Lecturer and NILE 2008 organiser Judy
Robertson, primary school teacher Tessa Collins and school pupil
Andrew Kelly are sharing the stage to discuss the use of Neverwinter
Nights game creation software in classrooms.
Adventure Author is a project to
develop a game-creation software package for children aged 10-14, for
use in the classroom. It's EPSRC funded up to December 2008, and has
been running for a couple of years now at Heriot-Watt University.
Originally working with the commercial game Neverwinter Nights, the
project now uses a modification of Neverwinter Nights 2 to encourage
storytelling through games and support various activities including
dialogue writing, idea capturing and peer evaluation.
The team has run summer 'Gamemaker'
workshops since 2003, and has run several longer classroom trials in
various primary schools in Dundee and Edinburgh.
Judy briefly introduces her model of
the creative process of game design, which you can see here. This
includes several stages, including Exploration, Problem Finding,
Problem Solving, Internal Validation and External Validation. This
model was developed from other, more generic creative process models,
primarily Cropley’s.
Judy notes that you can currently buy
Neverwinter Nights 2 on Amazon.co.uk for about £8. She runs
through screenshots of the game and toolset for the audience. The
toolset comes free with the game, and the Adventure Author modifications can be downloaded for free at www.adventureauthor.org, though not all are available yet.
The first plug-in demonstrated is
Fridge Magnets, an idea-capturing application. Users can type in
ideas that they want to capture relating to different areas of their
game (e.g. Plot, Setting), and a fridge magnet will be created to represent that idea. All
of your magnets are saved in a permanent Magnet Box, and you can
arrange configurations of magnets and save them for later viewing.
In previous classroom trials, the
conversation editor (for creating dialogue for game characters) was
found to be quite complicated for children to handle. A new, more
user-friendly Conversation Writer has been developed as another
plugin. Various options are possible such as attaching scripted
actions to particular lines of dialogue, or having conditional
branches in the conversation, and of course conversations which branch when the user
chooses what to say next.
Judy notes that in Katy’s talk
yesterday there was some concern about a potential lack of
collaboration between kids working on their games. The team developed
the Comment Cards application to support peer evaluation, partly to
encourage collaboration. Teachers can set the questions that the
students have to answer, and students respond in the form of written
answers, star ratings, and/or by attaching a piece of evidence (such as a screenshot) to support their answer. Users then have the 'right to reply' to criticisms about their game, and teachers, peers and visitors can also contribute to the discussion. This method of communicating went down very well in Tessa’s class.
A simple task management plugin is
briefly shown, which is currently under development.
Judy hands over to Tessa Collins. Tessa
was in her first year of teaching at Musselburgh Primary School when she took on the Adventure Author project with her class
(she notes that cutting your teeth on a Primary 7 class was
challenging enough!) Tessa says that she is not someone who knows
much about games – she is mainly interested in how it can be used in the
classroom.
In Tessa’s teacher training college, she
attended a talk by Consolarium head Derek Robertson about the potential for using
games in education. “It really sparked lots of
things in my mind about all the possibilities. The resource in itself
is just a starting point, it’s what you do with it then that brings
out the value.”
Tessa was particularly interested in the work of
Tim Rylands, and suggests we check out www.timrylands.com
to find out more. Tim works with non-violent, 3D graphical
games to stimulate literacy, and has had particular success with
young boys, who can be a particular challenge.
Tessa wanted to use the game design
project as part of a whole fantasy genre project called the World Builder Project. (Neverwinter Nights
2 is a fantasy role-playing game, like Lord of the Rings.) “There was always a need to develop
their descriptive language… some children didn’t include this at
all, while others, even though they had the vocabulary there, just
weren’t using it. I wanted to use fantasy to bring that out.”
“It was very important for us to take it in a cross-curricular direction, engaging in the
Curriculum for Excellence.” The Curriculum for Excellence is the
new Scottish teaching curriculum which is moving away from specific
targets and focusing on cross-curricular learning.
