AWWWARE – a “game for teaching”
to improve children’s internet literacy
Cornelius Müller
Zurich University
of the Arts (ZHdK)
[email protected]
Dominik Petko
University of Teacher
Education Central
Switzerland (PHZ)
[email protected]
Ulrich Götz
Zurich University
of the Arts (ZHdK)
[email protected]
Abstract
AWWWARE v. 1.0 is the prototype of a browser-based serious game, intended as a teaching tool in schools to develop the media competence of
children in their use of the Internet. It makes the case for a “game for teaching” for the design of games that are targeted to be used in classrooms. It is
explicitly aimed at supporting discussions during lessons between educators
and students about the quality of Internet sites. The internal game-editor allows the continual composition of theme-based groups by teachers and
learners.
SERIOUS GAME, INTERNET, EDUCATION, MEDIA LITERACY
Introduction
Despite expectations that serious games can be used in a wide range of educational contexts, their actual use in school teaching comes with a number of challenges (Klopfer,
Osterweil & Salen, 2009; Sandford et al., 2006; BECTA, 2002). Based on given research and practical considerations, it can be argued that “games for teaching” (contrasting the term “games for learning”) should be specifically designed to take the given
educational context of the classroom and its didactic setting into account. Instead of
providing a self-sufficient learning experience for students they try to give teachers
tools to supplement and shape that experience. This can be accomplished by following a
number of recommendations (see e.g. Blamire, 2010; Felicia, 2009; Petko, 2008):
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Target a topic of the school curriculum: games should be explicitly linked to
specific topics of the curriculum, especially those topics that cannot easily be
taught without an interactive and playful environment – such as complex reasoning, situated cognition, learning strategies, transfer and application of knowledge
– or topics for which it is hard to motivate students to study.
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Make prior or posterior teacher input or student research necessary: the application of relevant knowledge should be essential for success in the game. Games
for teaching should be supplemented by additional teaching material or linked to
existing textbooks and other background information.
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Provide tasks that accompany gameplay: teachers should assign students clear
tasks during gameplay, to minimise distracted use of the game. Examples of the
types of tasks that can be assigned include experimentation tasks to systematically change certain variables or observation tasks to answer specific questions.
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The design of such tasks should be an integral part of the design of “games for
teaching”.
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Provide in-game-hooks for tutoring during gameplay: the game should include
hints and prompts that foster in-game reflection. Consequently, it should also be
possible to pause the game during tutoring discussions and to trace back steps in
the game in order to allow different approaches to be followed.
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Keep game time short: games for teaching should adhere to normal lesson
schedules, including time for introduction and evaluation and as such should be
constructed as simply as possible to minimize time loss in mastering game controls.
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Keep technical affordances low: games for teaching should be designed to take
into account of the fact that computers in schools are often outdated – often even
lacking a dedicated sound or graphic card or other than the most common
browser plug-ins – and cannot handle demanding multimedia applications.
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Publish for free (or at least low cost): games for teaching should take account of
schools often not having the funds to pay for classroom sets of licenses. Expensive games will have difficulties finding their way into schools.
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Make it suitable for the audience: teachers will only integrate games in their
teaching that have been approved for the age group they are teaching.
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Provide possibilities to compare and discuss outcomes: outcomes should be presented beyond highscores, and be extended to include detailed accounts of relevant decisions during gameplay and their impact on the final score.
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Give teachers and students tools to create and edit game content: e.g. a level
editor or advanced gameplay settings to change fundamental game mechanics to
explore different rule sets.
Designing a “game for teaching” children internet literacy
AWWWARE v. 1.0 was developed by a research group of the Institute for Design Research with specialization in game design at the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK)
in co-operation with the University of Teacher Education Central Switzerland in
Schwyz (PHZ), and subsidized by the Gebert Rüf Foundation. It is the result of an iterative development process that follows the approach of „Design Based Research“ (Wang
& Hannafin, 2005). Explorative prototypes provided an effective means of allowing the
widest possible space for design and sequential concretization of the game concept. In
this manner fundamental aspects of gameplay could be discussed in the project team
from the perspectives of media educators and game designers, and the prototypes incrementally refined. As a “game for teaching” ideas were also discussed with practitioners in the field where also early prototypes were tested. The team tried to develop
and implement the guidelines above to find out whether or not this will affect the usual
process of serious game design. Additionally, the development process had to take into
account a number of content specific requirements that will be described subsequently.
