EDUCON16 "Tools and Approaches for Simplifying Serious Games Development in Educational Settings" Antonio Calvo Morata. Universidad Complutense de Madrid. 11/04/16.

1. Tools and Approaches for
Simplifying Serious Games
Development in Educational
Settings
Antonio Calvo Morata

2. GOAL

3. Real Example: Cytopathology Challenge
GOALS
● Educational application for an Introduction to Cytopathology course
● Train cytologists in resource-poor countries
CONSTRAINTS
● Work in Low-cost Android tablets
● No Wifi-Connection to play on tablets
● Work in Web browsers
● Very limited budget

4. OPTIONS

5. COTS Games (Commercial Off-the-Shelf)
Use commercial games designed for entertainment
with educational purposes.

6. COTS Games (Commercial Off-the-Shelf)
PROS
● Can illustrate more topics than teachers
might expect
● External maintenance and updates
CONS
● How to extract this unintended
pedagogical value?
● How use the game in the classroom?
● No learning focus
● No control and monitoring tools

7. GAAS (Games As A Service)
Hire the services of specialized companies (game and infrastructure).
Learning games as services
to train students and
employees

8. GAAS (Games As A Service)
PROS
● Easy integration with the learning
process
● Control and monitoring tools
● External maintenance and updates
CONS
● The collected data is stored on the servers
of the company supporting the game
● Provider server dependency
● Internet connection

9. Serious Games
There are thousands of games focused on
teach thousands different fields of knowledge

10. Serious Games
PROS
● Focused on learning
● Easy integration with the learning
process.
CONS
● Usually designed only for a few learning
scenarios
● No control and monitoring tools

11. TOOLS

12. Variables to consider in the differents tools
Platforms
Prices
Documentation
Features
Performance
Community

13. AAA Tools
Teams with the highest development budgets.
Focused on the development
of AAA games.
UI is intended for experts,
focused on implementation
and advanced features.

14. All in One
Tools created for teams with lower budgets.

15. Frameworks
Lower-level access.
Require advanced game programming knowledge.

16. Specialized Tools
Less functionality and potential but
they simplify the game creation process.
Specialized on a game genre or
gameplay.

17. RESULT

18. Cytopathology Challenge
● Powered by LibGDX (Framework - Java).
● Works in Android and Web.
● No necessary internet to play it on mobile devices.
● Run in low-cost mobiles dispositives.
● ~60h of development

19. RAGE

20. Realising an Applied Gaming Eco-system
● Develop applied games assets for game developers
○ Including analytics and many others that
depend on it!
● Assets in online repository
● Build a self-sustainable ecosystem around a
repository, connecting stakeholders
○ Game-developers
○ Education providers
○ Learners
○ Asset contributors

21. Learning Analytics Asset
Analyze the learner behavior and check the game effectiveness.
Tracker
Tracker
A2
Analytics
Asset
Learning
Record Store
Users

22. Architecture
Clients AA Applications
Games
Analytics
Frontend
AA
Frontend
Players
Devs,Students,
Teachers.
Admins
Users
Roles
Resources
Permissions
Applications
Authentication
Authorization
JWT
JSON
WEB
TOKEN
Games
Sessions
Results
TopologyAnalytics Backend
Games
Sessions
Collector
Results
Application 1
Application N
KafkaQueue

23. Relating Cytopathology Challenge and Analytics Asset
Increase the value of a serious game adding learning analytics
2.Send traces
1.Play
Cytopathology
Challenge
3.Analyze
data
4.Recover results
5.Show analysis
to evaluate the
students

24. QUESTIONS?
THANKS
antcal01@ucm.es