Native Dancer
Diabetes
Health Care
Education Game
Immersive Role-based
Environments for
Education
Dr. Brian M. Slator, Computer Science Department
North Dakota State University
NDSU WWWIC
World Wide Web Instructional Committee
Paul Juell
Phillip McClean
Bernhardt Saini-Eidukat
Jeff Clark
Donald Schwert
Brian Slator
Alan White
WWWIC faculty supported by large teams of
undergraduate and graduate students.
WWWIC’s virtual worlds research supported by NSF
grants DUE-9752548, EAR-9809761, DUE-9981094,
ITR-0086142 and EPSCoR 99-77788
Educational Role-playing Games
“Learning-by-doing” Experiences
• MultiUser
• Exploration
• Spatially-oriented virtual worlds
• Practical planning and decision
making
Balancing
Pedagogy with
Play
Games have the
capacity to engage!
• Powerful mechanisms for instruction
• Illustrate real-world content and structure
• Promote strategic maturity (“learning not the law,
but learning to think like a lawyer”)
The Projects
The
Geology Explorer
The
Virtual Cell
Dollar
Bay
Like-a-Fishhook
Digital
Others
Village
Archive for Archaeology
The Geology Explorer
The Virtual Cell
Fort Berthold and Like-A-Fishhook Village
Photo of Arikara
Lodge, Form-Z
Extrusion, VRML
model
The Geology Explorer:
Assessment Protocol
Pre-course Assessment:
400+ students
Example: Fall, 1998
Computer Literacy Assessment:
(244 volunteers)
Divide by Computer Literacy
and Geology Lab Experience
Non-Participant Control
Group:
(150 students, approx.)
Geology Explorer
Treatment Group:
(122 students)
Completed
(78 students)
Post-course Assessment:
368 students
Non-completed
(44 students)
Geomagnetic
(Alternative) Group:
(122 students)
Completed
(95 students)
Non-completed
(27 students)
Mean Post-Intervention Scenario
Scores for 1998 Geology Explorer NDSU Physical Geology Students
Group
No.
Alternate 95
Control
195
Planet Oit 78
Grader
One
29.3a
25.1a
40.5b
Grader
Two
27.0a
25.5a
35.4b
Grader
Three
42.6a
44.5a
53.4b
Within any column, any two means followed by
the same letter are not significantly different at
P=0.05 using Duncan’s multiple range mean
separation test.
Native Dancer
Diabetes
Health Care
Education Game
Diabetes and Native Americans
Diabetes Epidemic: approximately
33% of Native Americans have some
form of diabetes
22% of White Earth people have Type
II Diabetes (so-called adult onset)
Typical onset, 10 years ago: 42 years
old
Today, youngest case: 9 years old.
Increased 32% in ages 15-19
Nutrition and Physical Activity
“Reduction in incidence of type 2
diabetes with lifestyle intervention or
metformin” (New England Journal of
Medicine, 2002)
Percent reduced incidence of
diabetes
17% placebo
31% metformin
58% nutrition/physical activity
Why a video game? Don’t video
games…
Encourage sedentary behavior
Often have themes that glorify:
Violence
(You name it) Space Invaders, Mortal Kombat, Doom,
Golden Eye - 007, Quake I-III, Return to Castle Wolfenstein,
Area 51, etc…
Sex
Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball, Freestyle BMX,
Street Fighter, Tomb Raider, etc…
Other anti-social behavior
Grand Theft Auto I-III, Midnight Club, Twisted Metal, etc…
Yes, but video games:
Reach the target audience: 10-18+
“proclivities of youth”
Provide virtual/safe environment to
experiment & learn
New, emerging genre of healthy video
games
Dance Dance Revolution
Dance Dance Revolution
1-2 users match the footsteps of a
dancing game character on a Dance
Grid in front of a large video screen
User must exercise to play
the game
Users have lost up to 100lbs
playing DDR
See USA Today Online
Article and Video News
Story at:
http://atl.ndsu.edu/articles_online/
The Sims
A game where you make
choices about your
character’s lifestyle that may
or may not negatively or
positively affect the ability of
the character to function as
a person.
Then, what is Native Dancer?
DDR meets the Sims
Flow:
health
Lifestyle choices
competition performance
regalia reward
competition standings
Friendly Competition Drives
Learning
Students strive to learn diet and lifestyle to
do better in dance competition
Assumes dance aspect of the game is fun
& engaging
Proper choices are rewarded with Powwow
Regalia that allow dance character to gain
more points in each competition
Benefits
Immediate:
provides a non-threatening, and easy exercise
interactively engages child in health education
process
Cultural:
encourages pride in child’s culture
teaches cultural dance skills to children
Provides:
a culturally relevant map to long-term healthy
lifestyle and diabetes management
Measuring Daily Life
Opportunities and Decisions
Youth summer life data:
Interviews and observations
Youth school life data:
1.
In-school survey: grades 5 through 12
1.
2.
3.
Attitudes, behaviors, computer literacy (1 hour)
Age-appropriate questions, confidentiality
guaranteed
Overall results available to schools, WERTC, and
interested others
2. Computerized diary from (selected?) youth
Outcomes
Assess change in nutrition behavior
Assess change in physical activity
behavior
Assess change in attitudes toward
individual health
Creation of baseline dataset for
longitudinal studies
Native Dancer Team Contacts
Lisa Brandt, PhD, Anthropologist
[email protected]
701-231-6498
Monte Fox, WERTC Diabetes Project
Director
[email protected]
218-983-3285 ext. 412