The game is aimed at ten- to twelve-year-old primary school children with varied prior
experience using computers and computer games. This age-group is particularly vulnerable to dangers found on the Internet (Livingstone et al., 2011). The overarching
learning goals of the game are to foster in children the capacity to distinguish between
potentially threatening or dangerous and harmless online content for minors, and to
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identify other problematic content on the Internet. The game also aims to build the capacity to recognize and follow relevant links to particular themes and to contribute to
the general information competence in children in relation to use of the Internet.
A significant problem in the sensitization of children and youth to potentially damaging
websites on the Internet is that it is impossible to actually show them such material. The
game has to come very close to relevant Internet content without breaching the boundaries set for the protection of minors. Using edited screenshots, AWWWARE offers children the opportunity to navigate through examples of potentially dangerous areas of the
Internet without ever putting them in danger of coming into contact with real, dangerous
content. While doing this, AWWWARE tries to avoid the educational “pointed finger”
that usually comes with attendance to this topic. In contrast to comparable interactive
material around this issue (e.g. games of the Canadian Media Awareness Network:
www.media-awareness.ca/english/games/ or of the Swiss Action Innocence:
www.netcity.org/), which work with clear good/bad dichotomies, the intention is that
children develop stronger exploratory lines of reasoning about which online content is
suited to their use.
AWWWARE v. 1.0 is particularly sensitive to the need for gender-neutral design of
game figures taking into consideration the particularly strong gender stereotyping prevalent in the target age-range. Game figures and color concepts have to be equally suitable
for boys and girls. Finally, the game takes account of the need to provide the possibility
for educators to change game-content and create their own game-levels, to reflect the
rapidity of change of relevant content on the Internet.
Essential game elements, visual metaphors and conveyance methods
AWWWARE incorporates a number of properties that are essential to qualify it a game
and not as a simulation or some other sort of interactive material (Sauvé et al., 2007;
Gredler, 2004). This includes the specification of distinct rulesets and sets of goals,
combined with the motivation of winning and achieving a new highscore. However, it
remains true that AWWWARE incorporates images from real websites (although only
partially visible) that might qualify it as some sort of simulation with playful elements.
The idea of the game is described in detail further below.
The instinctively usable design of certain websites, and the high speed of connection
from one site to another, can bring children in an exceedingly short time into contact
with potentially harmful material. A method for discussion in schoolroom education of
how to increase awareness in the navigation of the Internet in order to achieve a targeted
selection of content, must include, as a central tenet, the deceleration of navigation by
the user. AWWWARE uses a number of different strategies in design in order to slow
down navigation and to achieve a considered selection of sequential links within the
game setting: indirect navigation combined with an additional dexterity component. The
game figure represents a stylized raven, carrying a kite. The kite mimics an in-game
mouse. The left/right keys determine the position of the raven (and pull the kite with it).
The up/down keys determine the length of the string of the kite. The kite behaves like a
mouse in that when it moves over a linkable area, its graphic changes into a mouse
pointer and can choose an active link. The kite is affected by wind and gravity. The effect of these forces is supported by a physics game engine. A virtual wind direction is
generated for each website by the in-game-editor. The kite must be pulled against the
direction of the wind to rise (otherwise it sinks). In this way, attaining a certain link requires deliberate choice of target; steering becomes a game of dexterity that must be
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practiced. Nevertheless, game controls are kept deliberately simple to account for the
different levels of experience of children with PCs or computer games, and ease-of-use
by the teacher. The interface is composed of a screen and keyboard of an internet-linked
PC with browser and up-to-date Flash plug-in. A mouse is only required to call-up extra
functions.
Graphic design and visual metaphors
AWWWARE is set in 2D graphics. Any unnecessary or distracting elements or animations are avoided. Particular attention has been paid to target-group-appropriate metaphors and graphic design. A raven flies a kite against the backdrop of a windy autumn
landscape. The kite flies in front of a floating browser-window and can be brought to
navigate from site to site. Thus, the game combines screenshots of existing websites in
gameplay, and at the same time acts as an extra level between the recipient and the medium. This has the effect of establishing, without complicated game-mechanics or narrative devices, an effective distance to the usual, direct navigation of the Internet. It advances, in a playful manner, a more knowledgeable, aware navigation between websites, and the decisions to follow certain links. The game figure is gender-neutral. The
game uses full-screen mode; the setting, however, concentrates on screenshots from the
Internet – see figure 1.
