Building Artificially Intelligent Learning Games

Games and Simulations in Online Learning: Research and Development Frameworks By David Gibson, Clark Aldrich, Marc Prensky
Chapter XIV Building Artificially Intelligent Learning Games
Richard Van Eck,
book
online, earlier version?

He asks:

1. What mechanisms exist in other fields that can be used to present content within a game in a way that is compatible with the game and game principles?
2. What mechanisms exist in other fields that can support the principles of scaffolding, question asking, and problem solving?
3. How must these mechanisms be modified according to the principles outlined here and other theories or approaches?
4. How, assuming we can answer the first three, can we make sure that intelligent learning games are extensible to multiple problems and domains, and ensure that any content expert can generate content for these games without “sucking the fun out” of them?

He believes that one partial solution to the first of these questions lies in an area of study in cognitive psychology and instructional design called pedagogical agents. Pedagogical agents are typically used in computer-based instructional environments where learners interact with a computer-based character to get advice, feedback, or instruction.

As an example, he refers to the infamous Microsoft talking paper clip “Clippy” as a pedagogical agent. He believes that such agents can deliver information without interrupting “flow”

I believe that this is related to misconceptions of endogenous fantasy which I have discussed before. Yes, having to read tracts of information in a game breaks flow, but not because it breaks the fantasy, rather it breaks flow because it is not honest, because it breaks the authentic problem solving process of the game.

When players are playing World of Warcraft, they will often break out to third party help sites such as Thottbot to find where particular items are more likely to drop. Flow is not broken, the interrogation of Thottbot is an integral part of the problem solving process. The break in fantasy is of no great significance to the player's attention to the problem being solved. The gameplay is what is of primary importance, the fantasy is just icing on the cake. Flow has more relationship to

• the ability to match challenge to ability,
• suitable interim rewards,
• an authentic and relevant challenge
• and a supportive community which can facilitate a ZPD.

The talking paperclip is an example of exactly what is not required, when problem solving in MS Office, the user wants quick and efficient access to the necessary information to solve the current challenge which may be writing a letter, they do not want to enter into a social relationship with a talking paperclip. The paperclip breaks flow, though the fantasy of a paperclip may be relevant to the endogenous fantasy of a paper based office, it is an unauthentic impediment to the problem solving process, the gameplay of writing a letter.

So what mechanisms can be used to present content within a game in a way that is compatible with the game and game principles? The instructional content itself should be consistent with with the game goals.

Making Learning Fun, A Taxonomy of Intrinsic Motivations for Learning

Here I continue discussion of readings for Instructional Simulations & Games, IDT 545, http://www.idt.und.edu/index.html

Making Learning Fun, A Taxonomy of Intrinsic Motivations for Learning
Malone and Lepper
In Aptitude Learning and Instruction Ed. Snow

The authors seek to set up instructional environments that are intrinsically motivating. They look to computer games and their motivating features.

They quote "The will to learn is an intrinsic motive, one that finds both its source and its reward in its own exercise. The will to learn becomes a 'problem' only under specialized circumstances like those of a school, where a curriculum is set, students confined and a path fixed" (Bruner)

This is possibly not quite the same as the Crawford position that play IS learning (The Art of Computer Game Design http://www.vancouver.wsu.edu/fac/peabody/game-book/Coverpage.html)

They propose these classes of motivation:

challenge
fantasy
curiosity
control
co-operation
competition
recognition

In a study of game preferences of 65 elementary elementary school students (Malone 1981), they found the following correlation with preference:

Goal 0.65**
computer keeps score 0.56**
Audio effects 0.51**
Randomness involved in game 0.48**
Speed of answers counts 0.36*
Visual effects 0.34
Competition 0.31
Variability difficulty level 0.17
Cooperation 0.02
Fantasy 0.06
Graphic game 0.38*
Math game -0.2
Word game -0.38

It is noted that those correlations marked with ** have 98% confidence (p<0.02) and
those marked with * have 95% confidence(p<0.05). If (p<0.05), one can not state with any confidence that there is any correlation, any observed correlation is statistically insignificant because of the sample size.

Malone and Lepper are often quoted on the importance of endogenous fantasy. It is noteworthy that in this study, fantasy had no effect on player preference whatever.

Also, this study finds no correlation with cooperation. Cooperation is often quoted by higher level players of World of Warcraft as a strong motivator. WoW is highly successful with more than 6 million paid subscribers http://www.mmogchart.com/ It should be noted that at the time of the study, 1981, computer games were quite unsophisticated by today's standards.

