growing popularity of game platforms with tangible controllers like Nintendo Wii. We argue that screen-based game-making activities can be expanded to include tangible controller designs to create connected learning experiences that can help extend gaming literacies (Salen, 2007) by engaging youth in the creative, iterative and complex thinking that are required of digital game designers.

Perspectives
This study draws on the long history of making rather than playing games for learning (Kafai, 1995). It also builds on recent work done with youth designing games and controllers (Davis, Kafai, Vasudevan, & Lee, 2013).

Methods, Participants & Data
A class of 16 high school freshman (5 girls, 11 boys, ages 13-15), situated in a metropolitan city in a northeastern state of the United States, participated in an eight-week Scratch 2.0 workshop. In small groups, students were asked to design and program apps that utilized video sensing functionality. Groups spent six sessions conceptualizing, designing and programming their apps and two sessions preparing and participating in the culminating student arcade. Observational field notes and informal video recordings of conversations with youth during sessions were used to document the workshop interactions. In addition post-hoc interviews with twelve of the sixteen participants were conducted to document their experiences.

Results
The collaboratively created apps ranged from remakes of classic arcade games like Pac-Man to remakes of contemporary games like Super Smash Brothers, to original ideas like Chase the Teacher, a two-player hallway race, and a fashion dress-up game where users could mix and match outfits on cartoon models. Across the six groups, students employed a range of computational thinking concepts and practices (Brennan & Resnick, 2012). Even though youth liked the possibility of the video sensing functionality, expansion of game design from the screen into the physical world proved to be more complicated than expected. However, this experience provided youth a foundation to reflect on how to improve or enhance video sensing. This feedback and youth’s approach to game design suggests that an open-ended task provided space for youth to consider issues of design, usability and appropriateness of technology. Moreover, this functionality got youth to think about these issues through engagement with a kind of interface that has not previously been available to youth designers. Finally, youth had positive reactions to the culminating arcade because they could play each other’s games, share their work with others, and have fun.

Significance
Our study illustrates how game making activities can connect not only informal and formal contexts but also virtual and tangible modalities for richer learning experiences.

Authors

• Veena Vasudevan, University of Pennsylvania

• Yasmin B. Kafai, University of Pennsylvania