Using Play to Enhance Learning About Objects, OOPSLA ’02

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Play is serious! Games, simulations, puzzles, and toys in the classroom can improve student motivation, lead to better long-term memory, and reduce learning anxiety. Used effectively, play can leverage competition and foster collaboration. Above all, play makes learning fun.

We’ll explore how play can make it easier to learn about object-oriented technology.

This is the workshop’s home page.

Workshop Goals

·  Build the community
·  Create a framework describing game mechanics
·  Design the core of several new games
·  Plan for future work

Workshop Format

The group will:
·  Examine some existing educational games
·  Create a framework describing game mechanics
·  Explore how different approaches might support learning about OO
·  Work in small groups to design new games that teach selected OO topics
·  Play-test the new games
·  Debrief and critique the games

Post-Workshop Activities

·  Encourage the community to expand its understanding of games and objects.
·  Encourage further development of the games begun in the workshop
·  Explore pattern languages that help people design and assess games.

Workshop Sponsors

Links to the “Play” Community

The mailing list for this group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/play-to-learn-oo/

Attendees

berginf@pace.edu (Joe Bergin)
Jane.Chandler@port.ac.uk (Jane Chandler)
acockburn@aol.com (Alistair Cockburn)
mmdevos@avaya.com (Martine Devos)
rich@informatics.bangor.ac.uk (Rich Edwards)
rob@lanl.gov (Rob Kelsey)
Steve.Metsker@acm.org (Steve Metsker)
DSteinberg@core.com (Daniel Steinberg)
jtowell@cc.edu (John Towell)
peter@science.uva.nl (Peter van Emde Boas)
William.Wake@acm.org (Bill Wake)

Games People are Using

Alistair Cockburn: OO design exercise: get into a small group, and design a coffee machine. Then simulate it and see where it works or doesn’t.  

Jane Chandler. “Patterns Happy Families.” (See below.)

 John Towell – MOOs as demonstrating object concepts, and as objects of study.

 ? – Lego robots as an interviewing technique – lets you watch teamwork and problem-solving. (Steve Freeman and Tim McKinnon have a Lego game too.)

Sample Games

We spent about a third of the time trying out games that people had created.

  • Pattern Cocktail (Joshua Kerievsky) – Get a pattern card without looking at it. Hold it up to your forehead so you can’t see it. Then go around talking to people as if at a cocktail party. They’ll give you clues, so you can eventually guess your pattern.
  • Patterns Happy Families (Jane Chandler) – a “Go Fish”-like card game where you try to find matching parts of Alexandrian building patterns.
  • Dungeons & Patterns (Steve Metsker & Bill Wake) – Played one room. The puzzle showed an elf talking to another elf in the back room, and the players had to guess the pattern.
  • Coffee Machine (Alistair Cockburn) – Did a quick design session and critique. Our machine could be convinced to give out free cups.

Game “Frames”

From Thiagi (in the simulation and games community): a game structure where you can plug in your own content.

  • Poker, Rummy – combining things (melds)
  • War – comparing
  • Clue – finding clues, building hypotheses
  • Charades, Drawing
  • Jigsaw puzzle

Game Uses

  • Experiential
  • Identification
  • Do something and reflect
  • Role playing (e.g., dancer and choreographer)
  • Competition and peer pressure as motivators
  • Have a motivating experience and extract lessons from it. Key debrief question: “What was it like for you?”
  • Mr. Potato Head – put things wrong and laugh – but you’re building a model of what “bad” looks like. Same for software diagrams etc. (Alistair’s idea?)
  • Given an object interaction diagram, could you create the objects for it (fitting them to the problem). (Joe Bergin’s idea?)
  • Given several control patterns: star, connected graph, cycles, chains, cake, etc. could you tell.
  • Two-sided cards for objects – one for their own interface, one they show the world (e.g., parent type). (Daniel Steinberg)
  • Shower curtain rings and weedwhacker cord – to demonstrate CORBA interactions. (Dropped ring is like a dropped message.) (Joshua)
  • Suggestion for patterns: Use noun names for patterns (“Compressed Time” rather than “Compress Time”)
  • Is it a pattern language or a catalog?

Dimensions

We spent some time talking about the dimensions of games and their features.

Steve Metsker proposed a curve: (different types of games may be good at teaching different things)

Data                             Mixed                          Concepts
Card games                  Board games               Role play

The group identified:

Game Features

  • Goal directedness
  • Probabilistic moves
  •  (Im)perfect information
  • Open/closed world
  • Express own information or ideas

 Goals

  • Create
  • Identify
  • Accomplish
  • Explore

 Tools: Card, board, roleplay etc.

We broke into two groups and tried to create two new games. (Generally unsuccessfully.)

The pattern language has a start of a catalog; it will be a challenge, but could be extended. It also should be related to the pedagogical patterns work.

Resources

Books

  • Teaching with your mouth shut, Finkel
  • Books by Thiagi (www.thiagi.com)

Commercial Games

  • The Incredible Machine
  • Apples to Apples

Links