Abstract:

Gamified learning is an engaging form of education. Serious games transform the educational process into a fun and fruitful exploration. Interactivity increases student self-efficacy and knowledge recall through participatory learning, while evaluative measures track student performance fostering effective pedagogical development.

We showcase the design and development of a game combining virtual tours, educational material, quizzes, and automatic assessment within a realistic 3D environment: the Greek Ancient Theater of Philippi. To achieve this, we used the Agile methodology and the Successive Approximation Model (SAM) in our design process. Our team continuously iterated game design and development to ensure the tool would be user-friendly and productive. The game makes use of emerging technologies such as photogrammetry to create a photorealistic space that blends the fidelity of the real world with the safety, accessibility and interactivity afforded by virtuality. The model of the featured theater was reconstructed using thousands of close-up and drone-captured photos, thus preserving the accuracy of the real theater.

The tool is targeted at a diverse audience of humanities students comprising Hellenic Literature and Culture, Theater Studies, History and more. The game contains quizzes focused on evaluating specific learning outcomes for each field represented. Quizzes are formulated as self-evaluation exercises that allow students to test their knowledge of Ancient Greek theater architecture and its uses and functions of Ancient Greek theater genres and their respective components, and of the institutional and religious context with which classical Greek theater performances were inextricably associated. The 3D virtual environment ensures a more immersive, “real-life” learning experience, allowing students to explore Greek theater activity in its natural milieu.

The “Ancient Theater of Philippi” is built upon Unity3D and uses a first person camera perspective and movement. Upon loading, students are presented with the opportunity to explore the theater augmented with visual overlays and video lectures providing key information on the tool itself and external educational material.

Having viewed the introductory videos, students find automatically-spawning hotspots within the 3D environment; each hotspot teaches and evaluates material from a pool of 100 possible questions. Questions are divided into four categories: architecture of the Ancient Greek Theater, tragic drama and performance, comic drama and performance, and Ancient Greek theater contests (authorial, performative and procedural aspects). Each category is associated with an in-game educational video and external content for further study. A scoring mechanism updates student scores after each correct answer, and upon completion a final report is sent to the instructors. Instructors may use aggregate data to evaluate student learning and retention, with comparative metrics establishing the relative performance of the game versus traditional approaches.

This cutting-edge educational game intends to bring new levels of engagement and interactivity to humanities education and creates a compelling experience motivating students to seek to learn more. The fusion of embodied technologies and user-centered design of the application and related educational material create an advanced and impactful learning experience that closely couples technology and the humanities.

Keywords:

Games, Gamification, Photogrammetry, Virtual Tour, Ancient Theater of Philippi, Humanities, Distance Learning.