Designing and Coding Games for Learning in K-12

 Designing and coding games reminds me of the coder's camp each summer where I work.  It's a two week program where students come in each work day to learn how to code.  During this camp, they have guest speakers, including women who work as engineers and programmers, and they also go on field trips to see different work places and learn about what coders can do.  Between all of that, they design their own games and present them to their families and friends on the very last day.  It's a very fun time to be at work, and I always join in the audience to see them present their prides.

"Early computer games" by Timitrius is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

 

One of the topics that will likely come up many times in this blog overall is computational thinking.  There are different aspects of learning coding that can help students develop computational thinking skills.  A study conducted by Karakasis and Xinogalos (2020) suggests that this is a skill that should be developed (and possessed) at a young age.  Students use BlocklyScript to learn the basics of programming, including how to locate patterns and the ever-important skill of evaluating mistakes and testing new solutions.  BlocklyScript is a different program than most block coding apps, though, because it also incorporates a role-playing game (RPG) adventure.  This gives students direction throughout the game in the form of character debriefings and tips, goals to accomplish with coding, and even enemies and obstacles.  It uses scores, badges, and timed goals to provide a high reward learning environment.

Another topic that is frequently intertwined with learning to design and code is digital literacy.  As a librarian, digital literacy is as close to my heart as information literacy.  Digital literacy includes being a critical and active citizen in a digital society (Weitze & Majgaard, 2020).  In the study by Weitze and Majgaard, students had a 1.5 hour class every week for five weeks.  During this time, the students used CoSpaces Edu, another tool that like BlocklyScript is intended for novices, to create and explore games.  The students were able to share these games with smart phones with their peers.  It was found that at the end of the study students had achieved digital design and design processes, computational thinking competencies, digital empowerment, and they were able to successfully program their games.  These findings showed that the program helped students meet these digital literacy competencies that had been outlined in the curriculum.

Some of my research on designing and coding games led me down a different path -- games designed for health, either social or physical health like anti-bullying games.  As a librarian, one of my liaison areas is the allied health program.  Part of what the students have to do is come up with plans to educate their patients on different health problems.  While it seems unlikely that a college student in an allied health program would necessarily have the time to learn coding, block code apps would give them the opportunity to teach their patients using gamification. One such project was done to help children between the ages of 7 to 12 with Type 1 Diabetes address behavioral changes related to their health (Sparapani, Fels, Kamal & Nascimento, 2019).  This is something I hope I can bring up to the students I work with as a research opportunity.

The long and short of it is that designing and coding doesn't have to be hard!  Especially with programs like Blockly, students can benefit from design and computational thinking without having to immediately know all of the ins and outs and coding.

 

References

Karakasis, C., & Xinogalos, S. (2020). BlocklyScript: Design and pilot evaluation of an RPG platform game for cultivating computational thinking skills to young students. Informatics in Education, 19(4), 641-668. https://doi.org/10.15388/infedu.2020.28 

Sparapani, V. D. C., Fels, S., Kamal, N., & Nascimento, L. C. (2019). Conceptual framework for designing video games for children with type 1 diabetes. Revista Latino-Americana de Enfermagen, 2019(27). https://doi.org/10.1590/1518-8345.2764.3090

Weitze, C. L., & Majgaard, G. (2020). Developing digital literacy through design of VR/AR games for learning. Proceedings of the European Conference on Games Based Learning,674-683. https://doi.org/10.34190/GBL.20.111