ICEM&SIIE’2011 – Poster – Our Games
27 Set 2011 Deixe um Comentário
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According to Gee (2007), despite the good computer games use a more complex and technical language than that used in the educational content of the curricula of education systems in general, can still, and unlike the last ones, seduce young for hours. A major advantage of the good computer games, according to this author, is to explore the pleasure and emotional involvement of the players through the implementation of a learning process that contradicts many of the beliefs and revolutionize education advocated by scholars of Education Sciences. An interesting feature associated with computer games, among many others, relates to the ability to simulate so immersive and interactive worlds in context, such as recreation structured environments and multiple perspectives associated with the life of a biologist, experience this very difficult to assimilate by simply reading a textbook. Gee (2007) compares the textbooks to instruction manuals of a nonexistent computer game and the good computer games to efficient machine learning. Thus, the focus on the creation and dissemination of good educational computer games should be a priority for all of those who care to promote better learning. Starting from the assertion that the use of educational computer games in addition to educational activities is an asset for learning and also trying to deepen the commitment of the students in their adoption, was developed during the first five months of this year, a project of the Group of Schools Couto Mineiro do Pejão, called “Our Games” in which a group of 341 students and 36 teachers of different grades (from pre-school to vocational education) and different curriculum areas, developed in close cooperation an educational computer game in the Recycle Sphere (area/field). The theme Recycling was selected because it has a high pedagogical importance, and also by addressing the concepts of students’ satisfaction. This project was created in order to participate in “Learning and Innovating with ICT” launched by the Directorate-General for Innovation and Curriculum Development (DGIDC) of the Ministry of Education in November 2010. The implementation of this project was bold, because, on the one hand, required the use of specific tools for the support and development of computer games that were either unknown to students or to teachers and, on the other hand, also demanded a thorough coordination of work by students who were distributed in different levels of education (students aged between 3 and 19 years, a global average of 9 years old). In order to simplify the implementation of the project, two main approaches have been defined. As the first orientation with being concerned in the preferential use of free software and the second by dividing the project into five distinct but complementary phases to each other, called: Design, Scenery, Digital Design, Voice and Programming. According Lakhan et al (2008) the focus on use of free software is justified mainly by the fact that their use does not entail costs to schools and it’s a more easily configurable software. Like most free software was still barely known in school, our project focuses heavily on training of teachers on free software and ICT in general. Thanks to the support of the Centro de Formação de Terras de Santa Maria, 70 of our teachers received accredited training in ICT.
In the first and second phase of the project, which took place between February and April 2011, students from 16 classes from preschool, first and second cycle (a total of 315 students, from 3 to 13 years with an average age of 8 years) have developed hundreds of paper drawings of landscapes, objects and scenarios related to recycling, thus defining the resource base for the previous phases of the project.
In the third phase of the project, which took place between April and May 2011, students in two classes, one of the second and one of the third cycle (a total of 12 students, from 12 to 14 years with an average age 14 years) recorded the voice of dozens of sentences related to the theme of recycling which were then inserted into the developed game. In the recording of the voices of the students was used a free software audio editing, called Audacity.
In the fourth phase of the project, which also took place between April and May 2011, students from three classes of the vocational education (a total of 30 students, from 13 to 19 years with an average age of 15 years) developed digital graphics from the images created by students from Pre-School and 1st cycle. At this stage we used a free software vector graphics editor, called Inkscape.
Finally, the fifth and final phase of the project, which took place between May and June 2011, students from two classes of the vocational education (a total of 19 students, from 14 to 19 years with an average age of 15 years) used the digital resources previously developed in conjunction with proprietary software, in part free, creating games based on a simplified programming language, called Game Maker, in order to create a computer game about recycling.