Habgood conducted an experiment to see if children would create a learning game with endogenous or exogenous fantasy, they created games without fantasy. This indicates that fantasy may not play an inportant role in motivation.
http://www.zombiedivision.co.uk/

Also, there was little evidence of fantasy in games made in a computer club, http://tonyforster.blogspot.com/2006/07/other-worlds-and-game-creation.html

Malone & Lepper go on to say "fantasy ... is clearly important in many kinds of intrinsically motivating activities, such as computer games, television, reading, and dramatic play (cf Singer 1973)" (Singer 1973 The child's World of make-believe
http://www.amazon.com/Childs-World-Make-Believe-Experimental/dp/0126466602)

I have not read Singer's book but I doubt Singer was commenting on computer games, computer games barely, if at all, existed then http://www.pong-story.com/inventor.htm

Many computer games have a back story, often told in the opening cinematics, but I doubt it plays a major factor in most gamers' enjoyment.

Did Malone & Lepper ignore their own data? It looks a bit as if they allowed their own assumptions to override their experimental data.

Review of “Digital Game- Based Learning It’s Not Just the Digital Natives Who Are Restless"

The original paper is by Richard Van Eck, Associate Professor at the University of North Dakota and published in March/April 2006 EDUCAUSE review http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/erm0620.pdf

This review is a discussion paper for Games in Learning Symposium - ACEC, Cairns, Tues Oct 3, 1:20 - 2:25, here is the link to abstracts of all Games in Learning and Games Programming Cairns papers)

In a thought provoking paper, Richard Van Eck suggests that proponents of digital game-based learning (DGBL) should move from the promotion of DGBL to a critical analysis of DGBL. “Like the person who is still yelling after the sudden cessation of loud music at a party” we now have the world’s attention and its time to do critical analysis of what exactly we are promoting.

He identifies three kinds of DGBL:

• have students build games;
• have educators and/or developers build educational games; and
• integrate commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) games into the classroom

He believes that student built games are not likely to be widely accepted because:

• not all teachers have the skill sets needed for game design,
• not all teach in areas that allow for good content,
• not all can devote the time needed to implement this type of DGBL,
• and many teach within the traditional institutional structure, which does not easily allow for interdisciplinarity.

The skill sets needed for game design

I believe that student built games are the kind of DGBL with the most promise.

Though teachers may not have good game design skills, it is wrong to assume that teachers need to have strong game or IT skills to run an effective class. Many of today’s and tomorrow’s students will have IT skills which surpass their teachers. In a world where content has an ever decreasing half life, an important role of the teacher is to provide an environment where students can engage in constructivist self-directed learning. The teacher has in important role in providing and maintaining this environment and in teaching higher order cognitive and metacognitive skills but is less and less a teacher of content down a one way pipeline. The teacher can no longer expect to be the expert in the content but is still an expert in learning.

Areas that allow for good content

Though not all areas of old curriculum fit easily with game creation, many do. Games: student made, edugames or COTS will never cover all areas of education.

The skills which have been identified as necessary for a digital age are not necessarily those of the old curriculum. The Essential Learning Standards recognises that:

“In our rapidly changing and globalised world, with the pervasive influence of high speed, interactive information and communications technology (ICT), knowledge is a major resource. ….. This is accompanied by the realisation that students can no longer prepare for one career in life and therefore need to develop a commitment to life-long learning in all occupations and facets of life, and a capacity to manage change…The Essential Learning Standards consciously seek to reduce the crowding of the curriculum to give students time to explore the underlying concepts of tasks and problems they are set, to process information they gather or receive, and to make connections to other information they already possess.”

Though student game creation may be a poor match to some areas in the old curriculum, it is a good match for the kind of learning needed for the future.

The time needed to implement student game creation

With a game programming tool like Gamemaker students are creating their first game within an hour. From the outset, they are highly motivated and are involved in deep learning which spans literacy, numeracy and generalised higher order cognitive skills.

The traditional institutional structure does not allow for interdisciplinarity

Interdisciplinary learning has been identified as one of the key features of education, see the Essential Learning Standards. If schools are not offering interdisciplinary learning, they should be.

COTS games

Van Eck suggests that COTS games can be extended into the classroom through instruction and projects which preserve the context of the game. The idea being presumably that the motivation and “flow” will be carried back to the classroom if there is a close parallel between the game and the class work.. So the real learning is taking place outside of the game and the game is mainly setting the students into an appropriate state for learning. If time in game is not time on task, can COTS games be that effective?

He quotes Malone and Lepper who identify fantasy (endogenous and exogenous) as one of four main areas that make games intrinsically motivating. Hence the transfer of motivation from the game to the class relates to the preservation of the fantasy which is endogenous to the game. Recent research questions the importance of endogenous fantasy.