The World Builder project was about
creating a world in game form, and then extending the creation of
that world to art, literature and drama forms. Tessa notes that P7 are a difficult class to keep interested as they are
aware they will be leaving primary school soon.
Key aims in the project:
Develop depth and detail in
the children's descriptions. She would tell them: “'As a gamer, they can see your world, but as a
reader they can’t – so how do you describe that to them?'
Because it was something they had personally created, they were much
more keen to explain and describe it.”
For each child to develop a
storyline in their game world and write it down.
Extend appreciation of and skills
in the Fantasy/Imaginative genre. Tessa is a fan of fantasy
literature like the Hobbit, but found that even the most able
readers were “all reading stuff like the Olsen twins” (!). She wanted them
to try something a bit different.
There were only 10 laptops to share
amongst 27 children, so the class was divided into 3 rotating groups.
The Adventure Author team would often work with the group on the laptops,
while Tessa worked with the other two groups on art, writing and other World Builder tasks. This was difficult in a primary class, but the pupils were
generally very patient with the idea of set timeslots for working on
games. The kids physically made some of the special objects and
weapons that appeared in their game – swords, cloaks, chests,
jewelled broaches – which were displayed to parents at the end of
the year.
Tessa also shows one of the children’s
project journals. She wrote a letter at the start of
the project to all parents to explain to them the educational value,
how these stories came about and how creative a process it was. The
project journals served as some evidence for this.
The displayed journal contained
lots of drawings and ideas, any adjective work they did, language work, drama activities, and any notes. They had to answer questions like: “Imagine if
you met Gandalf, and you asked him to help with your homework –
what would he say? What would an orc say?” They explored motivation
and personality in characters. Tessa thinks that this fed back into
the characters' personalities in-game.
The class read fantasy books, and they
reviewed the books in literature circles. They
also conducted interviews with the ‘authors, and made podcasts out of them.
Tessa shows the class blog:
http://edubuzz.org/blogs/campiep7b. It was intended initially to keep in touch with parents, but
developed further. Some blog entries are shown which illustrate the
books the kids were reading. Each Friday, the class was asked a Brain
Booster question. The example given was “If you were a character in
a fantasy world, would you be good or evil, and what dwelling would
you live in?” Each member of the class had to write their own
answer.
The class started getting comments from teachers in
Australia, which the kids found tremendously exciting.
Tessa puts up some sample descriptions
from the kids. “In another was a city called Goldmine. It was a
small city with not a lot of buildings, but there were lots of snowy
mountains. There was a very large castle beside my very deep lake, it
was a grey stone building with lots of cracks and moss on it.” Alex
– Level C.
“Alex was one of those boys who would
read football magazines and that was it, and he’d generally only
talk about football.” Alex really enjoyed the gaming side, and
always got involved in the Brain Booster conversations. “Before the
project, Alex was someone who could write a functional piece of
writing, like a letter. His spelling is generally very good, but when
it came to something more imaginative, he wouldn’t allow himself to
really attempt it. The little details show that he is starting to
think more descriptively. It was a big step on for Alex.”
Another description of a world comes from a Level E child who had previously not
passed her Level E. The fantasy genre really clicked with her,
and brought an authenticity to her writing that she had not
previously displayed.
Tessa found that the Fridge Magnets
were useful for a lot of children. One girl, Robyn, had trouble forming her ideas into a storyline, but using the Fridge Magnets
helped her to get started. In general, once the kids had used the Fridge
Magnets in their initial session, most did not go back, though one or
two did.
Outcome of goals:
Almost all children developed a
storyline and wrote it down.
The fantasy genre books became
very popular. “One boy Craig, whose reading level is B, absolutely
adored the Hobbit. He’s not a reader who could read that
independently, but he loved the story – hopefully that will spur
him on to try something similar.”
The fact that other adults came in to
help was a big motivator. The kids worked well in groups, including
children who were normally quite quiet or wouldn’t speak to each
other. Instead they were running round and helping each
other, which was good for Tessa because she could leave them to work
independently. One child didn’t end up getting a story written
down, but did help other kids a lot.
What was the impact on learning?
