Welcome to the Ecocity blog.
1) Please identify who you are and where you are from. Briefly, what's your area of work? How is it related to the use/design of games and simulations for learning?
2) Having played the game, could you comment on what you had observed or seen:
i) in terms of the strength or weakenss in the game design
ii) areas of strength or weakness in the pedagogical approach
iii) possible extensions for use in the classroom - to another audience or group of learners
3) We'd like to find out how the use of this game facilitates gains in students' learning. Any suggestions on how to go about doing this?
4) We're dreaming that perhaps one day, there might an inter-linked world - made up of many cities that grow and it's organic in nature... what would you like to see / do in such a world?
Thank you!
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10 comments:
We had great fun in Alexandria. I liked the message about interdependencies of processes, and about needing critical levels of various resources. I also like the formula where you need to talk in real life to get agreements going.
You do need quite a bit of game leader intervention in this game though - it requires heavy teacher load.
The only thing that confused this poor retailer was the icons for fodder and fertilizer - they were alomst identical - and I needed to get used to all the screen areas before I knew what did what - but that is inherent in the game's complexity, I guess.
Thanks!
Gert Jan Hofstede
Igor Mayer Nice game. Got hooked. I will focus on the improvements :)
User interaction not quite intuitive
Difficult to get unstuck together. Kept running into the same program. Lack of machinery etc.
Get more discussion going between the players to understand the complexity of the system and what you want to learn. Yoy may need to arrange that
Class room computer instruction is always very difficult / messy. People go and do different things / go wrong / need to restart / talk through each other / are impatient. Lecturers using this game will also need to learn how to manage that.
I am not quite sure how you debrief the learning lessons. Did not reach a stae yet to get debriefed.
I had relatively little awareness about the other players. At time sit seemed I was played an Internet game. Do you want to have more student interaction
Why is the game called EcoCity. It is not that much about ecology.
I would like a full screen
1)Indhumathi, NTU, Reasch Scholor.
2)It is confusing and not user friendly to communicate with the other peoples. Not clear about the role of each player.Apart from the above the game is is quite intresting.
3)-Nil-
4)Ecofriendly.
I'm not too sure how this fits into engineering just yet.
Interface is good but am not too fond of the chat function as the box blocks the view.
Probably better comms with others in the team and understanding the trade-offs beforehand would be beneficial.
The format would be suitable for kids i believe... it's much like civilisation or sim-city.
1. Melanie, Geog Unit
2. i. strengths - it needs collaborative work
weakness - some roles are not really needed. Some products are not bought. Not sure how my product is useful for others. For efficiency of skilled labour, we did not know that we could increase this through feeding the workers.
ii. strengths - just in time teaching. weakness - teachers will not be able to give quality feedback given that many students would need the teachers' attention.
iii. can use for teaching of Economics. teaching about trade and scarcity of resources.
1) I am a Ph.d student from NTU. I am working on computer graphics. I have a project on geometry learning for high school.
2) it is better than the one I have seen before, which is only basing on text. The graphic based one is more interested.
3) it is helpful for students to understand some basic ideas. Now, it allows 4 students to play. I think it can be more interseted to add more charaters.
(1)Toshiyuki Kaneda, from Nagoya Institute of Technology.Teaching urban planing. Have experiences to make several SimCity-like simulators.
(2) i)Nice interface! the deadlock emerges under a few constraints.
At first I cannot understand what each icon does mean.
ii) Motivation-making. I-O constraints among indstrial sectors.
iii) quite interesting.
3) let me know the debriefing principle.
4) good idea!
Sara from the SGI, UK Director of research. I study, develop and evaluate serious games.
Needed better intro to the system, and the system was not very fast. However once Kenneth had briefed me it was good fun to use. The team collaboration dimension could be clearer. The layout of room was not that helpful for inter-working.
Needs period after game-play for reflection and debrief.
Not clear what the pedagogic model that was used was in practice. But be interested to find out which one/s were used and how the game was developed and designed.
To improve game play: 1) need clearer introd, 2) debrief and reflection needed 3) b/ground and context for the game would be useful but I guess that is provided in the classroom situation 4) improve the interface from the usability perspective.
Similar to Civilisation game, but simpler interface. Could add more educational feedback and info to the game. Also point to online resources for children to follow up with later.
Multiplayer dimension didnt work that well. Maybe improved with different layout of room to encourage team-work.
To evaluate the game I suggest you use the four dimensional framework, see de Freitas and Oliver, 2006. Use participatory design methodology for future development projects.
See SL and Twinity and other virtual worlds for examples of how interlinked worlds might operate. Also check out my reports for JISC: Serious Virtual Worlds and Learning in Immersive Worlds (by de Freitas).
Lots of scope for learning in virtual worlds and supports social interactions well.
Thanks for the gameplay it was fun.
1)My name is Yimin and I come from Nanyang Tech U. I work in the area of virtual reality, which provides some techinical support for game design.
2)i)The game is well designed and fully functioned, despite of some minor bugs.
ii)It is quite novel that students can learning through game playing.
iii)Based on the same idea, maybe some online games can be developped that targets any users.
3)Students can actually learn something from this game, especially when they got stuck in the game. They could then know what is the problem and how to avoid it.
4)I hope there would be a powerful information system where every can get things she/he wants to know.
Thanks for the game!
Hi, I am qiqi, a gamer from TU/Delft.
I like the interface and design of the game. It is quite interesting to play. And you really need to think what the smart way is to build a emvironmental friendly city efficiently. But I was a little bit confused about what the activity I need to do to achieve this target at the first begining. At it seemed that the incentives of communication between group members are not so strong. We can just do our own things without seeing the bad results. At if possible, I would like to have a more direct feedback of what I have done. That I can have strong feeling of achievement.
I like the idea of a interlinked world. i believe more transparence makes highly level of trust between peoples.
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