The study, “Intrinsic Fantasy: Motivation and Affect in Educational Games Made by Children. M. P. Jacob Habgood”, http://www.informatics.sussex.ac.uk/users/gr20/aied05/finalVersion/JHabgood.pdf found that children create games with extrinsic fantasy, both for “curriculum” and “non-curriculum” games. This questions the importance of endogenous fantasy to children.

Much more important than fantasy is having a sense of ownership. When students can influence the set task and can create an object of real value and relevance to their peers, then they are really motivated.

For these reasons, I believe that student created games is the area with the most promise in DGBL

Tony Forster,
ASISTM Computer Game Design, Programming, Multimedia and Mathematics Cluster. forster at ozonline dot com dot au

Other Worlds and Game Creation

Fantasy features low on the radars of students and teachers of game creation. My experience with primary school kids is that they are focussed on the mechanics of gameplay. There is little effort put into creating a consistent fantasy. Sprites (graphics) may be chosen because they look good but their effect in the game is often discordant, with conflicting metaphors in the one game. The games that primary students create have no apparent back story. Students are reluctant to provide any sort of documentation including in game help.

Malone ( Toward a Theory of Intrinsically Motivating Instruction.) postulates that intrinsic fantasy is an important element in educational games. Habgood tested this assertion with primary school students creating games. His findings are significant. Intrinsic fantasy was almost absent from games when primary school students were asked to create educational games “this study has also raised doubts about the “integral and continuing relationship” of fantasy as a critical means of improving the educational effectiveness of digital games”.

Inspection of the student made games at Haileybury shows that the students were much more interested in creating engaging game play than creating any coherent fantasy.

The game with the most developed narrative on the web site is Dragon Quest . This game was created by a team of two year 6's for the ScreenIt competition. Despite games' potential for branched narrative, this follows a linear path. It is a quest game, typical of the genre, for example Legend of Zelda (Nintendo 64). It also uses the "child saves parent" storyline.

This game is atypical of student endeavours because it was created for a competition, the students were aware that they would need to create a game of greater depth to differentiate from the competition of "teddy bears shooting ghosts and collecting diamonds" which is typical of primary school students efforts with Gamemaker. Primary school students will typically create games of the Pacman genre and when asked to improve their games usually just create extra levels or crowd the screen with extra enemies.

With the lack of any obvious narrative in these games, we may overlook the narrative formed in the creators minds. Will Wright (creator of the Sim series of games) talks of the game within the players mind. When playing a game, the player builds a mental representation in their mind of the game and this is the space in which the game is really played.

Note the game titles at Haileybury :

• Ghosts nightmare
• The toybox
• Big top haunting
• Maggot Man Return to Moggotopia

There is obviously more happening in the internal game that exists in the creator's mind than the external game reveals.

Other Worlds

Why should we care about fantasy in the game creation endeavours of primary school students? To understand this, it helps to ask about its role in mainstream media like literature. The genre that comes to mind is the fairy story and its reincarnations as sword and sorcerer and science fiction. I asked a friend about the role of Grimm's fairytales in developing his thinking. His reply was that fantasy was important to help "think outside of the square". Will Wright talks about "possibility spaces" in games. The best games are those with the largest possibility spaces.

Other worlds, such as in the literature fantasy genre are the possibility space with the greatest diversity. We can leave behind our preconceptions of the world as it is and explore the mechanics of a world as it might be. When we become creators of these fantasy worlds, we enter an infinite possibility space. We can create a new reality with a rule set which is not bound by our world. Will the creators of these worlds become creative thinkers who can think outside the box? Are there "competencies based on notions of iconoclasts, mavericks, unconventional eccentricity, rebellious simplicity and marching to a different drummer"? Arti

Visual literacy

Literacy is a word prone to misuse as we probe new literacies.

Verbal literacy is not the only "semiotic domain" where thinking takes place. Words, written and spoken, are symbols which create meaning. Visual images, music etc. can also be symbols which are loaded with meaning. With the internet and multimedia, our society is developing more sophistication with it use of symbols other than words. For example, advertising may convey meaning without using words. The creators and consumers need visual literacy.

For me, literacy is an appropriate word to describe competence where meaning is encoded in a system of symbols. These symbols can be words, smileys and other SMS speak, visual images, performance art, music and games. This is not a new idea. Poetry is a domain where words are overloaded with meaning including visual images, sounds and smells. (Poetry is the C++ of literature or maybe C++ is the poetry of programming. )

We need to be fluent encoders and and decoders of these symbols to be able to function well in society.

Using Game Creation to Develop other Literacies

What is happening in the game within the mind of the game programmer? How complex is the virtual world they have created? It surely is more complex than its external representation, teddy bears shooting ghosts, but how much more complex? Interviews with students might give more insights.

Discussion of complex virtual worlds might help students imagine larger "possibility spaces". Screening video grabs of complex worlds may also prime creative thinking.