“What different did doing fantasy in
gaming make? It wasn’t a world created by someone else, it was
their world, and that was very motivating for them. They really took
pride in what they’d done. The sense of ownership was hugely
important and hugely effective. The quality of work they produced was
outstanding.” Tessa notes that they can be read on the blog at the
address previously given, and there is more specific information
about what Tessa has done available, which you can email her to get: tcollins@campie.elcschool.org.uk
Finally, Judy introduces Andrew Kelly, a pupil just leaving primary school - he will talk about his experiences working with the Adventure Author team in late 2006, and how he has continued working with his game since then.
Andrew didn’t really know anything
about games before he started working on the project, but he knew it
was very hard and took a long time. He greatly looked forward to
doing the project, and enjoyed learning about the
Neverwinter Nights toolset and making his game.
He learned that
gamemaking isn’t really that difficult if you have good software.
In the original version of the toolset Andrew had to keep changing his story to fit
in with the art resources that were available. He had to learn some
scripting language to make an important conversation, which he found
very difficult, but this isn't necessary in current versions of the software.
Andrew made a game which involved
answering educational questions, and found that difficult because
his target audience was everyone from Primary 1 to Primary 7, which is a large range.
Andrew conducted fundraising with his game - he let people play it for 10
minutes at 20p a shot. About 20 people played it in total and he
donated the money to charity.
Andrew demonstrates the Neverwinter
Nights 1 toolset for the audience, moving around his desert area. He
demonstrates a waypoint, and explains that it is used to tell
characters where to move to.
He demonstrates a train station area,
and points out the player start location, and a waypoint for the
werewolf train conductor to move to. “The player goes through
several areas like this.” Andrew’s game has about 6 areas. You
have to fight a werewolf, and when you win you are told how many
points you got from answering questions.
Andrew demonstrates the game running.
The werewolf does not accept that the player’s ticket for the train
is valid. (Andrew says that he has been in worse
situations with Network Rail.) Andrew reads out the conversation for
the benefit of the audience, as it is too small to see on the projector. The player
talks to a seagull about his missing book, and is sent to the
government camp to find it. A book seller wants to know how you mark
a proper noun to proceed, and the audience contribute the correct
answer. He gets a key that will let him proceed to the next level.
Andrew gets a bit lost in his large
level, and a game designer in the audience notes that making visually
varied levels are helpful for user orientation. “It’s a very
professional problem!”
Questions and answers session:
An erstwhile headteacher is keen on the
project, but takes issue with the fact that the other two Primary 7
classes did not get the opportunity to do it. Tessa replies that the
other two classes worked on some other exciting projects, including a
filmmaking project. “How much training did you receive from the
team to enable you to be an enabler and facilitator?” Tessa
attended two workshops to watch how the process worked, and met the team a
couple of times to ask questions. She was also provided a laptop to
practice ahead of time, but found that some children rapidly
overtook her!
Andrew then demonstrates a bit more of his
game. You collect points as you go through. Someone in the audience
quizzes Andrew as to what happens if you get a question wrong – he
says you lose points and don’t get the object to go to the next
level. Andrew notes that his game has some scripting problems.
The game designer asks if the book
seller will ask you one of a random set of questions – Andrew says
that it does, but he’s not sure it’s working just now.
Judy finishes up with a note that the
project funding finishes up in December, and the team are looking for
dissemination funding to continue the project. Team member Cathrin Howells has written
some teaching materials which you can access on the blog.
The game designer asks if Tessa will
run the project again. She says she could potentially run it again
with her Primary 6 class, but it depends on the Adventure Author
laptops being available – she would love to do it again, or
anything similar. Another class had a very successful PSP project.
Paul Oord asks whether children who use
these programs are developing a different way of looking at the
world. Tessa says that several kids in the class were already keen
gamers, and that she had discussed with some other children what the
effects of violent games might be. For children who
weren’t gamers, it was a new type of discussion. Paul's follow-up question is: “do you think
they consider real life as a game?” Andrew says that he doesn’t. He
doesn’t play many violent video games, but he would guess that
violent games probably do make you more violent.
