Abstract:

This presentation will show the design and student examples from a Gamification course that is taught to second year IgA students in the spring 2017. The course is based on system thinking analyses of real world problems, and the aim is to develop applications that use game technology to change people behavior.

The students were divided into groups and could choose from three different tasks; The Blessing and Pain of Oil, which are about the oil situation in the world, The Paradise Galapagos that focuses on natural resources and tourism, and The Jordan River trouble, which are about the water situation in the Middle East. The students first used System Analyses and made causal loop diagrams, flow charts, and then simulate them with System Dynamics. Based on the thorough understanding they gain from this, they design Gamification ideas to make people use less oil, save water, and think sustainably on tourism and natural resource use.

The course pedagogics builds on Problem Based Learning (PBL), where the class and PBL groups serves as a “community of practice” where the common goal is making Gamification. The students are “learning by doing” and the theory is taught “just in time” when needed.

During the course gamification theory the students are taught gamification design, gamification psychology and how to use gamification tools such as for example Invison, Unity and Unreal to implement the projects. The students also make blogs to present their projects.

In the presentation we will show student examples and give a brief introduction to how the design of the course was made and implemented. Examples on students applications that will be shown is phone applications to save water in shower, using tourists photos to identify illegal fishing, how to minimize use of plastic bags in shops, minimize driving and increase walking and biking, and water saving in households.

In Interactivity, Games and Visual Arts (IgA) in Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences (INN) we have used game development in teaching for 10 years. INN has a complete game development tracks since 2003, and is now one of the biggest and most complete game educations in Scandinavia with 250 game students.

References:
[1] Nordby, A., Karlsen, S. (2014). Teaching ‘hardcore science’ to arts and design students: Reflections on the development of a basic programming course. InFormation - Nordic Journal of Art and Research 2014 ;Volum 3.(2) s. 129-142
[2] Nordby, A., Oygardslia, K., Sverdrup, H., Sverdrup, U., (2016). The art of gamification; Teaching Sustainability and System Thinking by Pervasive Game Development. E-journal of e-lerning (EJEL) Issue 3 2016, p152-168.

Keywords:

Learning, Game Development, Gamification, Games and Learning, Pervasive games, Digital Games, Concurrent Design.