[Open pdf version for best printing results (opens 110kb file in same window)]


1. INTRODUCTION

Computer games are not a new phenomenon, for example, Space War was developed in 1962, yet despite Malone and Lepper's (1987) suggestion over 16 years ago that mainstream video games and education might be combined, there has been relatively little work in this area to date. Today, it is generally accepted that video games are motivating for young people and have the potential to support a wide range of educational objectives (eg Dawes and Dumbleton 2001, Gee 2003) but their introduction into the classroom has not been extensive. This absence in the UK could be related to the fact that mainstream games are not perceived to be of relevance to specific National Curriculum objectives, are seen as difficult to incorporate into the constraints of the timetable, require significant time investment by teachers and may include content that is not suitable for educational settings.

Yet the progression into the classroom is beginning. The Becta project on Computer Games in Education, for example, incorporated six commercial games into lessons, including The Sims and Age of Empire. This project suggested that games use could lead to increased motivation, more collaborative working, and greater engagement with the content as well as supporting information and communication technology (ICT) skills. However, it also warned against games that were too complex, time consuming and so engaging that the educational focus was lost (Dawes and Dumbleton 2001, p13).

Research conducted by one of the partners in the Astroversity project identified the potential for mainstream network gaming typified in such games as Unreal Tournament to support collaborative working. Network games allow players to access the same three-dimensional environment from different computers. These types of games, however, can be violent in content, with the players sometimes working against each other. The researchers were interested in drawing on network games structures to build situations where players would need to work together as a team to complete tasks and progress through the game. Astroversity was developed to explore this principal - in particular, to examine whether it is possible to create a game that achieves the same level of engagement as mainstream games, but which enables children to learn about and practise collaboration and the processes of generating and testing hypotheses.


2. THE ASTROVERSITY SCENARIO

In Astroversity the tasks are designed to be what Rittel and Webber (1973) called 'wicked problems', and to incorporate activities that require scientific enquiry skills such as data logging, hypothesis generation and testing, and analysis of data. Moreover, the game can only be completed if every team member participated in the data gathering and decision making. Each student is individually responsible for providing information, all of which is needed in order to complete the task, and to succeed they must discuss, which involves listening, turn taking, negotiating and providing justifications for suggestions. The game takes place in the 'Astroversity', an orbiting space school of the future. During a training module the school is struck by an alien craft that releases toxic substances into the atmosphere. The students must now form teams of three and put their newly acquired skills in navigating probes, using sensors, and controlling the rescue vehicle to the test and rescue casualties from various levels within the Astroversity.

The game is played with the students, who are aged between 13 and 15, being co-located, within the same room, but working on individual personal computers (PCs). The reason for this choice of physical location was to aid the communication flow between the players. In previous prototypes an online text-based communication system did allow communication between players within separate locations, but players tended not to use it, depending instead on observing the other players and inferring what to do next from their behaviour within the networked environment. This prototype wanted to promote higher levels of naturalistic collaborative behaviour, by placing the players within the same room and getting them to use personal paper-based maps. It is recognised that these systems could, in the future, be incorporated into the computer system using voiceover IP and a communal whiteboard area. In all the levels the teams complete three sequential procedures described below.


(CONTINUE...)