Jessica D. Bayliss

Games as a "flavor" of CS1

Introductory programming courses have a specific set of expected outcomes. One of the most often heard complaints in such courses is that they are divorced from the reality of application. Unfortunately, it is difficult to find areas for application that all students have the background knowledge for and that are engaging and challenging. One such area is computer games and we have developed a cohesive CS1 course that provides traditional outcomes from within the context of games as an application area in both the lecture and lab components of the course. This course was piloted as a ten-week distance program for incoming computer science students with the defining features that the program carried no academic credit and offered no end grades. We discuss the overwhelming interest in this course as well as objective and suobjective student experiences. One of the most important outcomes of the summer course was that it brought students with similar interests and goals together. We discuss this and the different ways we have found to discuss computer science course topics from within a games context.

Using games in introductory courses: tips from the trenches

Computer Science degree program enrollments have fallen precipitously since the year 2000 and it is not surprising that novel approaches to education are being tried to both attract and retain students. One of the areas with a record of success is with using games in introductory programming courses. While there are several successful programs, the drawbacks of these approaches are not commonly discussed along with their benefits. Having run a successful game-based program that retained students within the CS major at a 93% rate, we discuss both the benefits of the program as well as the problems that need to be considered and overcome.

Instructional design as game design

Games have made their way into the classroom in a multitude of ways to attract and retain students. The academic community has made great strides incorporating games into academic study. Although some have suggested formal links, little work has been done on formalizing how game design can inform instructional design. We explore this avenue by showing existing overlaps between the disciplines and areas where game design and instructional design can inform each other. Examples from a series of introductory programming courses will demonstrate the connections and suggest future development.

Game design and development students: who are they?

Several programs in game design and development at the bachelors level have been or are being developed across the country. Who are the students drawn to these programs and how do they compare with traditional Computer Science or Information Technology students? Is it possible for these students to obtain a rigorous computing education while meeting their interests in game design and development? We discuss these questions from the perspective of teaching the traditional CS outcomes from an introductory programming sequence to 60 Game Design and Development students at the freshman level and comparing them to a previously studied population of CS students with an interest in game design and development.

Teaching game AI through Minecraft mods

One of the issues with teaching artificial intelligence (AI) for games is that many AI algorithms work in theory, but have production consequences in terms of speed or memory when actually used in a game. We report on the benefits and drawbacks of modifying or “modding” the commercial game Minecraft for a course on Game AI. This was done to give students the experience of dealing with a commercial game environment where they would have to worry about production consequences with their algorithms. The course was run as an upper level undergraduate elective during the fall of 2011 and included assignments on dynamic terrain generation, character behavior, and world events.

Games in the Classroom: Using Games as a Motivator for Studying Computing: Part 1

Its no secret that undergraduate computer science enrollment, which has suffered through one of its periodic downturns, seems to have bottomed out but is now on an upswing. This cyclic behavior has been occurring for many years now, producing many exciting ideas concerning how to revamp introductory computer science courses to make them more exciting and relevant, and to show beginning students that computer science entails more than just programming. Georgia Tech, one of the active participants in this revamp, has developed the concept of threads (a means to connect chunks of related knowledge across different courses) and is devising techniques to enrich beginning courses using minirobots and multimedia. The present article, the second of two parts, written by Andrew Phelps and his group at the Rochester Institute of Technology, describes a parallel effort to use gaming as a way to improve learning and to demonstrate to students that computer science is indeed exciting and cool.

Tabletop Computer Game Mechanics for Group Rehabilitation of Individuals with Brain Injury

In this paper we provide a rationale for using tabletop displays for the upper-limb movement rehabilitation of individuals with brain injury. We consider how computer game mechanics may leverage this technology to increase patient engagement and social interaction, and subsequently enhance prescribed training. In recent years there has been a growing interest among health professionals in the use of computer games and interactive technology for rehabilitation. Research indicates that games have the potential to stimulate a high level of interest and enjoyment in patients; enhance learning; provide safe task conditions; complement conventional therapy; and become intrinsically motivating. We explore how game mechanics that include reward structures, game challenges and augmented audiovisual feedback may enhance a goal-orientated rehabilitation learning space for individuals with brain injury. We pay particular attention to game design elements that support multiple players and show how these might be designed for interactive tabletop display systems in group rehabilitation.

Girls do like playing and creating games

1. Summary The four women on this panel devote their scholarship to computer games. We love games of all sorts. We love to play them and build them. Both activities require creative, inquisitive, problem solving that is essential to good computer science. We also love to use games as vehicles for teaching important ideas about computer science and software design. At least one of us is a hard core gamer. And one of us is old enough to have played, as an adult, the very first video games. So it is with just a bit of frustration that we repeatedly hear that “boys like games and girls like stories.” Granted, that is hyperbolic, but in subtler ways the current trend to use games as a vehicle to attract students to computer science is focused on a narrow perception of what a video game is, as well as a narrow perception of who a “gamer” is. The bifurcation of focus: that to attract a particular kind of male to computing through games, and a particular kind of female through media and storytelling, is quite frankly, in the words of a panel member, “hogwash.” We four love both games and interactive stories. From our scholarship and our classroom experience we know that girls do like games, and boys like stories. This calls into question how undergraduate programs in computer science, media, game design and information science embrace or reject “games” in their core. The CS community must consider the assumptions being made both about what game design is, and how it can be used as a vehicle to fulfill a pedagogic agenda. This panel will address four important issues: (1) Perceptions of what computer science and game design are, (2) Taking a broad view of what a game is, and focusing on the creative process of game design (3) exploiting the range of game genre to fulfill learning objectives, and (4) Assessing whether or not those learning objectives have been reached.

Media Impact: Games in the Classroom: Using Games as a Motivator for the Study of Computing: Part 2

This article, the first in a two-part series that explores using games as a gateway to studying computing in the classroom, explores the need for a motivator in todays educational environment and places games in the context of constructivist learning approaches. In addition, it provides an overview of several recent approaches and looks at issues associated with student perception, exploring how existing paradigms relate to these perceptions.

Multimedia at Work: Games in the Classroom at the Rochester Institute of Technology: A Case Study

This article explores curricular approaches designed to motivate students in computing through the use of games as an application domain. The authors examine three approaches: a games-centric introductory programming sequence, the incorporation of game-based projects into core courses, and the creation of virtual environments that mimic multiplayer online games.