In a first analysis of the results, we present as positive: participation of students and teachers of various levels of education and diverse curriculum areas, the full implementation of all phases of project development culminating in the creation of an educational computer game, increasing digital literacy in the educational community and the tremendous enthusiasm shown by all participants throughout the project. As less positive aspects we can refer to the simplicity of the game developed and some faults detected at the level of design and pattern of the user interface. The detected faults are part of a normal process of developing computer games, which in our case can be minimized by the fact that we had a short timeline for a project of this complexity and all the players are inexperienced in this field.
For next year we will continue to invest in this project, even with an extra stage test to be performed by students in order to evaluate all these aspects associated with computer game now presented and propose suggestions for improvement.
Keywords: Basic Education, Students, Computer Game, Free Software, Recycling.
References:
Gee, J. P. (2007). Good Video Games + Good Learning: Collected Essays on Video Games, Learning and Literacy. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc.
Lakhan, E. Shaheen & Jhunjhunwala, K. (2008). Open Source Software in Education. Educause Quarterly, (2), 2008.
Audacity Team (2011). Audacity (Version 1.26) [Computer program]. Retrieved March 1, 2011, from http://audacity.sourceforge.net
Inkscape Team (2011). Inkscape (Version 0.48.1) [Computer program]. Retrieved March 1, 2011, from http://inkscape.org
Game Maker Team (2011). Game Maker (Version 8.1) [Computer program]. Retrieved March 1, 2011, from http://www.yoyogames.com
Jogo desenvolvido – Reciclagem V0.5
02 Jul 2011 Deixe um Comentário
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Jogo disponível aqui.
Também disponível no site oficial do Game Maker:
Apresentação oficial do jogo Reciclagem – versão 0.5 – Junho 2011
26 Jun 2011 Deixe um Comentário
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Cronograma do Projecto
04 Abr 2011 Deixe um Comentário
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Ano Zero
2011
Fevereiro a Março
1.ª fase – Criação de Personagens (Pré-Escolar e 1.º Ciclo)
Março a Abril
2.ª fase – Esboços e Enredos (2.ºCiclo)
Abril a Maio
3.ª fase – Sonoplastia (2.ºCiclo)
Abril a Maio
4.ª fase – Criação de Recursos Gráficos (3.ºCiclo, CEF e Profissionais)
Maio a Junho
5.ª fase – Programação e Finalização (3.ºCiclo, CEF e Profissionais)
Ano Um
Setembro a Novembro
1.ª fase – Criação de Personagens (Pré-Escolar e 1.º Ciclo)
Novembro de 2011 a Janeiro de 2012
2.ª fase – Esboços e Enredos (2.ºCiclo)
2012
Janeiro a Março
3.ª fase – Sonoplastia (2.ºCiclo)
Janeiro a Março
4.ª fase – Criação de Recursos Gráficos (3.ºCiclo, CEF e Profissionais)
Março a Junho
5.ª fase – Programação e Finalização (3.ºCiclo, CEF e Profissionais)
Ano Dois
Setembro a Novembro
1.ª fase – Criação de Personagens (Pré-Escolar e 1.º Ciclo)
Novembro de 2012 a Janeiro de 2013
2.ª fase – Esboços e Enredos (2.ºCiclo)
2013
Janeiro a Março
3.ª fase – Sonoplastia (2.ºCiclo)
Janeiro a Março
4.ª fase – Criação de Recursos Gráficos (3.ºCiclo, CEF e Profissionais)
Março a Junho
5.ª fase – Programação e Finalização (3.ºCiclo, CEF e Profissionais)
Créditos – 1.º Jogo (Reciclagem)
02 Abr 2011 Deixe um Comentário
O nosso primeiro jogo já possui uma grande quantidade de alunos e professores envolvidos. De forma a corrigir eventuais imprecisões no nome e idade dos vários intervenientes, está disponível aqui (ou aqui) a listagem de todas as pessoas que, até ao momento, já contribuíram para este jogo. (O botão esquerdo do rato pára a apresentação durante breve segundos e o botão do lado direito reinicia a apresentação)