Figure 1. In-game-screen.
Figure 2. Game results and scoring.
Game mechanics and scoring
When a player calls up a site, s/he receives a certain number of points, depending on the
set valuation on a five-point scale, of the site (see below AWWWARE Editor). If the
player considers the site particularly positive or valuable, s/he marks it by adding a ribbon to the tail of the kite (it is, so to speak, a bet against the game-engine). The color of
the ribbon is the first indicator of the actual value assigned by the game to the content of
the website – green indicates that it is positive, red that it is negative. A varying background in the game environment – from bright sunshine to thunderstorms – gives the
player additional feedback on the quality of his/her actions. When all the ribbons are
used up, the game ends automatically and goes to scoring. As figure 2 shows, the scoring visualizes the gameplay, using a chronological diagram, while the curve gives an
indication of the value of each individual site. A symbol in the given color shows the
point at which the player marked the kite and so made a bet, in the moment, about the
value of the site visited. The scores of visited sites are adjusted using a multiplicator to
arrive at the final cumulative score. The goal of the game is, in addition to answering a
given query with the fewest possible clicks, to have visited the highest number of posi4
tive sites using those clicks, and to have correctly recognized these as valuable. The
graphic presentation of the gameplay is a useful support for the discussion between
teacher and pupil about the websites visited. The score sheet can be printed for documentation.
Integrating a game-editor for teachers and students
AWWWARE comes with a game-editor that allows users to create and upload new levels for the online-game. Generally, the game is not limited to particular themes, narratives or degrees of difficulty. Any type of image material (preferably JPEG image file
format 800x600 pixel) can be uploaded into the game-editor and interlinked with others
to create a maze-like structure of screens that form a level. It allows a varying number
of screenshots or images to be interlinked. The size and location of clickable areas
within each screenshot and their target image can be chosen freely. Areas in the screenshots can be graphically blurred, in order to defuse material dangerous to minors. For
each game screen additional comments or hints can be added. A central tenet is the
valuation and description of individual screenshots with a specific number of points on
a five-point scale (from ++ to --). In addition, it is possible to set the number of ribbons
used to mark positive content that can be added to the tail of the kite. When uploading a
level to the online game, level designers choose a password for their level that has to be
distributed to players in order to open the level. The game-editor is a locally installed
PC- or Mac-compatible Adobe Air application.
Discussion
AWWWARE v. 1.0 represents the prototype of a browser-based serious game for the
advancement of critical media competence in dealing with the risks of the Internet, for
children between the ages of ten and twelve. It is explicitly intended for use guided by
teachers during school lessons, and tries to make the case for a “game for teaching” rather than just a “game for learning”. Considering the final product against the recommendations listed in the beginning of the article it can be concluded that many but not
all of them have been met. AWWWARE targets a relevant topic for many schools, but
one that is rapidly changing and has not yet consistently been integrated into teaching
curricula; the development of additional teaching material and tasks is under way, but
remains a continuing challenge for each level and topic of gameplay; the game-editor
allows for the creation of in-game hints and the game has a pause function for tutoring
and discussion; playing time is supposed to be around ten minutes which is reasonably
short to integrate gameplay into standard lessons; software and hardware requirements
are low and the game is free. The biggest achievement of this particular game might be
seen in the potential provision of near-reality experiences of potentially harmful content
for minors without overstepping the boundaries of child protection. Although it deals
with a highly sensible topic, it is still suited for the age group of ten- to twelve-year-old
students. The final highscore is accompanied by a chart that details the success of each
in-game decision. It can be printed, compared and discussed in class. Finally, the gameeditor allows for the creation of game levels by teachers and students, making the game
easy to adapt to different topics and even subjects. The ability to create variations in
game-levels, allows AWWWARE v.1.0 to be used as an entry-point for a series of studies on the use of serious games in schools. Meeting the recommendations proposed in
the first chapter of this article will likely remain an evolving challenge.
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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Michael Burgdorfer and Mario von Rickenbach for their contributions to the realization of the project, through, respectively, software development
and graphic design.
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