International Game Developers Association

Full name: Games Group Seminar Serious Games (Summer Semester 2006)

Games Education
Course

Contents 1 Teachers 1.1 Instructors 1.2 Guest speakers 2 Course Background Information 2.1 Location 2.2 Classification 2.3 Student background needed 2.4 Course prerequisites 2.5 Time periods 3 Course Structure 3.1 Course description 3.2 Course learning objectives 3.3 Two-Day Seminar topics 4 Course Materials & Facilities Used 4.1 Books 4.2 Other materials 4.3 Software (engines, tools) 4.4 Syllabus 4.5 Slides 4.6 Assessment materials 4.7 Digital media used in class 4.8 Case studies 4.9 Tutorial files 4.10 Other materials 5 Analysis of learning methods 5.1 What worked 5.2 What didn't work

Teachers

Instructors

• Prof. Dr.-Ing. Maic Masuch
• M.Sc.IT Maizatul Hayati B.M.Y.
• Dipl.-Ing. Lennart Nacke

Guest speakers

• None

Course Background Information

The two-day seminar discussed the rapidly growing serious games industry (internationally and in Germany) and provides discussion on the future course of serious game design and development in areas such as education, government, health, military, science and corporate.

Location

University of Magdeburg, Germany

Classification

See: Areas for classifing for your course.

Primary classification: Game Production
Secondary classification: Practical Game Design

Student background needed

Mostly graduate (Masters level) students from the Department of Simulation and Graphics and the Department of Computer Science of the University of Magdeburg.
Students needed to apply formally for the course with their instructors.
Quota of 12 students.

Course prerequisites

(describe the course's prerequisites in terms of skills that students need to know) Students were required to show the following at an application session:

• Shown interest in game production and design
• Prepared an outline for their presentation and slides
• Written an abstract on their papers (in addition to the slides, a > 4 page paper had to be handed in)

Time periods

• 2 Day Weekend Seminar at the end of the summer semester
• Preparation time and scheduled presentation meetings: first 2 month of the summer semester

Course Structure

Course description

The two-day seminar discussed the rapidly growing serious games industry and provides discussion on the future course of serious game design and development in areas such as education, government, health, military, science and corporate. The seminar is mainly held by the students, giving their prepared lectures. The students need to show a thorough understanding of their assigned topics and discuss in detail the advantages and disadvantages of the application areas of serious games.

Course learning objectives

• Expose the students to knowledge of the relatively young field of serious games
• Brainstorm ideas on new application areas of serious games
• Analyse field studies of serious games

Two-Day Seminar topics

Friday (Day One):

Time	Topics
14:00 – 14:15	Welcoming Address and Course Overview
14:15 – 15:00	Serious Games Introduction: Teaching Fact with Fun
15:00 – 15:45	Computer Games in the Classroom
15:45 – 16:00	Break
16:00 – 16:45	Developing Educational Games
16:45 – 17:30	Designing and Evaluating Government Game
17:30 – 17:45	Break
17:45 – 18:30	Political Games with An Agenda
18:30 – 19:15	Mental Health-Game Therapy

Saturday (Day Two):

Time	Topics
09:00 – 09:45	Physical Workout Games
09:45 – 10:30	Adapting Video Games for Military Applications
10:30 – 10:45	Break
10:45 – 11:30	War Games and Their Applications
11:30– 12:15	Impact of Military Game Play
12:15 – 13:30	Lunch
13:30 – 14:15	Corporate Games for Building People Skills
14:30 – 14:45	Closing speech

Course Materials & Facilities Used

Here you can link to and/or describe books and other materials you used for this course. Feel free to create new pages for each item here if a page for it does not yet exist.

Books

• Serious Games: Games That Educate, Train, and Inform by David Michael, Sande Chen
• Developing Serious Games by Bryan Bergeron

Other materials

Papers, magazines, videos (add links to online materials)

Software (engines, tools)

None. This was a presentation only course.

Syllabus

Course Homepage

Slides

Course Homepage

Assessment materials

Ass1: 50% Slide Presentation during the seminar

Ass2: 50% Hand-in of written paper on the chosen topic

Digital media used in class

e.g. Video, Multimedia sources, Audio

(link to each file's storage location)

Case studies

(link to each file's storage location) or each respective wiki page

Tutorial files

(link to each file's storage location)

Other materials

(link to an uploaded resources -- e.g. research papers -- or external storage location)

Analysis of learning methods

What worked

The students were highly motivated and self-propelled. Almost all of them did excellent background research on their topics.

What didn't work

Three students were all examining America's Army in depth and did not thoroughly cover the area of war games even though this is the most widely used application area.