Major: Enhancing Creativity and Authoring in STEM Education-Based Virtual Worlds through Concept-Oriented Design

The University Of Central Florida Board Of Trustees, Orlando FL

Investigators

Abstract

This research will explore how concept-oriented design - a methodology for the design and development of complex 3D user interfaces - can be utilized in Lunar Quest, a massively multiplayer online game (MMOG) designed to support learning of physics concepts. MMOGs such as World of Warcraft, and virtual worlds such as Second Life, have become increasingly popular in recent years, providing hours of entertainment to millions of people. Given their popularity, it is also clear that, if used properly and constructively, these virtual worlds and MMOGs have the potential to significantly enhance learning in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education. Students can actively engage each other and the world to solve interesting problems that reflect STEM disciplines and collaborate on larger problems they individually could not solve. These vehicles not only provide interesting learning environments, but also present an excellent opportunity for creativity in the learning process where students, based on their knowledge, can author in-game quests with intriguing narratives that focus on STEM topics, and educators and parents can monitor and guide learning. By authoring these quests, students can effectively learn though teaching their peers in a collaborative setting while teachers can create exciting scenarios that students can explore beyond the classroom. The key research challenge in supporting creativity and authoring in virtual worlds and MMOGs is developing a set of tools which make it easy for both student and teacher to create in game quests tailored to STEM education without the need for software development and complex programming. Concept-oriented design focuses on the author's envisioned behavior and conversational causal language, to develop a multi-tiered representation that will guide authors to their final design and modularizes ideas into understandable, reusable concepts. These concepts are executed at runtime, maintaining the intended ordering of the developer's causal relationships. In addition to authoring tools, this research also use a participatory design process to explore how best to author content and establish best practices for developing in-game quests that are rewarding and entertaining, yet are able to achieve intended learning goals that all stakeholders involved with teaching students can agree upon. Finally, the project will investigate the pedagogical implications of concept-oriented design as it relates to authoring content in Lunar Quest and sparking creativity. This work has the potential to benefit thousands of students at the middle, high school, and college levels.