Brain Based Learning

In the first of this series about Teaching Digital Storytelling I explained the basics of Digital Storytelling and how a teacher can get started using it in the classroom. This second article will look at different software that can be used to create digital stories.

Chuck Dietrich, CEO of SlideRocket, wrote this article on the effectiveness of digital classrooms, where he argues that perhaps the current debate is not framed correctly. I think he makes some excellent points, most importantly about deciding what we really should be evaluating. I’ve read a number of articles lately about school districts that have spent a lot to buy technology for their schools, yet their test scores are not going up at all. The conclusion of these article tends to be that therefore technology does not necessarily improve learning; …

Goals – Activities – Mechanics – Environment
Environment
Design a game environment (game world) that support the chosen mechanics, provides engaging gameplay scenarios, and supports a game narrative that places the learning content within the game context.
Although this is the last step that I’m discussing, it is certainly not the least important. This is where all the previous steps come together in a satisfying way. In this step, the designer creates an overarching framework for all the content that’s been outlined in the previous steps.
Context is important in learning – people tend …

Goals – Activities – Mechanics – Environment
Mechanics
Choose gameplay mechanics that allow the player to perform the game activities. There should be enough different mechanics to keep gameplay from becoming repetitive, but not too many that they’re hard to keep track of. Players should be spending time learning the game content, not how to play the game.
“Mechanics” is a term that can be defined in many different ways in different contexts – especially when differentiating between digital and non-digital games (Rogers, 2010). However, for this discussion it refers to the …

Goals – Activities – Mechanics – Environment
Activities
Define learning activities (things you would do in the classroom with students) that support the learning goals. Map these to game activities that can be used to create gameplay that will support the learning goals.
Gameplay is the core of the player’s experience when interacting with an educational game (Kiili, 2005a) and is what keeps players motivated and engaged throughout the game (Costkyan, 2002). Educational games have often failed because quality gameplay took a back seat to educational aspects of the game (Kiili, 2005a). However, …

Goals – Activities – Mechanics – Environment
Goals
This step of the GAME design process focuses on the instructional design aspect of educational game design. The first stage of any instructional design analysis should be to identify the learning goals for the project and to write up a list of specific instructional objectives. There are 4 steps to this process, represented by the acronym DATA:

Determine instructional needs – why do we need to create this game? What should players be able to do that currently are not?
Analyze learners – who will …