Student creation of serious games and simulations using the BehaviourComposer

by Dr Ken Kahn, Dr Liz Masterman, Mr Howard Noble

A growing community of researchers and educators are using computer modelling and simulation in many fields, including sociology, zoology, economics, archaeology, ecology, engineering, business and epidemiology (see, for example, http://sbs-xnet.sbs.ox.ac.uk/complexity/complexity_casg.asp). From a constructionist perspective (http://www.papert.org/articles/SituatingConstructionism.html), efforts to help students to acquire an understanding of both the process of model-making and the insights that can result from computer simulations should focus on supporting them as they build and analyse computer models in their field of specialisation. However, existing modelling tools, even NetLogo (http://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo), require that they first make a large investment in developing programming skills. This can deter some students and cause them to forego valuable opportunities for learning.

To address this situation, we are exploring the educational possibilities of accessible model-building tools within the JISC-funded Constructing2Learn Project. We have built a prototype model-construction tool called the BehaviourComposer. The key idea underlying the tool is that a large number of carefully designed customisable program pieces, called micro-behaviours, can be made available for composing a wide variety of models. Hence, the modelling process becomes one of browsing, composing, and customising modular components rather than programming from scratch. In this way, students can focus on issues related to the domain which they are modelling, as the major technical issues will have been resolved for them during the creation of these program fragments.

The proposed demonstration is intended to give participants a vision of how the making of computer games, models and simulations can be made accessible to non-experts. It will include a live session in which a series of models are incrementally constructed and run, and the audience will be given the opportunity to make choices about how the models are made. We will also report the results of early field-tests of the BehaviourComposer with students at Oxford University.

ID Number: 1102

Date: Wednesday, 5th September 2007

Time: 1330

Location: PC Lab, East Midlands Conference Centre, Suite 4

Theme: Learning technology for the social network generation